Skiing into gray-scale

This picture was taken in color, I swear.

It finally snowed here yesterday- Lovely fluffy stuff that is just wet enough to stick to trees. After a lazy day yesterday, I got out pretty early for a long cross-country ski in the woods. It was so quiet in our neighborhood- everyone has tucked in for the storm.

My tracks were the first on our little lane today

It's still threatening to snow, and so the light was really flat under the gray sky. The world looked like a black and white photo, save for a couple spots of color.

There were these red huskies who followed me and howled... Until I barked back at them. Then, they just looked confused.

I skied along the Lowe River, which runs along the back of our subdivision. It has finally frozen over for the winter- the -10 degree weather we had last week helped it along- and the ice is robin's egg blue in some places.

The blue Lowe River

Then, I turned into the forest. Snowy forests remind me of building forts when I was a kid. Rather, everything was a fort back then.

Feeling very small

I meandered home, warmed by the colors that greeted me when I walked in the door.

What we come home to

Last night, we drove home from a long holiday weekend in the Anchorage area. It's a long drive, despite the fact that Anchorage and Valdez are only about 110 miles apart as the crow flies. To avoid the Chugach mountains, the route takes us into the interior of Alaska before making a Southwest turn back towards the coast. Usually, that means watching the thermometer slowly fall as we get near Glenallen, and then rise again as we get closer and closer to the coast. But last night, even though it was getting slightly warmer as we pulled away from Glenallen, all of the sudden, the temperature took a nosedive as we came over the pass, warming up only slightly at our cabin to -8. This morning, our thermometer claims it's 1 degree, but I think it lies.

I swear it's colder.

 Anyway, while I was in town, many friends inquired to what our cabin looks like on the inside. Apparently the money shot of the bed wasn't enough. So, without further ado:

From the door

The woodstove is hiding behind the ladder up to the loft. Excuse the slightly off-kilter prints on the walls. 

From the couch in the corner

 It can definitely be a little tight, but mostly it feels cozy and warm. And one day soon, those cabinets will be gone. Mark. My. Words.

Peace on Earth

 

7 year-old Kate's favorite

The angel, of course. I loved her straw-colored hair and heart-shaped mouth. 

I cried a little when I put it up, because it's been at the top of my family's tree for nearly 25 years. This is also my first Christmas away from my family, and the fact that they shared this with me was a little overwhelming. Merry Christmas to Mama, Dad, Amelia and Gran. I'll be reading Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening tonight.

The bread rising nook

This festive schiacciata gets the perfect boost of warm air below the woodstove. Even when it's cranking on a day like today, underneath is the perfect place to let dough rise for a couple hours. Not too hot, not too cold!

A seal-bird

The Alaska Federation of Natives has a huge convention every year. The convention itself is really special, but I would be lying if I didn't say that the craft fair alone makes the bi-annual trip to Fairbanks worth it. I stock up on kuspuks, jewelry and Christmas ornaments to send to family. Last year, I remembered to buy an extra one for us. It's made of seal fur and is completely adorable.

Party tart

I'm guessing this might be a social week for folks. It is for us- our little neighborhood is a-hopping. We had a dinner party on Saturday night, one tonight for the solstice, and one tomorrow night as well. I'm going to be doing a lot of baking this week, that's for sure, but one of the things I have to keep in mind is water.

Big, complicated recipes that create a bunch of dishes are doable, but overwhelming when you have to melt snow for water. Plus I like simple dishes that show off one or two ingredients. This recipe couldn't be easier- I hesitate to even call it a recipe- and shows off two fine (and common) ingredients: apples and butter. It calls to mind the lovely apple tarts in boulangerie windows.

Ingredients

1 batch of pie dough. (I use Julia Child's food processor recipe, but store bought is fine)
3 apples
2 tbs sugar  

Preheat oven to 375 F. Roll out dough to a long rectangular shape, 8x18ish. Slice apples very thinly. Arrange them overlapping in three long rows leaving 1 in around the edges, sprinkle with sugar, fold over edges. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream and port.

Christmas Dory

Another special ornament from the New England coast. I love the handpainted Portsmouth skyline.

