Category Archives: Alaska bush

Alaska Cuisine–Moose Meat Lasagna!

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As we were leaving a friend’s house the other night after dinner and a game of Scrabble, she opened the freezer near the front door of her house (up here lots of people keep a freezer in their “kunnituck”–the front mud room). “Here! Have some moose meat!” She put a two-pound roast and a package of ground moose in my hands. We’ll save the roast for daughter Maia’s visit in December. But the ground moose… I knew right away what I wanted to do with that.

There’s some debate about whether or not lasagna is lasagna unless there’s ricotta cheese in it. Bush Alaska ain’t for purists. With plenty of mozzarella and parmesan on hand, we set about making our own version of Bush Lasagna. Tomato paste, diced tomatoes, garlic, onions, spinach (frozen), Italian herbs, ground pepper and olive oil laid down in layers amidst freshly made pasta and finished with a final layer of mozzarella, sprinkled with parmesan and topped off with Kalamata olives. Two big pans–one for now, one for the freezer.

Adult Beverages in a Dry Town

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We always have enjoyed wine or good beer with our meals. One of my fondest Thanksgiving memories began with Jack handing me the best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had. Sake plus sushi equals a wonderful evening. You get the picture…

Living in a dry community is sometimes hard. A fillet of Chinook salmon cooked to perfection on a cedar plank would be that much better served with a bottle of Pinot Noir or a Chardonnay. The other night we had a wonderful meal of sashimi–the sweet shrimp, scallops and salmon were excellent. Alas, no Pinot Gris or sake. And after a good workout in the weight room, it sure would be nice to come home and have a beer. We can’t even have cooking sherry!

And so, we improvise to the extent we can. We bought a Sodastream carbonated beverage maker and absolutely love it. (In fact, now several people in our village have ordered them!) A glass of “fizzy water” and a bit of flavored syrup keeps things “dry” but agreeably festive.

But believe me, when we hit Anchorage in the spring, it’s not safe to get between us and that first bottle of beer!

Pine Nut Encrusted Halibut

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A fillet of Resurrection Bay, Alaska halibut in a homemade mayonnaise and sour cream mixture, encrusted with chopped pine nuts and almonds and served on a bed of mixed brown and wild rice. Broccoli is one of the few vegetables we can consistently obtain in good shape in the bush.

I was recently looking around online for the next great place to call home. A top priority for both of us is a place where we can harvest our own fish. With that in mind, as I looked at coastal waters and lakes in other states, it was with a keen eye not only toward some of our preferred fish species (walleye, crappie, perch, striped bass, salmon), but also with an eye toward each state’s fish consumption advisories.

What a shock. In locale after locale, the advice from state departments of natural resources is to limit one’s consumption of local fish. Mercury and PCBs are the chief culprits, but in some places there are other chemicals in the stew. Even DDT remains a problem in some areas. The prospect of living in a place where warnings are to limit one’s consumption of fish to one meal a week–or a couple meals a month–is depressing. (We really hope they keep the Pebble Mine out of Alaska!)

Glad to live in a part of the world where the near-shore fish are still healthful enough to enjoy as often as one cares to. We generally have meals featuring salmon, rockfish or halibut two or three times a week.

There’s nothing to the above halibut dish. In a glass bowl I mixed together equal parts homemade mayonnaise and sour cream. I wanted to add a dash or two of cayenne pepper for a pleasant kick, but having none used a prepared Thai seasoning mix instead along with a couple of grinds of black pepper and a healthy squeeze of lemon juice. I spread this mixture on a halibut fillet, then covered the sauce with chopped pine nuts and almonds, and baked for 15 minutes at 375 degrees in a small, preheated casserole dish in which I had melted butter. Make sure to check while it’s baking to avoid scorching the nuts. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil if the nuts are becoming overly done.

By the way, if you’ve never made mayonnaise, it’s easy–and kind of magical. There are no shortage of instructional videos on the Internet.

Sod and Whalebone Home, Tikigaq

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This semi-subteranian sod, driftwood and whalebone home was the last such structure to be inhabited in the old village of Tikigaq on Point Hope. It was abandoned in 1975, and by that time was hooked up to electricity. Prior to electricity, these homes were illuminated and heated with seal oil lamps and are reported to have been quite warm. Near the homes, people dug cellars which served as year-round deep freezers.

