Salmon Pool on Indian Creek
Mountains powdered at dawn
salmon painted autumn
are moving, moving upstream
snowmelt cools their swollen abdomens
their jaws tighten in the current
Fireweed all rust and cotton
lemon-colored warblers
have gathered up and gone
now bears amble through the village
on wafts of smoking fish and sleep
bellies full of salmon and dreams
As the autumn air grows clear and crisp, Dolly Varden – close relatives of brook trout – are ascending streams on annual spawning runs. Salted and grilled over charcoal, there is no finer way to celebrate the coming of fall.
The small, icy-cold, brilliantly crystalline stream that flows less than 100 meters from our home has suddenly become positively choked with char. Only a week ago, the pools were bereft of anything but a smattering of fingerling salmon parr and equally diminutive juvenile Dolly Varden. The scene changed overnight when we woke to see the mountains rimming Chignik Lake gleaming with the season’s first snow. As the day warmed and the snow melted, the village stream filled to its brim with fresh snowmelt as clear and bracing as an Alaska September morning. Apparently that’s the signal Chignik Lake’s char were awaiting. When I checked that evening, each of the lower pools was packed with one of our favorite fish – Dolly Varden char. To be sure, there were no trophies among them, although a couple appeared to be pushing 16 inches. That’s fine. Eight to 12 inch fish (20 to 30 cm) are the perfect size for one of our very favorite foods – fresh char salted and grilled over charcoal.
I first encountered this simple but elegant fare while living in Japan. At festivals, fairs and inns in mountain villages, ayu (a trout-like fish highly regarded in Japan and South Korea) and iwana (white-spotted char very similar to Dolly Varden, Arctic Char and Brook Trout) are salted, skewered on bamboo sticks and roasted over hot coals till their skin turns a crisp golden-brown. With very small char, the bones are soft; it is common practice to eat the entire fish from tail to head.
Char Shioyaki (Salted Grilled Char)
Ingredients
Directions
Serve with cider, a favorite bourbon, sake, or Pinot Gris.
September 18: First snow in the mountains.
September 21: First frost along the lake.
Framed in a boggy, wet miniature world between yellowing willow leaves and a lime-green horsetail stalk, clusters of ripe low-bush cranberries (lingonberries) push up through densely growing crowberry plants. Chignik Lake, Alaska.
The savannah sparrows that have been passing through in small flocks are absent today. The last of their kind, they’ve joined the white-crowned, golden-crowned and fox sparrows along with the wrens and warblers that flew south back at the beginning of the month. With most of the passerines gone, the shrikes, too, will soon go, following their prey. It’s been two weeks since we’ve seen sandhill cranes and at least that long since loons were gliding across the lake. This morning following a spectacular, fiery red sunrise, the light broke almost white. Winter light.
Making my way through the village toward the trail to the berry meadow, I spot a kingfisher perched stalk-still on a dead alder along the lake. A few glaucous-winged gulls wheel and soar low over the lake, calling listlessly as others sit placidly rocking on the windblown water. In the sky overhead, a pair of ravens show off their vocals with deep, resonating qua-orks and are gone. As the trail enters the dense growth of willow, salmonberry, alder and fireweed stalks gone to cottony seed, I can’t help but notice the absence of birdsong. Not even the chickadees are out. A mile later, up in the bog, there is only wind blowing through the raggedy last of the cotton grass and bowing the sedges in undulating, yellow-green waves.
Remains of summer: Sandhill crane footprint and raven tracks on the edge of an ephemeral pond near the berry bog.
I enter the berry meadow quietly from downwind and scan for moose and bears. There are tracks and other sign in the soft mud, but no animals. A sudden gust sprinkles my face with cold, misting drizzle.
I pull a five-cup container from my backpack and begin walking the edges of the watery meadow looking for mounds of crowberry plants. Cranberries seem to like growing among these mosslike plants. It’s not long before I find the perfect mound. Looking carefully among the needle-shaped crowberry leaves, I see the tell-tale maroon that gives away the berries I’m after. As my eyes hone in on this specific shade of red, I see more. And then lots.
We sometimes find moose tracks at the berry bog as they come to feed on nutrient-rich sedges.
Brown bears (grizzlies) come to the meadow looking for the same thing that draws me – an abundance of bog-loving blueberries, crowberries and cranberries. Even with the nearby river and feeder streams brimming with salmon and charr, it’s common to find piles of bear scat loaded with little but berries and berry seeds.
Red foxes love berries too, and are frequent visitors.
Picking goes fairly quickly and by lunchtime I’ve filled two containers with perfectly ripe, agreeably tart, firm berries. These I’ll clean and add to the two-and-a-half quarts Barbra and I picked yesterday, making well over a gallon. Freezing these lingonberries will sweeten them up a bit. After that, we’ll turn them into syrup to add to our Soda Stream fizzed water and into sauces for grilled pork cutlets, roasted chicken and Thanksgiving turkey.
Wild geranium leaves turned orange-red add a splash of color to one quart and one cup of low-bush cranberries… No one with a stash of gold ever felt wealthier.