A whale wreath

 

My grandmother gave my sister and me a pewter ornament from Exeter Fine Crafts every year, and my mother continues the tradition in her place. They are simple and lovely, and I am lucky to have 6 on my tree this year. The peace wreaths are my favorite.

Enchilada Soup

Sigh. Another recipe, another lack of photos. Thought I'd give my camera a try again, but it failed. Oh well, maybe Santa will leave me a new data card in my stocking!

Exercising in below-zero weather can be tricky. If you don't go fast enough, you get cold. Today, the thermometer barely rose above -5, and it almost felt like full time work just to keep the wood stove going. Frankly, I can't imagine what my Fairbanks brethren go through- I hear it was -45 up there today. Brrr!

So, even though it was cold, Tory managed to motivate me for a cross-country ski in the woods this afternoon. It was gorgeous- another stunning moonrise- and quiet, but it wasn't fast. By the home stretch I was shivering. It took me about 3 hours- and several bowls of this soup- to warm up. 

It's an easy enough recipe, though longish, and a crowdpleaser. Who doesn't like chicken? Tory, actually. He also doesn't like stewed meat. It's a testament to the tastiness of the soup that he wolfed down three bowls before I got to my second. Or maybe it was 3 hours of chopping wood? Regardless, he loved it, and named it.

PS. Can we talk about the sad discovery of tasting real sour cream after one has been eating plain yogurt as "a perfectly good substitute" for years? God, it was nearly revelatory. Like the time I put half and half in my coffee after years of drinking it with skim milk. It's been 3 years and I haven't gone back to skim.


Ingredients

2 tbs olive oil
1 onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, diced
1 carrot, chopped
1 jalapeño, diced
1 tsp cayenne (or to taste)
1 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. whiskey
2 c chicken stock
1 can diced tomatoes
3 tbs tomato paste
1 lb of chicken breasts/thighs
1 can of beer (Budweiser is fine)


Sauté onion, garlic, carrot, and jalapeño in olive oil over medium high heat. Sprinkle cumin and cayenne over pan and cook til onion is transparent, about 3-5 minutes. Add whiskey, chicken stock, diced tomatoes, tomato paste and beer. Bring to simmer and add chicken, making sure it's completely submerged. Cover and simmer for 1 hour. 


With tongs or a slotted spoon remove the chicken. Turn burner to medium high and reduce by 1/3. Shred chicken with fingers or two forks. With a stick blender, or a regular blender in batches, blend the poaching stock til creamy. Stir in shredded chicken and serve with cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips.

All spruced up

Yesterday, I suited up and ventured outside for the first time in a couple days to find a Christmas tree. It's been gorgeous and clear here, but hella windy and frigid. I put on many, many layers, laced up my snowshoes and tromped down the trail to find a tree. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and just as the moon was coming up over the pass, I found a little spruce that was just perfect. It was 3 feet tall, and a little straggly, but symmetrical. I cut it down, and turned homeward. Then I tripped on an alder, and snapped the tree in half. Sigh. But I found another, slightly larger, tree nearby, and hauled it back to the cabin.

I was putting the last ornament when it hit me; I've never put up my own Christmas tree. It should have hit me before then, as I was struggling with how to prop it up without an actual tree stand. (Let's not talk about all the glass and ceramic vessels I broke before finally settling on a pie plate... And kitchen twine. Certainly not dignified, but it works.) So this spruce, small, slightly lopsided and light-less, is my very first Christmas tree. I think I'm in love. 

 

 

The best place in the house

No, I'm not being inappropriate. Our bed is the warmest place in the house, thanks to a double helping of down (comforter and featherbed) and flannel sheets. We can look up out of the window and see stars if it's clear. And then, there's this:

That sign has been with me through all um, 20 of my moves since I was 18. It's an original sign from Virginia Beach that I found at an antique store when I was a sophomore in high school. My mom bought it for me. Thanks, mom!

When I talk about living in a dry cabin

Let's talk about water for a moment.

