A winter's worth of wood

So, the Darlin'Man cut down a whole passel of trees before the sap ran this spring, clearing out a piece of what I dearly hope will become a sheep field before too entirely long.  Today, he and his Finnish axe made a bet that they could chop in a day what we'd otherwise use a wood splitter to make our way through... 

I think he succeeded in his challenge. I'm reminded of the legend of John Henry.  Thankfully there's no heart attack for us at the end of the day, just an icepack on his back. 

I'm so proud of - and oh so thankful for - my Mountain Man... I think I'll keep him. 

Homestead Eating: Honey and Caribou

Last week, I stopped by the local spirit-selling store to pick up a beer to drink with the Heart Stew.  Anyone reading that post the entire way through will know that I chose Stone's Arrogant Bastard.  Well, as I browsing the craft beer section, I found my self suddenly distracted by bottles of artisan hard ciders.  On a total whim I bought a 22 oz. bottle of each of the two varieties.  And decided I would cook a meal with which to drink each of them. 

Crispin ® Natural hard apple cider : Honey Crisp was this evening's beverage of choice.  (I have not in fact, received or been promised anything by Cripsin.  I just really liked the cider, and the meal I made, so I'm writing about it.)  The side of the bottle reads "Naturally fermented using a premium blend of unpasteurized fresh-pressed apple juice, not from concentrate, with no added malt, spirit or grape alcohols.  Experience an earthy, fruity bouquet with an authentic cidery aroma and hints of honey.  A yeasty, full-bodied flavor, creamy mouth-feel with a crisp finish and unusual complexity.  Honey Crisp Artisanal Reserve, unfiltered cloudy hard cider, uses racked apple-wine smoothed with pure organic honey, with no added sugar, colorants, sorbate or benzoate preservatives."  You can see why I was intrigued. 

As I was turning over in my mind what meal would do this cider justice, I happened to be talking about food with my sister.  This is a common subject of conversation between the two of us.  She suggested Honey-glazed caribou.  And my eyes went wide with the brilliance of the thought.  She amazes me from time to time, this sister of mine.  She is a devout vegetarian, but has worked in –and run – commercial kitchens where she not only cooked but also developed recipes for meat dishes.  She comes up with brilliant concepts like the proscuitto wrapped medjool dates of Thanksgiving fame, and makes them.  But she doesn't eat them.  And still the brilliance of what she does with flavors that she only smells constantly amazes me. 

And so dinner tonight was Honey-glazed Caribou with Honey Crisp Hard Cider.  And oh my word.  I'm not entirely sure how long it would have taken me to come up with the idea of cooking caribou with honey, but let me tell you, it would have been far too long.  I didn’t use any other spices or flavorings on the caribou, just cooked it with honey from my mother's bees this summer past (or perhaps the one before?).  And it was beyond words, mellow and savory, sweet and wholesome.  Eaten in the same bite with baked potato in salt and pepper and butter; the sweetness and the salt and the pepper bloomed on the tongue.  That delicious gaminess of the caribou was tempered by the flavor of the honey, and kept if from feeling like dessert.  I served it with cabbage sautéed in butter and baked potatoes.  It would have been an entirely Alaskan food meal if not for the sweet potatoes I also cooked to add color to our plates and diets.  The cider was lovely, dry and crisp.  The honey flavors picked up on each other and made glory on the tastebuds, but I think the caribou would have appreciated something a little deeper flavored, and perhaps not quite as dry.  The Darlin'Man says we ought to try it with mead next time.  I am sure there will be a next time.

THE RECIPE:

Take one frozen caribou roast.  It is frozen because you mistakenly thawed ground caribou earlier in the day.  You are determined to use a roast, however, so set aside the ground meat for use in a day or two.

In a cast iron skillet on low heat, whisk together about 2 tablespoons of really good honey, with a generous splash of olive oil and enough water to about 1/3 fill the skillet.

Set the frozen roast in the skillet and let it begin to thaw as the oven below bakes potaoes. 

Turn on the heat under the skillet far before the roast is fully thawed.  Put a large lid over roast.  Ocassionally check it with a fork and flip it over until it is thawed through, cooked on the outside and bleeds when you stick it.  Remove roast to a cutting board.  Pour pan drippings into dog bowl to mix with kibble.

Silce roast in an attempt at crossgrain into maybe ½ inch slices?  Pour some olive oil into the bottom of the same skillet and lay the caribou slices in the oil.  Put a small dollop of really good honey on the upper face of each slice of roast.  I don't know how much I used, perhaps ½ teaspoon each?  Perhaps a teaspoon. 