Caribou, seal, walrus and whale bones are scattered across the grassy tundra, and where people once lived now ground squirrels make their homes. Much of the land that was once inhabited has long since been washed away as generations of winter storms have eroded the peninsula. There have been times when polar bears have used structures in the old village as temporary winter dens. Snowy and short-eared owls, which hunt by day, along with marsh harriers keep the squirrels and voles in check.

Old Tikigaq–The Last Shaman

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The last of the shamans of Point Hope, a man by the name of Masiin, lived in this house in the now-abandoned village of Tikigaq.

The history of shamans in Inupiat culture is a complex one. At the turn of the century, a man identified in texts as both a shaman and a chief, Atanjauraq, grew wealthy trading with the whale hunters of several nations who had settled near Point Hope in a polyglot village called Jabbertown. The ruins of this village are still discernible, albeit barely, as raised mounds a mile or so east of present day Point Hope. Atanjauraq’s increasing wealth was accompanied by a taste for alcohol. As he grasped for ever more power, he created enemies and ended up murdered by his own people while sleeping off a drunk.

Shaman Masiin, the last shaman of Tikigaq, died of natural causes in 1958. In his book The Things That Were Said of Them: Shaman Stories and Oral Histories of the Tikigaq People, Tom Lowenstein reports this story told by an individual named Asatchag.

“It was 1953, wintertime. My wife invited Masiin to supper. And after we had eaten, the old man told several stories. Then he called me by name and told us he’d been traveling last night. He’d been to Russia. And when he’d flown round for a while, he saw the Russian boss. ‘That’s a bad man,’ said Masiin, ‘so I killed him.’ Next day, at three o’clock–we had a battery radio–I listened at my coffee break. The news announcer said Stalin was dead.”

To add mystery to the above story, it is reported that Masiin did not listen to American radio, and knew no English.

Cooking in the Alaska Bush: Salmon Pesto Ravioli

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Flash frozen just after being made, these ravioli are ready for a few brief minutes in boiling water.

Is it really worth making your own pasta?

That’s what we wanted to find out. So when we shipped staples up to our home in Point Hope this summer, we included a 25-pound bag of semolina flour and a CucinaPro manual pasta machine. And we eschewed buying the bags of dry pasta from Costco that have been standard in our kitchen for the past several years.

The verdict? It’s definitely worth it, provided one has the time–which, happily, we do. That being said, with each batch of linguini or ravioli we turn out, we are becoming more efficient. Two sets of hands make the work easier and faster, and the pasta itself is amazing! The flavor is superior to store-bought dried pasta, it cooks up in a fraction of the time, and the variations one can create are limitless.

Below is a salmon-based ravioli filling we recently created.

Salmon Pesto Ravioli

½ pound salmon, pan-fried in olive oil, skin on

1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning. Morton & Bassett or Spice Hunter offer tasty mixes.

1 ½ tablespoon garlic, chopped fine

2 tablespoons finely chopped pine nuts

¼ cup mushrooms, chopped fairly fine

a few grinds of black pepper

¼ cup – 1/3 cup pesto

Olive oil

Sherry (optional–no sherry for us out in the bush)

1. Place cooked salmon in a glass bowl. (Remove skin and cut it into small pieces and add for maximum flavor.)

2. Combine chopped pine nuts, garlic and mushrooms in a small bowl and set aside.

3. Heat a little olive oil in a small frying pan. Add pine nut, garlic and mushroom mixture, and sauté until cooked through, stirring frequently–about 2 to 4 minutes. Add to salmon in bowl. Include the oil in the pan. (Add Sherry while cooking mixture, if desired.)

4. Add remaining ingredients to the bowl. Use a fork to mix thoroughly, breaking up the salmon. Add additional olive oil, if needed, so that mixture holds together. Cover and place in refrigerator for an hour or more.

5. Use mixture as ravioli filling.

6. Serve ravioli with a lightly seasoned marinara sauce or with an olive oil topping, such as onions and sun dried tomatoes sautéed in olive oil.