It's something most people, me included, take for granted. But here at the snowy cabin, we don't have a well. When we first started talking about this move, this was what I was most worried about. Hauling water for a couple days or a week isn't a problem. Most of us have done it at some point. But hauling water for the long haul- no pun intended- spooked me.

In the end, because of a rather ingenious set up that Tory built, it's not that big of a deal. In the winter, we melt snow.

Here's our snow melting tote. We shovel snow into it (probably 2 times a day)it slowly melts. Because it's on the floor, and heat rises, it doesn't get too hot next to the stove.  Just above the tote to the right and screwed into the wall is our water pump. It's electric. We just put the short hose in the melted snow, plug in the pump and the water gets pumped into our 55 gallon cistern:

Here, it's available when ever we turn the tap on. Just like a real faucet! Except it's cold. But that's okay. We have a nice big pot of hot water on the wood stove. Perfect for doing dishes, pouring on snow to get the melting started, and pouring on a wash cloth for the evening face wash. 

We're not going to do this forever. I know Tory could, but I love regular baths too much to give them up for more than a year or two. But I'm doing it now, and it's not really that much of a big deal. Makes me feel like a wild woman, sometimes, that's for sure!

Failure

You'll have to excuse the lack of pictures- my camera cord isn't working right now, but as soon as it starts working again, or I get a card reader, I'll post the related photos!

Part of my cabin plan is to have homemade bread on hand at all times. It's not hard, mainly because I have copious amounts of time and flour. But frankly, I don't usually need all that much time because I stick to the the high-moisture/no-knead breads made popular by The New York Times/Jim Lahey article a few years ago. 

My favorite play on this type of bread is from the fabulous (like Christmas gift fabulous) book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. The overall idea is mixing up a big batch of high moisture dough, letting it rise, and then leaving the dough in the fridge, cutting off balls of dough for small loafs as needed. I find it's perfect for two people, to bake bread in the evening for dinner, and then there are (usually) left overs for breakfast the next morning. 

So, back to my failure. I think I'm a pretty good breadmaker. Maybe my loaves aren't the highest you've ever seen, but they're usually attractive and tasty, and if I use my le Creuset- the most glorious crust you've ever seen this side of Paris. I made an awesome loaf of rye for a friend the day before. The golden crust audibly crackled, in part because I had the idea to pour 1/4 cup of water over the loaf about 20 minutes into the baking time. 

But alas, perfection rarely repeats, and when I made a second loaf yesterday, I misjudged my timing on the water pour (10 minutes too early, I think) and because the dough wasn't hard enough yet, the water deflated the loaf the moment I poured it over. The sad sighing sound it made actually brought tears to my eyes.


Was it still tasty? Well, the parts where the water didn't soak the dough (even after another 20 minutes in the oven, there were puddles of water on top of the loaf!) But it definitely sunk my confidence for a day or so, and I keep hearing that sad deflating sigh.

Shining

I love living in the forest. Even though I get yelled at by squirrels every time I step outside. The forest is quiet and calm. At night, I can hear the winds rip through Thompson Pass 1200 feet above me. But the forest protects us from the wind. It's very still here.

My favorite time in the forest is when the sun comes out after it snows. The forest sparkles. The forest rain glitter. The only sounds is drips of melting snow off the trees, and... the rather violent sound of snow sliding off the roof.

But the sparkles! It even makes the outhouse look glamorous.

A small indulgence

This is hardly original, but I love the holiday season. This year, it seems a little extra special, because we're in a house (okay, cabin) that's ours. In the last 6 years, I've moved no less than 10 times, and all that schlepping hasn't been conducive to holiday decorations. All that stops now.

I'm starting small, though. I have an advent calendar that I have schlepped around for the past few years, I have a wreath, and this week I bought two strands of lights. I put them up Friday, and it makes the cabin seem magical. This time of year, if it's not completely dark, it's dusk or dawn. The lights twinkle, or glow under a couple inches of snow and it looks so. freaking. cool.

I'm still not sure about a Christmas tree. I have 5 ornaments- is that enough?