Turn on the heat to sear the bottoms of the slices as the honey begins to melt.  Turn the slices over.  In a moment or two, the honey and oil will have become a delicious goo mixing with the caribou juices in the bottom of the pan.  Turn the slices over a few times, shaking the skillet as though you are a chef on a cooking show to coat them in the glaze. 

Remove slices to plates, and replace skillet with glaze over high heat, to reduce.  Pour glaze over meat and serve with honey cider, potatoes, and greens.

Canadian Bacon

On Tuesday's "Talk of Alaska" radio programme on KUAC, there was a discussion of  eating wild game.  It is no surprise, in a state that has abundant salmon runs, caribou herds that number tens of thousands of individuals, moose walking down Main Street, halibut larger than a person that the consumption of wild game should be a topic of frequent conversation.  Or that in a state with so much frontier-style individualism, and a living Native heritage of subsistence, that it should be prevalent.

One caller gave a recipe for making ham out of black bear.  The following is my paraphrase of his commentary, recorded here as much for my own records as for anyone reading:  Unlike a cold cured ham such as proscuitto in the Italian tradition, where you have to have the skin left on – scalded and de-haired, he skins the bear and uses the pelt otherwise.  Then, taking each of the four legs from knee to shoulder or knee to ball-joint; brine the leg in a brine of one cup salt and one cup brown sugar per gallon of water for 10 days.  Then rinse the leg in clear water for 24 hours, changing the water for fresh every couple of hours.  This is to get all the excess salt out of the flesh.  You use the salt to cure the meat, but you don't want it staying in the finished product.  Then using a smoker, hot smoke the hams at 170 until the meat reaches a safe temperature.  Black bear carries trichamonis which is tranmissable to humans.  The bacterium dies at relatively low temperatures, but you want to be sure that the meat's internal temp raises to at least 150.  Then eat and enjoy!  He recommends thin slices bear ham on rye with mustard, or fried with eggs for breakfast. 

Take the belly fat and treat it just as you would bacon.  This is apparently where the term "Canadian bacon" comes from.  Originally, Canadian Bacon was made by frontiersfolk out of black bear, and it wasn't until civilized commercialism came along that it morphed into a different preparation of pork belly. 

Take the rest of the fat from the animal and render it down to lard, store in sealed jars to use in baking and pies.  The caller never eats pig products anymore really, only bear.  While I plan on raising pigs, at least for the next few years, and don't know if I will ever shoot a black bear; if I ever do, or if a hunter aquaintance doesn't want to eat his bear, I can guarantee that I'll be making ham!

In other news, I hear that lynx tastes like chicken.

Seasons of Cold

This week has seen the temperature drop to more than twenty below zero.  While some –many – areas of the country are enjoying the promise and excitement of the first snow, entering into that hovering in-between month of November and others I am sure will not see their first hard frost for a month or more, we are well into winter.  I grew up in New England, where the seasons and the months followed the kindergarten pictures fairly closely.  Spring was ushered in with grey puffy rainclouds and mud boots in March, with tulips and pasque flowers in April, with flowers galore in May.  October was a riot of gold and red and orange.  November was chilly and wet and grey.  December saw snow and decorated trees, and January was always painted in light blues and whites with crystalline snowflakes.  I'm sure you know the pictures I mean.  Living now in the subarctic, I find that living a seasonal life shakes out just a little different.  It is the first week of November and already my seasonal/mindfulness display table with its candles between the dining room and the kitchen is covered in cloths of light blue and white, with blue and white patterned origami snow cranes.  That's the "January" of the kindergarten pictures. 

Our fall this year was long and lovely.  We had a week of "September" weather, with tall grasses going to seed, sunny days and cool evenings, and the merest hint of gold in the leaves.  Then we had a week or a little more of the bright bright gold of an Interior "October" followed by two weeks of "November" with cold rain and overcast skies.  By the middle of October, the temperature hovered between five below and twenty above, and there was a coat of snow on the ground. 

Now, sitting by the warm fire with a mug of spicy mulled wine, I realize that it is no wonder that I feel the pull of the winter celebrations so strongly – I am a month into true winter dark already.  We are losing more than eight minutes of daylight each day, as we draw slowly closer to the Solstice.   The holidays are 'supposed' to start a month or a little more into wintertime.  A fellow Fairbanksan blogging friend confessed that she has been listening to Christmas music ever since Halloween.  I too, have been cueing holiday stations on Pandora or Spotify when I am alone, and poring over pictures and thoughts of holiday crafts and baking and decorating and gifting.  I have always been slightly horrified by the store displays that pull out the Fourth of July the day after Easter and Christmas even before Thanksgiving has come.  I still am, a bit.  It is blatant over-commercialization.  But in this particular instance, in this particular clime, for this particular holiday, it makes sense.  I was waiting and hoping for the holiday displays to begin even before they did.  And I feel a little impatient for the weekend after Thanksgiving to arrive so that I can pull out the box of decorations and convince the Darlin' Man to help me pick out a tree. 

