Better home cooking

Julie Hickethier has long had a passion for food and cooking, and she’s looking to provide the essentials for others to create great meals.

“I like planning a menu and looking to do something a little bit different and learning along the way,” she said. “For so many years I was a busy mom looking to put dinner on the table with high quality ingredients that would make the process easier, but still create a great meal.”

Hickethier is putting her experience into Trovare, a gourmet foods, cookware and olive oil and vinegar shop that opened this month on Central Avenue downtown near Wild Coffee Company.

Trovare is Italian for “to find” or “to stumble upon.” Hickethier says the name provides the opportunity to bring in a variety of products that fit with the adventure of culinary inspiration.

The shop offers infused spices, pasta from Italy, cheeses and meat, and prepared gourmet products, along with culinary gifts. They have some day-to-day cookware, but mostly focus on lifetime brands such as Le Creuset stoneware and FINEX cast iron.

A main feature of the shop is products by Olivelle, a specialty food retail store in Bozeman. They produce high quality olive oils, vinegars, spice blends and artisan salts that are featured in Trovare. Two of the Olivelle products, a black garlic sea salt and raspberry barrel aged white balsamic vinegar, recently earned awards from the Specialty Food Association.

Brie Thompson, one of the founders of Olivelle, assisted Trovare and says they’ve worked with about 70 gourmet shops worldwide that have the same passion they do for quality products.

“We focus on buying olive oils from small estates because we focus on quality over quantity,” she said. “For our spice blends, we want to make cooking faster and easier using fresh herbs and spices that have been expertly created.”

Hickethier spent 36 years working as a registered nurse and 20 years working in executive positions in health care administration including for Benefis Hospitals in Great Falls.

“I’ve tried to retire a couple times, but I don’t like having idle time. I came to the conclusion that this is what I should do and even if I fall flat I have to try.”

During her travels for work, Hickethier would spend time visiting kitchen stores or, when she could, taking a cooking class for fun.

“I’ve been stalking kitchen stores for decades,” she said. “I read food blogs. I love to cook, and I have decades of cooking experience so I know what’s worked for me.”

For Trovare, Hickethier also hired two trained chefs to assist with stocking the retails space, but also to teach cooking classes in the shop’s kitchen that are planned to begin next year. The classes will be designed as a fun evening for the home cook, while showcasing products offered in the store, focus on food trends and also healthy cooking.

“We will look at what the demand is, but we’re looking at doing multiple classes like cooking with olive oil and vinegar,” she said. “We’ll do a class for how to host a dock party in the summer or Dutch oven cooking in the winter.”

Trovare is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit https://www.trovaremt.com/