Mountain Fondue

One of my fondest memories from college was an evening with my cousin Hannah, who lives in the French Alps. One night she came home from work with a literal mountain of local cheese to make fondue. After her kids had gone to bed, we stayed up eating fondue, drinking wine and talking til pretty late. Before then, I hadn't really developed a taste for swiss cheese. I'd thought it too... sour. Not creamy enough- I was a triple cream kind of girl. But that evening marked my conversion to the dark arts of melted cheese.

Fondue is easy. And really really really good when it's cold out. It's been cold here at the cabin- barely above 0 most of the day. Even though I don't have access to a mountain of handmade local cheese, I made perfectly tasty fondue with the stuff at Fred Meyers. It's actually more cost effective to buy the cheese at Costco, but then you have So. Much. Cheese. Which requires more fondue than I'll allow myself to eat.

A note: This fondue isn't super gooey- you won't be twirling strings a cheese around your bread, because I like to taste the tartness of the the wine. If you want gooey, just reduce the wine to 1/2 bottle.

Mountain Fondue
       Serves 4, or 2 with leftovers
 
1 1/2 pounds of swiss cheese. I use three: Emmenthaler, Appenzeller and Gruyere
2 Tbs flour
2/3 a bottle of decent chardonnay
2 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed.
freshly ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp cherry brandy/Kirsch*

*optional, but damn good 


Grate cheese, and toss with flour. Rub heavy-bottomed pot with garlic, and leave in pot. Pour in white wine, and bring up to a gentle simmer. Let garlic simmer in wine for 10 minutes, then fish out. Wisk in flour-dredged cheese, and turn up heat to med-high. If it looks a little funny- don't worry keep whisking. Once it's melted, add nutmeg, salt, pepper and Kirsch.


Serve with whatever you feel like dipping in cheese! This includes, but is not limited to:


Cubed bread
Boiled/roasted potatoes
Apple slices
Cherry tomatoes
Pear Slices
Grapes

Last night, I'd roasted some butternut squash along with the potatoes- it was delicious! Leftovers can just go in the fridge in the pot. Reheat, adding a little more wine to thin if needed.

A turquoise scarf

 "Can you knit me a scarf please? Turquoise."

And so this project began. I had the turquoise yarn, but didn't want to do a straight-forward scarf. I wanted to knit something a little special: girly, pretty, and frilly. I leafed through my knitting patterns, searched on the web, but just didn't find anything that fit the picture in my head.

So I came up with something on my own. I think it turned out well. And lucky for you, I did all the ripping out and redoing when I decided it needed one more row of increases to frill the way I wanted it to!

It's a quick knit- though when you're casting off all 500 stitches, it doesn't feel that way. A good Christmas present for a girl, or a girl-at-heart.


A Turquoise scarf

Materials

2 balls of Nashua Handknits Paradise (Wool/Alpaca blend) (15X22 stitch square should be 10 cm X 10cm)
Size 7 circulars 36 in.
Patience- we're going to knit this lengthwise!

Cast on 200. Knit in stockinette until the piece measures 2 inches. 

Frill Row 1: Starting on a knit row K1, increase in next stitch to end. You should now have 300 stiches.
Frill Row 2: Purl.

Knit the following: Frill row 1, Frill Row 2, Frill Row 1. You should have 500 stiches. 


Cast off knitwise on the purl side. 

The Wind

Once consequence of wind-littered snow- not the best for melting.

It's howling here at the cabin- a cruel reentry into Alaska and winter. We got back from vacation Friday, but spent a few days in the big city. We visited friends, and went on a massive Costco run, which included- among many many other things- my insistence that we buy three kinds of butter. Hey, it's almost Christmas, right?

Last night, just as the last bit of light left the sky, we pulled into our neighborhood. It'd been wickedly windy the entire drive. So much so that we didn't notice we were driving on a popped tire for two miles. Argh. But, thanks to the kindness of strangers, the sheer luck of a shop in Glenallen having the right sized tire, with the right tread and similar wear, and our desire to just be home, we pushed through.

I've just accepted that I am not meant for 90mph gusts, and will be spending the day knitting, baking and cleaning. My sweetheart claims he's going to go out and get some exercise, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Art: Part three

Yes, I'm one of those people who owns an art deco French liquor poster.