I think about the psycho-social origins of winter holidays in the Northern lands.  They were based around the Solstice of course, celebrating the return of the light even before Christianity had left its birthplace in the Middle East.  Whether you celebrate the days getting longer or the birth of your savior, the last days of our calendar's December are a time of hope and renewal, even in the depths of the winter hibernation.  Many of the traditions we think of are about this renewal or rebirth.  But many of them – the mulled wine or cider, the cookies, the warming spices of ginger and cinnamon and clove, the firelight, the family, welcome wreaths, even the gifting – are also about the drawing-in and the gathering-around of the winter season.  The weather out of doors is inhospitable at best, so we create our own warmth within.  We gather with loved ones to eat and to tell stories.  Most holiday decorations have meanings associated with the religious and spiritual significance of the holidays, from the colors to the evergreens to the stars, but also by decorating the space that we live in, where we retreat to away from the winter cold, where we gather with loved ones we make that space –our home- inviting and welcoming.  We allow it to be a space of retreat and respite, a place where spirits are lifted.

Which is all a fancy and very long-winded way of saying that this year I shan't be ashamed of my intense enjoyment, and early commencement of the winter season.  

The long-overdue Chitina IN PICTURES!

Chitina

Copper River at 5am

I caught a fish!  The Darlin' Man helps me pull it in (with the
ridiculously heavy steel pipe of a pole I was using)

There was a water fall across the way.
The river is full of glacial silt.

Fishin'

Then it got chillier, and I kept fishin'.
I may have fallen asleep in this position.

My Ma on the point just upriver.

Me and the Darlin' Man.

When the sun came out!

Homestead Eating: Lox!

I made Lox last week!  After we got back from Chitina (post up-coming on that whole experience, I promise!) last week, I made the lox and then let it sit in the fridge and cure while we went down to Girdwood for one of my best friend's wedding.  When we got back, it was cured and ready to eat, so Tuesday night we had lox for dinner along with boiled new potatoes and cabbage cooked with butter (both from Calypso's CSA).  I served it with some sour cream and with chopped green onions from the front porch.  So the only part of this meal that wasn't local was the salt and pepper, the sugar used in curing, and the sour cream! 

Gravlax

To make the lox I followed the directions and recipes from Juniper Moon Farm, found here.  I'll let you look at their photos of the process, as their food photography is much more beautiful than mine generally yet manages to be.  I used both dill and fennel from the CSA. 

Darlin'Man cuts Lox

Next time I make lox, for there will be next time for sure!  I'm going to try curing it for only the three days that is recomended.  It wound up being a little on the salty side, and I have heard that the saltiness increases the longer you let it cure...

Dinner!

Serve, and then enjoy with dear ones, eaten mindfully in the presence of fire.

Dinner is served!

I got some cream cheese, so tomorrow I'll be bringing lox and bagels for lunch!

Homestead Eating: Woodland-made sauce

"Carrot Pancake" with lingonberry sauce,
 sour cream, and gruit ale.

I hope and intend that this is only the first of many versions of 'woodland-made' sauce that you will see and I will eat.  Lingonberries, though better known as a Scandinavian specialty, are as common in the woods on this this side of sub-artic circumpolar north as they are over there.  I hear tell you can find them in the northeast (Vermont and such places) though I've no personal knowledge of that.  Every autumn, I gather quarts and quarts of lingonberries.  I generally make a lingonberry sauce at Thanksgiving and look forward to when it entirely replaces ocean spray tm on the table. I am much more regular about, and invested in, this harvest than that of the blueberries that the typical Alaskan is known for.  (Living uphill now from great blueberry flats may see that personal trend change.)
Also growing in the woodlands I gather these ruby berries in are such plants as labrador tea and spruce and birch trees.  There are others of course, but these tend to be prolific and perhaps more importantly, to figure intimately into the profile of this 'woodland-made' sauce.  The last time I was heating up a lingonberry sauce (coincidentally for this same meal on a different day - its a fave), I was not as assiduous as usual in picking out the stray leaves of labrador tea and spruce needles that had wound up frozen with the berries.  The next day I was eating the left over berries (with a spoon, out of the pot; that's how much I adore these tart ruby baubles) - and I noticed little pockets of intense flavor where spruce or labrador tea had mingled with the berry flavor.  It was unexpected and took me aback, but on second thought I rather liked it.
So this time, in preparing the sauce, I intentionally left the leaves and needles in and let the sauce simmer for longer than usual in an attempt to infuse.  It sorta worked.  I'm looking forward to trying again and actually ADDING some of both flavorings, picked in the woods on purpose.  I mean, the flavor was a leeetle bit there, but certainly not enough to hold its own in the meal.  To further the whole woodland sauce concept, I sweetened the sauce with a splash of birch syrup instead of the spoonful of sugar I usually use.