While picking, my mind follows its own path in and out of dialogs and dreams but I try to remain vigilant to the possibility of animals. In addition to bears, moose, foxes and an array of birds, wolves, too, occasionally travel through the meadow. Just as I top off the second container, I hear a succession of three distinctive snorts directly downwind. Something has picked up my scent. A bear? A moose? I slowly stand and look. Whatever made the noise is buried deep in alders some distance away. I probably won’t get a look, but just in case I check the settings on my camera, make sure my canister of bear spray is handy, and pack up for the mile-long walk home.
Along the trail back to Chignik Lake, crimson fireweed stalks accent the gold of autumn willows. Up on the mountains, the season’s first snow.
As I come around a bend in the trail a snipe explodes into the air, it’s back marbled in browns and streaked with white. Sunshine breaks through the September clouds and the meadow and hills and distant mountains light up. I recall a story about a boy who fell asleep, and when he woke couldn’t determine if he was still asleep and dreaming, or wide awake in a new land.
These candy-like cookies are ridiculous. Chewy and flavorful – a cure for a terminal sweet tooth.
At the end of most evening meals, Jack and I enjoy a piece of dark chocolate or a little something sweet with a cup of tea. I have a terrible sweet tooth that seems to be sated by this little habit. Thinking that I would bake more than I have been, we didn’t send out very much chocolate for our après dinner tradition. Now our chocolate is all gone – at least till the next Amazon order arrives via bush plane.
In these kinds of emergencies, my Williams-Sonoma Baking book always seems to save the day. It is a solid baking book with a number of foundational recipes that can be followed directly or easily adapted. I remembered a quick cookie recipe loaded with almonds that I hoped would do the trick. The authors of the recipe called these cookies Almond Crisps. Mine turned out beautifully flat and a bit lacy. They were pleasantly chewy, like a really satisfying caramel. I think this is due to the combination of sugar and brown sugar. Delicious. I adorned these cookies with a chocolate drizzle made from a few semi-sweet chips I had stashed in my pantry.
Our problem now is that three dozen of these cookies have up and disappeared!
Chewy Almond Thins
Ingredients
Directions
Two loaves of sourdough bread fresh out of the oven. As soon as they cooled enough to cut, we were in. Delicious!
Every July, I make culinary goals for myself as this is the time of year we do our bulk shopping for our year in the Alaskan bush. My two big goals this year were to master working with sourdough starter and to make cheese.
I’ve tried making sourdough bread with starter before. A friend gave me some of hers which she had had going for several years. For whatever reason, my sourdough did not turn out. Jack called it an epic fail. I don’t remember it being epic. That would have involved tears, bread in the trash, and possibly my fists pounding the floor like a tantrumming child. Don’t ask me about the time I tried to hard boil eggs! That was an epic fail. I do remember that my last attempt making sourdough bread wasn’t good. So, it went on the goal list to try again.
Most people go to their local store to buy the things they need. If they are lucky, they live in a place with specialty shops where they can find unique tools to help them achieve their culinary goals. Out here in the bush, we rely on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver items we can find via the Internet. This involves lots of planning and lots of patience waiting for items to show up. Last week, my sourdough starter finally arrived. I’ve been diligently feeding it every day and it’s been bubbling away on the countertop in a nifty glass jar I bought especially for this purpose.
Today was the big day. The starter smelled nicely sour. I gathered my ingredients and set to work. Happily, the two loaves came out lightly sour and made for a great accompaniment to Jack’s clam chowder. Hurrah! It will be interesting to see if the starter changes flavor as it continues to age. I am also curious to see how the starter will taste in sourdough pancakes. Stay tuned to find out!
Homemade Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Fresh raspberry freezer jam. 30 minutes from ripe berries on a bush to yummy jam.
Chignik Lake is a magical place. Maybe I shouldn’t gleefully announce this. One of the things that make this place magical is the small population.😉
Jack and I really enjoyed living in Mongolia. The stint there certainly scratched a life-long itch of living overseas. We enjoyed trips our to the countryside and we certainly miss our Mongolian friends. But while we were away from Alaska, we longed for the pristine forests, tundra, mountains and seascapes and outdoor activities that have forever become part of our desired reality. At the top of our list? Foraging for wild food.
Part of the magic of Chignik Bay is the blueberries, crowberries (also known as blackberries in Alaska), and cranberries that grow in wild abundance. Additionally, currants and raspberries have been planted here and are thriving. We may try to grow our own in the spring. We’ve found many mushrooms and still need to figure out which ones are edible. There will be fireweed shoots to harvest in the spring, too. Needless to say, our freezer is stocked with the Sockeye and Silver salmon we’ve caught.
After a few trips out to nearby muskeg areas (berries love this type of environment), our freezer was stocked for the coming winter. It was time to start processing some of the berries into jams, jellies, sauces and syrups. I grabbed my container of pectin and noticed a recipe for “jam in 30 minutes” – no cooking required. Freezer jam!
It turned out fantastic. Since I used perfectly ripe raspberries for my experiment, the jam looks and tastes exceptionally bright and flavorful, like the fresh fruit I used. I do like cooked jams, but this fresh jam is a quick and easy way to make something a little different than the usual. It is delicious spread on bread or spooned into yogurt or hot cereal. The jam will keep for about three weeks in the refrigerator and will keep in the freezer for about a year.
Raspberry Freezer Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Makes 2 cups of jam.