I love it. I'm an admitted francophile. I love art deco, I love Lillet, I love the smile that woman has on her face. I'm a walking cliche.

Maple Mustard Skillet Salmon

Salmon is tasty. Fresh out of the ocean or Copper River, you don't need to do anything to it. You don't even need to cook it, really. Maybe a sprinkle of salt and pepper, but that's it. I probably won't be posting any fresh salmon recipes here. You don't need them.

But as summer ends, so does the supply of fresh salmon. Our freezers are full of frozen salmon now, and frozen salmon, frankly, needs a little help. We do a bunch of different things with frozen salmon in this house: Salmon salad, salmon cakes, and quiche come to mind. But my current favorite is putting a fillet skin-side down on a hot cast iron, brushing on a maple syrup and mustard glaze, and sliding it in the oven til it's done. The sweet, spicy glaze stands up to the strong flavor of the salmon and gives it a little oomph. Enough oomph so you can drink a light red wine with it.

Maple Mustard Skillet Salmon

   Serves 2

1 16-20 oz fillet

For the glaze:

 

1 tbs of good quality mustard

1 tbs of maple syrup

1 tsp olive oil   

1/4 tsp powdered ginger

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 400F. Heat cast iron skillet on medium-high heat. Mix glaze ingredients together in small bowl. Should be fairly viscous. Lightly salt and pepper the fillet, and place in skillet. Brush on one layer of glaze. Wait 2 or 3 minutes, brush on another. Slide skillet in oven, and cook until fillet is cooked through (still slightly pink in middle) about 5 minutes.

Mexican Dreams

 It's been a little gray here. 

Not that I mind. I'm quite content to sit and watch the weather move in and out. It's not deathly cold- the temperature has been hovering around freezing- and I've been dreaming. 

Dreaming of Mexico, to be exact.  Tonight we head to the Pacific coast, and warmer weather for a few weeks. November isn't a very pleasant time in Alaska, and we try to leave for a chunk of it. 

So, to get in the mood- and prepare my eyes for colors other than off-white, gray and cedar, I made myself a colorful salad last night. It's a pretty simple salad- just carrots, red cabbage and a strong mustard vinaigrette. A play on carottes râpées- a favorite in my house when I was growing up. Nothing special, just color.

Carottes Râpées with cabbage 
      4 small servings, or two large

For the vinaigrette:

1 tbs good mustard
2 tbs red wine vinegar
4 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp dried dill (optional)

For the salad:

4 large carrots
1/4 head of red cabbage
juice of one lemon or lime


Grate carrots, slice cabbage very thin. Run knife over sliced cabbage once  so the pieces are a bit smaller. Mix in bowl. Add vinaigrette to taste. I added a squeeze of lemon at the end and it brightened up considerably. Leftovers are lovely the next day, or even the day after that.
 
PS- Since we'll be in Mexico, posting will be scarce, but I've prescheduled a few posts to go up while we're gone!

Art: Part Two

Behind our vintage Jotul wood stove (more on that another time) I put up a couple of our more old-timey pieces. I really like the juxtaposition of the wooden frames below the gorgeous bookshelf Tory built a few years ago.

Each piece has a story. The original pastel to the left is actually a family heirloom- and is of a home close to my great grandmother's cabin in North Carolina. The middle print was given to me by my piano teacher when I was growing up. Her grandfather, American impressionist Frank Benson, painted the original oil on canvas, and it was of her family. Finally, the lonely watercolor on the right hung in a room I rented once. The landlord had a garage sale the weekend I moved out, and I bought it for $10. I looked at that painting every night as I was falling asleep. It reminds me of Sandy Beach in Juneau.

Art: Part one

I finally got my act together and hung some art up on the walls.

These are two prints I found a couples years ago in Juneau. They're by a Whitehorse, Yukon artist named Nathalie Parenteau. I love her work- the bold colors and shapes really stand out. She has a lot of larger pieces that I'd love to have here, as soon as I can afford to frame them!

My favorite kind of visitor

Our neighbor's dog, Tusk, likes to visit on his morning rounds around the neighborhood.

Good morning!

