Times are a changin’ in Southcentral Alaska. April Fools’ Day, no joke, won’t happen again for another 300-some odd days. The sun shines long enough to make me miss my bedtime already and the Glenn is dotted with lovely looking mounds of trash. Remember, if you ski out to Portage Glacier on a bluebird afternoon in April, please wear sunscreen.

Yes, it seem to be that time. The trees are budding with green and we are in the midst of waiting for the glory of summer in Alaska. And what a better way to pass the time during the end of Breakup than to eat something fresh, colorful, and unique. May I present, last harvest’s rhubarb!

Rhubarb really is quite diverse. It resembles a pinkish celery stalk. It bakes into pies. The leaves are toxic for human consumption. In the garden it has two faces- a vegetable, perceived as a fruit. In the front yard, it blends in as random greenery (“what’s up edible yard?”). In Latin terms, it is the ‘root of the barbarians’. The Chinese grew it and the Romans thought the Chinese were barbaric, simple as that. The plant was used medicinally throughout the ages and apparently there is even a movie named after it. Rhubarb: The Millionaire Cat. The plot speaks of rich people and baseball teams and no, I have not seen it although maybe I should. Any takers?

In Alaska, rhubarb is one of the crops that grows with a pretty high success rate. The yield is excellent, it is a perennial- that means it grows every year-, and harvesting the stalks is absolutely satisfying. After grabbing hold of one down near the root, pull up gently whilst twisting. The stalk comes right out, clean and ready for consumption. Some people pull a shaker of salt out of their pocket at this moment, cover the stalk, and chomp the entire thing. The root area should look a bit like a spoon made out of soft, white meat. Again, don’t eat the toxic leaf (beware of the oxalic acid), and make sure to follow a rhubarb-growing guide. The plant is very easy to harvest, produces season-long, and requires no maintenance, but in order to ensure that it becomes healthy and abundant there a few practices one should look into as you nuture it into an adult.

Frozen treats, such as cranberries, watermelon berries, crowberries, blueberries, and rhubarb, have kept my winter culinary expeditions lively, sweet, and tart. Rhubarb is a nostalgic food for me; my mother made rhubarb sauce, which is very similar to apple sauce, and rhubarb pie countless times throughout my childhood. I always thought that people who made rhubarb strawberry pie instead were weak, as they couldn’t handle the taste of rhubarb on its own. Unless sugar is added, rhubarb can be torturous in my opinion. Picture all of the enamel violently stripped from your teeth, ouch. Yet, in all honestly, rhubarb is just charming. A fun Plain Jane plant with a lot to offer the palate.  If you have a bag of chopped rhubarb stalks in your freezer, you already know the pleasure of whipping up a rhubarb coffeecake. If you don’t, I propose you cut and paste some rhubarb into your yard this spring and watch the magic unfold. If your housing situation does not allow you to grow your own food on location, but you do have transportation, check out Pyrah’s Pioneer Peak Farm in Palmer. For $1.50 per pound you can do one of the most wonderful activities that exists in this world: Pick-Your-Own! They accept cash, credit, WIC, and Senior coupons as payment.

Either way, when the kitchen counter is clear and the taste buds await the kiss that turns winter into Breakup and Breakup into our beloved summer, celebrate your rhubarb. When I party with it, who knows what will happen?

Rhubarb Leather: You need a dehydrator. Cook rhubarb stalk chunks with water and sugar. Add something strange, like fresh shaved nutmeg. Pour the mixture onto parchment paper and lay on dehydrator screen. Follow dehydrator directions and let the machine pull all of the water out, leaving you with a chewy, sour, scrumptious hiking/camping snack.

Rhubarb-Blueberry-Cayenne Compote: Throw 1 bag of frozen or fresh rhubarb and a few cups of your Alaskan blueberries into a pot. Turn the heat to medium and make sure the bottom doesn’t burn. After the contents start to melt there will be plenty of water. Add brown sugar to taste and a few dashes of cayenne, maybe a pinch of salt too. Heat until nice and gooey and serve on yogurt, ice cream, pancakes, oatmeal, bread and cheese, even meat, etc. or be brave and eat it plain.

Baked Rhubarb Desserts: Following your favorite baked good recipe, just throw some fresh or frozen rhubarb into the batter. You can also use a dehydrator to dry small pieces of rhubarb and those too can be thrown into batter. My favorite, in addition to rhubarb pie, is rhubarb crowberry coffeecake. For crowberries, just head into your backyard of the Chugach mountains late summer into fall for some picking.

