We are having quite a berry season. It was easy to gather premium wild blueberries and wild salmonberries for this tart. Look at the size of those golden berries! There’s a lot of things you could do with freshly picked berries…but nothing says “fresh berries” like fresh berries.
#wildblueberries #wildsalmonberries #dessert #wildberrytart #tartrecipe #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination
Chef Jack doing his magic. Preparing halibut on a bed of chopped venison sausage to be grilled en papillote. So grateful for the kindness of sharing neighbors.
#halibut #venison #venisonsausage #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination
The deal is “you pick me 5 cups of berries and I’ll make you a pie.” We stumbled onto a blueberry bush Loaded with berries. In no time at all, we had 5 cups in the bag. Seems like all agreed, it turned out pretty fantastic.
#wildblueberries #Alaskablueberries #homemadepie #blueberrypie #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination
Part of our Alaskan culinary experimentation includes producing fruit and vegetables in a year-round hydroponic garden. We’ve been wildly successful growing our own gourmet lettuces. This little cucumber cutie is flowering like crazy. A little hand pollination and patience will answer the question – will it or won’t it bear fruit?
#hydroponicgarden #gourmethydroponics #hydroponic #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination
Jack is working his magic today. He’s perfecting a soup recipe baked in stoneware and topped with puff pastry. Spoiler alert? Your guest will crack into the perfectly baked pastry to find wild Alaskan Dungeness Crab. Yes, please!
#soup #puffedpastry #dungenesscrab #soupsurprise #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination
Today’s goal was to find premium salmon berries for upcoming cookbook recipes. I think we did pretty well!
#salmonberries #premiumberries
#chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography
#eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination
This is a favorite Jack creation. The elegance of the delectable array of salmonberries brings a wow-factor to meals all throughout the year.
#salmonberries #foragingalaska #dessert #frozenberries #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination #moose&malbec
A work in progress – wild strawberry rhubarb hand pies. Perfecting a recipe with frozen fruit. It’s not a feat for the easily frustrated.
#rhubarb #handpies #foraging #chefdonachy #alaskacooking #food #foodphotography #eatingwelloffthebeatenpath #alaskafood #alaskabush #fooddestination #moosepie&malbec
Perfectly flaky crust stuffed with delectable ingredients. You want the recipe, right?
We are coming up on our fifteenth anniversary of publishing this blog. All those years ago, we packed up our beautiful California bungalow and headed off to live an adventure well off the beaten path in bush Alaska. People thought we would return to the lovely life we left in the urban world after a year or so. But we fell in love with all the joys and challenges with living in bush Alaska and here we are…still living well off the beaten path.
Much of this blog has been dedicated to foraging and recipe creation. Fifteen years of collecting experiences, reimagining food and beverage pairings and generating culinary ideas should lead to … a cookbook! Our blog catchphrase – living well off the beaten path – is now a work progressing toward a book with the working title Moose Pie and Malbec: Eating Well Off the Beaten Path in the Alaska Bush.
To keep you, our long-time readers (and new followers) in the loop, we will endeavor to post regular peeks into what we are working on here on Cutterlight and on Instagram. Follow along on our new adventure and see how it goes, leave a “like” and feel free to comment and share!
Thanks, as always, for reading and commenting!
Chefs and Bakers – Jack and Barbra
Somewhat paralleling the boom and bust of America’s west coast sardine/herring fishery (see Cannery Row), in the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s, fortunes were made and lost on the back of Hokkaido’s west coast herring fishery. The building in the above image is a Nishin Goten, a communal house for the herring fishermen of that era. Inside are the captain’s quarters, other areas where fishermen and other employees (I’m assuming the fishermen’s wives who were vital in processing the catch) could roll out their futons. Such houses featured a kitchen, a place to store slippers (in those days woven from grass) and a bit of furniture. These days, several Nishin Goten are preserved and open to visitors – well worth a stop if you’re traveling Hokkaido’s west coast along the famed Herring Highway.
CutterLight 