Tusk is as big as a bear, but much nicer.  My sweetheart's been gone for a couple days, and I've taken the opportunity to tuck in and be a little anti-social. But I like to chat with Tusk, and also this funny Stellar Jay that hangs around when I'm out in the shed. He must not have a whole lot of human interaction, because he's not scared of me at all. He just hops around a couple feet away from me, looking for tasty morsels, as I chatter away.

Tusk checking out the wood pile.

Happy Halloween!

Stone Mountain

 Once it starts getting light, I sit on the couch with my coffee and dream about Stone Mountain. It is so beautiful, and looms about our valley like a watch guard. It pulls my head into the clouds, and it's my favorite time of day.

Mountain halibut for mountain man

I've been very hungry.

This isn't wholly unexpected. For the last 8 years or so, I've been pretty much paid to sit and think. Sometimes there's been some scurrying around involved, but for the most part I've had a desk job. I've generally gotten exercise very deliberately-after work runs, weekend hikes, etc- and my metabolism has adjusted accordingly.

But all this physical labor is different. Lugging things around. Lifting things up, setting them down. Swinging a splitting maul for an hour or so every morning. By the end of the day (or the end of the morning!) I'm starved. The boy just laughs. He's a carpenter, so this kind of work is literally in his job description.

So we've been eating a lot. Mostly meat: Steak, chili, chili nachos, chili on potatoes (I made a big batch!) bacon and pancakes, bacon and eggs. Nowhere near enough vegetables. You get the idea.

The other night, I finally stepped away from the freezer full of stew meat, ground beef, new york strips and the like. I wanted something else. I settled on the mountain dal recipe from the phenomenal cookbook/travelogue Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. If you haven't heard of them, I highly recommend you check out their books. The photographs and stories that accompany a treasure trove of recipes are gorgeous, and they travel all over the world; this particular book focuses on the Asian subcontinent.

As I was starting dinner, Tory came over to survey the work. "Where's the meat?" Sighing, I was reaching for some chicken to saute when I came across our last fillet of halibut. I topped it with some tumeric, grated ginger and garlic to echo the flavors in the dal, and slid it in the oven. It was a great addition, alongside dollops of yogurt and chutney I piled on top when everything was done.

The superb leftovers

Mountain Halibut

1 fillet of halibut or another white fish
1 tsp. turmeric
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or microplaned
1 inch of ginger, finely chopped or microplaned
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the fillet, then the turmeric. Smear the garlic and ginger onto the fish, and drizzle a little oil over the top. Let come to room temp, cover with foil and slide in the oven. Uncover after about 5-7 minutes. Cook for another 5-7 minutes until the fillet is just opaque inside. Serve alone, or with a good hearty dal. 







 

Buttoning Up

This morning, I woke up to this:

Yesterday, just as it was getting dark, the smallest snowflakes began to fall. Apparently, they became bigger. And more plentiful.

This couldn't have happened any sooner. We've been busy grasshoppers this past week buttoning up the cabin for winter. There was so much to do! After unpacking, and the sorting/organizing/trips to the dump that goes along with it, we had to put in the new wood stove, take down a bunch of trees, split and stack, order and install a snow wedge for our chimney, put on snow tires, and... move the outhouse.

That was a bit of an ordeal. We didn't want to have to ask anyone else to help us. There are very few friends I'd ask to help with poop. Maybe only two, and they know who they are. So we did our best to do this awful job ourselves. There was a lot of grunting and cursing involved. But to no avail; that job was too much for two people.

As luck would have it, our neighbors Bridget and Brian, who were doing some buttoning up of their own, came over to ask for our help with moving something heavy. After that we didn't feel as bad asking for their help. They were kind enough to come over and give us a hand. We fed them chili and beer afterward, but I still think we got the better end of the deal.

The Adventure Begins

Two months ago, I wasn't planning on this. This adventure-while planned- was at least a year or two off. But you know? Sometimes, the universe gives you signs. And boy, the universe really hit me over the head with this one.

And so, this week the adventure begins. I'm leaving my comfortable, quasi-urban Anchorage life and moving to a cabin in the "real" Alaska. No water, no job (yet), no joke.