Rhubarb Juice and Rhubeena-in-a-Rhubarbarita: Yes, a rhubarbarita is a rhubarb-flavored margarita. Cook chopped up rhubarb in a pot with a few cups of water. When the juice is good and pink and strong, strain the liquid out. This rhubarb juice is called rhubeena. Add some sugar perhaps. Then to make the rhubarbarita,  follow an excellent margarita recipe and just add the rhubeena to taste. Yum! Hello midnight sunset! Courtesy of hungrytigress.com and localkitchenblog.com.

As the end of winter draws near I open the chest freezer to find it mostly empty. It is a sight that stirs both sadness due to a diminished food stash and excited anticipation for how to best fill it again in these imminent summer months. A freezer full of locally grown and wild harvested food is no small task. With March here, it is time to start blocking out the weekends to ensure that we are in the right place at the right time for the many seasonal wild foods available in Alaska. Without a successful hunt last fall, a major staple in my kitchen this winter has been the Copper River salmon caught dip netting last summer. 17 hours, 90 fish, and 3 freezers filled for the winter. My father and I met in Chitna mid-July at the peak of the red run. Fishing out of that region holds an appeal not only because of the fish -Copper River salmon is the best in the world- but also the fact that it brings me to the original fishing grounds of my ancestors. To engage with this ancient tradition of the fish harvest speaks to so many levels of my being and my relations. After a 36 hour round trip ‘suicide run’, my father and I returned to Fairbanks to join the awaiting family with our newly acquired bounty. The following morning I found myself a part of a processing chain; cleaning, fileting, wrapping, and ‘putting on ice’ is a family affair when faced with the task of turning 90 fish into 180 filets.

For a household of two, 60 filets is a hefty amount of fish, and with a market price of $10 a filet it’s significant savings as well. With 52 weeks in a year, after sharing the filets with family we were still left with just under one filet a week and the many salmon spines we saved. While there are many delicious, elaborate, and fancy recipes out there, this winter I consistently tried to accomplish three things. When I prepared the salmon I wanted the recipe to be easy and intuitive, to taste the fish, and a quick preparation time. That said, I never used an established recipe, or measured quantities, but below are some of the combinations.

If using salmon spines, 4 spines roughly equate to one filet worth of meat. Prepare the spines by boiling them. After the meat is tender and flakes off the bones, remove them from the water. Once the spines have cooled enough to handle, remove meat from bones and use in desired recipe. This flaked meat is good for recipes that don’t require a whole filet, such as salmon dips, chowders, and cakes.

Yummy, messy skillet salmon chowder.

Asian Zest

Ginger

Soy Sauce

Garlic

Mustard powder

Sesame Seeds

Blend all ingredients, except for sesame seeds, until well combined; pour half of sauce over salmon. Sprinkle on whole sesame seeds. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes, the pour second half of sauce on salmon. Bake another 4-8 minutes depending on size/thickness of filet (fish keeps cooking after it’s out of the oven).

Note: This was the foundation for many variations. The addition of other ingredients, such as cilantro, cayenne, maple syrup, and honey, adds to the dish depending on what it is being paired with.

Lemon Fresh

Capers

Dill

Lemon Juice

Salted Butter

Pour lemon juice and spread capers evenly onto filet. Cube butter and place on filet (helps keep salmon from becoming dry and adds some salt, but is not necessary). Bake at 350 for 12-16 minutes depending on size/thickness of filet (fish keeps cooking after it’s out of the oven). Chop dill finely and add once filet is out of the oven.

Salmon Dip

Salt and pepper

Lemon juice

Onion

Liquid smoke

Cream cheese

Cooked flaked salmon

Combine all ingredients in a food processor, blend, and serve with crudité and bread or crackers.

With a gift certificate in hand, I head out to peruse the designer racks at an Anchorage boutique. It’s the peak and prime of the fall season in the city. Taking a moment of time to stroll the downtown area beckoned me to appreciate the beauty of this particular Saturday from an urban perspective; I typically prefer to venture into the wild with a backpack, a bottle of wanderlust and basic survival gear. Back on the sidewalk, a crisp wind kisses my cheeks, nose and mitten-covered hands, stirs through my curly tresses and finally charges my spirit with a sense of New England nostalgia. Nostalgic but happy and content to be experiencing my most favorite season of all in a new state. As a co-worker recently wrote, not a month is as fat as September. Comfort foods start to make a common appearance at the dinner table as cold bouts of elongated nighttime skies roll around. However, this co-worker of mine, he was referring not to calories but to the abundance of food- both plants and animals- ready for harvest, the sustenance of life up here in the Great North. In the Last Frontier we know that hibernation during months of subzero temperatures and daylong darkness is just a phase of life; it comes every year. But yet we are still human and find ourselves craving color amidst the whiteness of frosted spruce tips and deep snow drifts. For me, this color is the presence of good, hearty, healthy, nourishing food.  With a creative mind and a few kitchen tools, I put together edible pieces of art, history and science that invite the attendance of all five senses and an encore of delicious applause. Although I miss the rolling hills of small organic farms in Massachusetts, farmers picking bushels of late legumes, orchards pressing cider from the fruits of their labor and a ground laden with purple, red and orange maple leaves, autumn in Alaska is also spectacular. The leaves still transform and paint a new landscape; one can still buy a pumpkin spice latte; the air still sneaks up on you, reminding that it’s chilly outside even when the sun is shining. A Saturday in the city during the best time of year turns out to be quite the joyous occasion.

