Practically everything that Amy Mattias does, from her job to her hobbies, revolves around locally grown food. The newly appointed Executive Director for the non-profit Sun Valley Institute for Resilience has been with the organization for five years and before that worked for Nourish Me, Lava Lake Lamb, Idaho’s Bounty, the Wood River Sustainability Center, and Kray’s Market. As the ED of the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience, Mattias manages three programs that the institute is the overarching body of: the Impact Idaho Fund, which invests in locally rooted ideas and entrepreneurs; the Local Food Alliance, which raises awareness of the local food system and puts out the Wood River Valley Locally Grown Guide, which lists all the farms, ranchers, restaurants, retail stores, and farmers’ markets that source local food; and 5B Resilient, a program about empowering everyday climate action at the individual and household level.
Amy Mattias has lived in the Valley for almost ten years, the last two of which have been spent in her new home in the Bellevue Triangle, where she lives with her husband and born-and-raised local Chris Mattias, their dogs Susie B and Ripper, and eight hens and one rooster. Their property has lots of fruit trees, plants, and a big garden, which are perfect for Mattias’s many hobbies, like gardening, preserving food, harvesting medicinal plants, and cooking. Much of her perfect day in Sun Valley revolves around these hobbies and her passion for local food.
How does your perfect morning start?
Amy: It’s a Saturday and the first thing I do is go to Hank & Sylvie’s and get an iced latte and a pastry. And then I walk over to the Arboretum in Hailey; it’s a little native plant garden of trees, shrubs, and flowers in a little loop. It’s beautiful and no one’s ever there. I just wander in there and drink my coffee and eat my pastry.
Where does your morning take you next?
Amy: I’ll walk over to the Hailey farmers’ market when that opens at 9 a.m. I love hosting dinner parties and having family over for meals because cooking for people is how I show love, so I’ll have a dinner party tonight. I would go to the farmers’ market and shop and pick up some yummy meat from Lava Lake or Wood River Ranch Beef and whatever’s fresh, so potentially asparagus, leafy greens, some herbs, hopefully some fruit—maybe the first of the season peaches. Then I’ll head to Sawtooth Brewery to fill my growler of whatever beer they have on tap or sometimes they have local cider that I love, so I’ll offer that as an alcoholic beverage for my dinner party; maybe I’ll go to Atkinson’s to get a bottle of local wine from somewhere in the Sunnyslope region—Cinder Winery is one of my favorites.
What’s for lunch?
Amy: One of my favorite spots in Ketchum is Nourish Me; they do these delicious sandwiches that use a lot of local products on them. The Bruce is my favorite [pesto, turkey, cheese, tomato, and sunflower sprouts]. And they have house-brewed kombucha, so I’ll get a jar of kombucha there and sometimes they have Hu chocolate, which I love so much. I always have my dogs with me, so we’d probably go to the river somewhere. I have three favorite river spots: north of Ketchum in the Sun Peak picnic area, Draper Preserve in Hailey, and Howard Preserve in Bellevue. The dogs swim in the river while I eat my lunch. Maybe I’d hunt for some morels, if the timing is right, and bring those to add in to the dinner.
What’s your afternoon like?
Amy: I’d go home. Now that I live in the Bellevue triangle, I love biking around the dirt roads there. I have some friends that live down there, like Brett at Hillside Grains, so maybe bike past and say hi to her. Then get back home and start cooking and make a delicious, locally sourced meal for family and friends who come over. I don’t use a ton of recipes because I tend to cook with whatever ingredients I have on hand, but this time of year I would probably do a light seasoning on some meat, like salt and pepper and fresh herbs, and grill that and maybe make a chimichurri sauce with some fresh greens, fresh herbs, and garlic and blend it all up with some olive oil and serve that.
And I love roasted baby potatoes and asparagus and a big garden salad with fresh carrots and radishes. I do a dressing that’s kind of like a green goddess where you basically make a pesto—my favorite is hemp seed, spinach, and green garlic—then you blend it up and dilute it with some cream to make a creamy green goddess-y dressing, which is delicious. I also make homemade ice cream a lot because I love ice cream and making it homemade is so much fun. My favorite homemade ice cream that I make is mint chocolate chip, so I grow a lot of mint. I steep the mint in the milk to make it super flavorful.
What’s the evening like?
Amy: We have a little fire pit and the beautiful stars so after dinner we’re probably drinking some beverages, sitting around the fire, maybe playing some card games or bocce ball. If my little nephews are over, they’re either going to be skating on the skate ramp, because we have a half-pipe in our yard, or playing soccer. Then listening to the chickens talk as we go to bed.