by Robin Miller, Retiring Kitchen Manager
This year represents one of the most dynamic changes to the Ranch and its kitchen in my time here (more than a quarter century).
I started cooking in the kitchen as a prep cook in 1991. I came to the Ranch by way of my step-daughter, who was friends with Ariel Ross. Ariel cooked in the kitchen along with her mother Liz (McClure) Schmidt, the former kitchen manager.
Robin Miller (right) and Whitney Cox with fresh baked cookies
I became the Assistant Manager to Liz and helped to share the details of this kitchen’s work. At that time, we would alternate job sharing, each taking a month on and a month off. This arrangement allowed for her to leave and cook in her brother’s gold mining camp in the Yukon. I was able to go trout fishing for a month at a time in the summers. When Liz retired in 2009, Sean offered me the opportunity to become the Kitchen Manager.
I have been the Kitchen Manager for eleven years. Now ending my 29th year here, it is time for me to retire. It is hard to move on from this unique position at The Bishop’s Ranch and I will always treasure my time spent here.
I have come to value the benefits in the continuity of community that the Ranch offers: the familiarity of families and of seeing some of the same individuals season after season. I see my time spent here surrounded by nature. I have witnessed the same sun rising, over the same valley, the beauty from a different dawn on the Refectory’s veranda for over a quarter of a century. I am thankful for having had the opportunity to be creatively expressive with food as my medium. The Ranch provides a sense of place. It has provided me with a place that will reside within me in many ways for the rest of my life.
My place of work, The Bishop’s Ranch, has been a gift. I am also very grateful for all the people I have encountered and who I have worked with, who have been supportive of me in my many years here.