Finish with grated Parmesan cheese and perhaps a couple of grinds of black pepper. A Willamette Valley Pinot Noir would be the perfect complement. Another good choice would be Chardonnay.

Bush Alaska: Arctic Snow Fence

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The first snow fell a few days ago. Brilliant sunshine melted it. Snow fell again yesterday. So far the sun is winning the battle. As the days are getting shorter, it is certain that the snow will win.

Our lagoon has iced over in large patches. There are short tracks on the ice where people have briefly ventured out but returned.

The snow fence stands ready for the winter. It looks strong and resilient having beaten back the drifts year after year.

The fence in Point Hope looks much sturdier compared to the fence in Shishmaref  (http://wp.me/p1305P-1T). This can only mean that we are ready for gale force winds.

Whalebone Graveyard Fence

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Point Hope is a whaling community. The villagers primarily hunt bowhead whales. The jawbones of the bowheads are used to mark feasting areas and (above) the graveyard. The graveyard is completely surrounded by the jawbones, which average about seven feet tall. Some looked to be well over ten feet! It’s impressive to note that every two bones used in this unusual fence represents one whale.

Home Made Pasta

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Jack and I brought up a manual pasta machine with every intention of making our own pasta. We forced the issue by not purchasing any pre-made pasta in our annual shopping. We sent up a twenty-five pound bag of semolina and a dose of sheer determination.

Honestly, the machine looked a little daunting. After eating through our rice at a pace likely to use up our stores, the reality set in that we would need to face the machine and make the pasta.

We took the machine out of the box. We opened the directions. Directions? There was a basic recipe and a phone number to order parts. Thank goodness for the internet! We read recipes and watched youtube videos and set to work.

The first attempt was a DISASTER! I swear every recipe on the internet had comments like “this was so easy,” and “simplest way to make pasta.” When I looked up “what do I do with ruined pasta dough?” I found nothing. So no one ruins their dough? Interesting. I thought maybe I could salvage it and use the dough for a top of something. I was so frustrated, I threw the whole thing out.

Because of my tenacious streak (nice way to say stubborn), I tried the dough again. This time, I didn’t follow the directions and didn’t  incorporate all the flour.  Now the texture seemed more pliable. I wrapped it in plastic and let it rest overnight.

Round two with the machine. I ran the dough through the machine, like I had been instructed. I decided to make fettuccine noodles. The thinking was that flat wide noodles might be easier to handle. The dough ran through the machine nicely and was thin and even. I cranked the dough through the fettuccine cutter and GLOB, a sticky mess. Good thing I could run it through the flattening part again. After a couple of tries, I got the noodles to come through the cutter in strips with fettuccine indentations. I decided to let them dry all together in big pieces. After a couple of hours, I peeled them apart. They looked weird and too thin, almost translucent. The raw noodles did taste ok, though.

Jack then whipped up an olive oil, sundried tomato, garlic, mushroom, chicken mixture to serve with the pasta. He dropped my pasta creation into the boiling water. I couldn’t look. Another disaster was looming. After three minutes, he pulled the pasta out of the pot and drained it.

Drum roll, please. It was amazing. Just the right texture. Boiling the dried out noodles gave them spring and chewiness. We were honestly shocked how good they tasted.

We’re totally sold! I spent the next hour looking up recipes for raviolis. I think I’m ready to handle the ravioli attachment now.

White Chocolate Chip Pear Butter Bread

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I impressed myself when this came out of the oven. It had that perfect rich baked brown crust on the top with a beautiful crack that revealed the white chocolate chips. The whole pan of bread disappeared in two days!

I had made pear butter the weekend before with a dozen bruised and ailing pears. I found a recipe that called for pears, orange juice, orange zest and nutmeg. I cooked it in a crock pot over night and finished it with some pectin in the freezer. It turned out wonderfully. It was dark and thick, sweet and spicy with a lovely citrus note.

I thought the pear butter would work really well in a sweet bread. I found a recipe for apple butter bread and altered it to suit my needs. I added chopped pecans and white chocolate chips for a surprise.