VICTOR, Idaho — Good ski snacks are like first tracks for Max and Lily Krass Ritter, who say mini orange marzipan cakes can recall good times just as fast as old photos can.
The Victor-based wife and husband have just released their second cookbook, “Ski Snacks.” A follow-up to their previous title, “Beyond Skid: A Cookbook for Ski Bum,” the newest collection of curated culinary curiosities ensures that ski skids don’t just eat well but are powered to live their best skid life.
“We loved the skid life, but we wanted to step it up just a little bit,” Lily told Buckrail.
“Cooking up a delicious meal after an epic powder day is important, yes, but what about all those calories we need during the six to eight hours we’re actually skiing?” Max raised.
To the pair’s credit, Max (32) and Lily (30) go the distance when it comes to preparation. And it’s not just because they are backcountry junkies — they are. Max grew up in Germany, and says his roots in the Alps run deep, including a stint working in the kitchen of Austria’s Karl Ludwig Haus. Lily studied Italian in college and lived in Italy for six months. It’s where she discovered “the magic of indulging in alpine meals while skiing in the Ortler mountains.”
These days, Lily is the editor of The Ski Journal and develops recipes for New West Knifeworks. Max produces media for outlets like Powder Magazine, Teton Gravity Research and various snow and outdoor brands. Together they’re stocking their pantry and trying not to burn out their food processor as they test out recipes.
“One of our first recipes for portable snacks, our Double-Shot Mocha Energy Balls, is what originally prompted our motivation to write a whole book on fueling for skiing,” Lily said. “We both love chocolate, and we love espresso, so we tossed a bunch of dates and grains into a food processor along with cocoa and instant espresso powder and crafted what still today is probably our favorite skin track snack.”
The Ritters said they fed the mocha-espresso snacks to friends, posted the recipe on their website and have shared it in a few magazines proudly.
“Soon enough, we ran into friends on the skin track who told us they’d made our energy balls, and we started wondering how many other ski treats we could come up with.”
The Ritters say everything starts with stocking a pantry for adventure — the pair is undaunted by free-ranging without recipes. But keeping up with nutrition is part of the journey, so ensuring that recipes can match the itinerary, they offer a few pages on upping the game with different types of salts (flake and kosher), or by keeping a variety of nuts and seeds in stock.
One of their tips: “Seeds we stock include chia, ground flaxseed, and pepitas (a.k.a. pumpkin seeds). Nuts and seeds are all easy to sub for each other, so don’t fret if you don’t have the exact one a recipe calls for.”
And one of their admissions: “We spend a good chunk of our monthly income on dates. #NoRegrets.”
Other hacks include using puff pastry to replace any sweet or savory tart crust, and being less fearful of canned items like tuna fish, chickpeas and black beans for sandwich fillings. Oh, and bacon. The Ritters love bacon.
The cookbook also has a dedicated section on sip action, guiding readers to fill a thermos with their Mudslide Mocha or the Dirty Honey Chai Tea, or maybe just an electrolyte-rich broth like the Miso Ramen Broth, or even a solid “slay all the fruit in the fridge” for a pre-ski smoothie.
“A lot of things we try to make accessible enough, so [if] you don’t have a ton of fancy cooking equipment, maybe you can make this cake with just a fork to whisk it and a bowl,” Max said.
“What’s really fun is just bringing something unexpected into the backcountry and it’s really filling and hits the spot when you’re super hungry but it’s also kind of surprising; the flavors are really rich,” he shared as he talked about the marzipan pancake.
No matter the kind of snacker — the gourmet, the constant snacker, the mooch, the lab rat, the survivalist (as categorized by the authors) — this cookbook has something for every appetite. And, sidenote, it’s not just for skids. Parents, teachers and coaches will find many types of small bites to quell the hangry.
Currently, the 224-page book published by Mountaineers Books is for sale locally at REI Jackson, Nomad Sports, JH Sports, Jackson Hole Airport, Violet Volumes, Wilson Book Gallery and Maison Driggs.