As for the meal as a whole it is (mostly) out of "Sundays at Moosewood," Moosewood Restaurant's ethnic cookbook.  It is definately a favorite kitchen tool and inspiration of mine, as evidenced by the way it beginning to fall apart and the number of bookmarks and notes stuck into it.  It has sections on the ethnic/regional food of various areas : Morroco,  Northern Britain, India, Japan, Southeast US, Northeast US, Hebrew, Bulgarian or Yugoslav, etc etc.  One of my recent favorites is the section on Finland.  I don't know why the idea didn't strike me earlier in my life here in Alaska, but it makes so much sense to look to Scandinavian cultures for traditional food-ways that are compatible with life here in the far north: the climate, the growing season, some of the wild species, the need for winter storage, etc are all so very similar.  It only makes sense their food would resonate here too.  This is an adaptation of traditional carrot pancakes that I gather are usually prepared more like latkes.  Here they're baked in cast iron.  I don't follow the recipe anymore, I've made it so many times, and such things are relative... but I'll tell you how I do it.  For a precise recipe to follow, I cannot recommend "Sundays at Moosewood" enough!

Saute a diced onion in oil or fat (I like to use bacon grease when I have it) in a cast iron pan.
Shred about 5 carrots into a bowl.
Crumble a half cup or more of bread crumbs into the bowl.  If you don't have dried stale bread, dice a slice of whole wheat or sourdough bread.
In another bowl whisk together 5ish eggs and some milk.  Maybe almost a cup?
Whisk in thyme and nutmeg (1/2 -1 teaspoon ish?) and salt and pepper to taste.
Whisk in a half cup of flour.  I use whole wheat.  You could use rye or white or buckwheat.

Mix thoroughly the bread crumbs, carrots and onions in the first bowl.  Then add the egg mixture and toss or mix till thoroughly coated.  Scoop it all back into the cast iron pan (it should be all greasy from sauteing the onions), and bake at 350 ish for about half an hour.  When its done, it'll be a little puffy and golden on the top.  If you take it out too soon and its still goopy when you cut into it, just put it back in for a bit.  I sometimes overcook it, which just means there's a too-brown crust on the cast iron that is sometimes a pain to scrub out, but that the dog likes to eat.

Serve with lingonberry sauce and cultured sour cream (yoghurt would probably be good too).  The eggs and the sour cream are enough protein, but if you really want a winter-warmer style meal, it would be good with bacon, divine with sausage, and would hold up to left over roast or chicken. Wine, beer, and water are all good accompaniments.   Tea too, I'd imagine. Or apple juice.  I look forward to a lifetime of serving this meal to my family on a regular basis, I anticipate it being a weekly meal that my kids will know intimately.  Its healthy (and lingonberries are Vitamin C powerhouses!), easy, quick, AND best of all, can be made almost entirely from ingredients that I anticipate making or growing on this here homestead of ours.  Carrots and onions? Yessirree! They store well for winter too!  Bacon grease or butter? you bet!  Egss. Milk.  Bread.  Granted the wheat flour for both the pancake and the bread will likely be from off-homestead.   And there's always spices.  I will always import spices.

Only in Alaska...

The Darlin'Man picked up some literature from the Cooperative Extension the other day - little booklets and couple page handouts talking about various aspects of sub-arctic agriculture and etc.  I'd read a few of them already, a few were new to me and quite good, but the one I wanted to share is this:

"The Cock-a-Doodle Dos & Don'ts about Raising and Wintering CHICKENS in Rural Alaska"

It goes through such sub sections as "The Coop Setup" "Basic Equipment" "Flying the Coop" and "Reccommended Breeds of Layers for Interior Alaska."  Some good info about insulation and heat lamps.

And then, Oh priceless then!

In the section "Roosters Need not Apply" that basically walks through the pros and cons of including a rooster in your flock, it says....

"Harmony: Chickens are very social birds with strict heirarchy - much like sled dogs.  A balanced flock has at least one rooster, once dominant hen, and several other hens."  All very true, I'm sure.  But really, only in Alaska would you ever explain chickens in terms of a sled dog team.