Winter waves a brief hello and the hills wear a changing color.

I feel most like my true self when fall hits. The colors, the settling down, the coziness, all wrapping around your life like that perfectly comfortable wool sweater you excitedly anticipate pulling out of a winter-clothing box. I remember this as I look for a new pair of jeans, gift certificate still in hand. September began with berry picking and ended with berry processing. I headed out north into Alaska’s pristine wilderness up the Glenn Highway with family and friends over Labor Day weekend. Prepared to pick berries, or at least hoping to find a few here and there, I made sure a big bucket was stowed in the back of the vehicle in case I was to return to Anchorage with a ripe, tart bounty. The weekend was heart-wrenchingly glorious- beautiful, sunny, fresh, one for the books. On a mid-afternoon canoe trip I spotted two swans, warm bodies of immaculate white feathers roaming the lake in proud strokes, taking in their panoramic scenery. There were moose, bear and wolf tracks along the river bank and kids running around the cabin playing with rusted toy trucks. I sat in an old steam house and allowed the tension of the work week to leave my mind through beads of sweat.  With every splash of water on the fire-soaked stones came a calming sizzle that would take over any conversation being had. We paused to let the moist air warm our skin and open our lungs.

This old steam house is a treasure for relaxation after a day of berry picking.

Born and raised on the East Coast, moving to Alaska resembled the act of prepping vegetables. I shed insecurities, pretentiousness, conservative social habits- characters of life I never even realized existed in my liberal bubble of Western Massachusetts. Like peeling a carrot, an onion, an artichoke, a potato, (even a grape if you enjoy the appeal of slime), something so natural began to emerge from beneath the dirt, the shell, the protection. As the holidays approach and snow settles across the land, expressing my gratefulness and thankfulness for all that I have been through and all that I have learned is of sure importance. I am a food lover, from foreign spices to contemporary culinary crazes, from dense wormy soil to guilty sweet treats, and the winter season, although typically void of green growth, is a time when food is celebrated, cherished and shared.  Perhaps this is why I stumbled upon acres of berries. In every direction my eyes could take me there were cranberries, dark, bright, bursting with a readiness for their flavors to be enjoyed. Wild harvesting became my main activity, filling the bucket as quickly as fingers can manage. I took off on my own for a couple hours each day, plopped down on a soft piece of tundra and ended up with 5 gallons of ripe low-bush cranberries by Sunday morning. I pictured village members, ancestors, squatting to pick from the same plants years ago and realized that no one ever planted these cranberries. The earth takes care of them and no human intervention is required for their success. How strange, how refreshing, that in this populated, structured world some things just take care of themselves without us. I was immersed in natural bounty- the food of the earth, the animals and the people; for that immersion I am grateful; for that feeling of gratefulness I am thankful.

I encourage everyone to take a few moments this season to think about the abundance that is present in their lives, whatever it may be, about where they are and what they are doing when they feel most like their true self, and finally, to reflect on the idea that it is all connected. This week I will enjoy cooking up a batch of my frozen berries to share with family and friends for the holiday. Over Labor Day weekend, as I willingly wild harvested, my partner took off in a camouflage baseball hat with a rifle on his back. As quiet and in tune with his surroundings as he is, he came out of his first moose hunting adventure empty-handed. The animals seemed to be following him instead, a humor of the natural world that we gladly accepted in exchange for Thanksgiving cranberry sauce.

***

Gift certificate still in hand, I mosey around the boutique, looking for a perfect pair of replacement jeans.  A weekend of cranberry picking left a few too many purple and red stains on the backside.

Happy Holidays, happy thinking and most of all, happy eating!

Local beef, garden potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, mulled mead and fall leaves.

Wild Alaskan Low-Bush Cranberry Sauce for the Holidays

What you need:

• ·         For a nice sized bowl of sauce, 4 cups of cranberries
• ·         A cup or so of water or juice so the berries don’t burn
• ·         A pot, stove and mixing utensil
• ·         Sweetener to taste and fun additional flavorings
• ·         Hungry tummy

Mix the cranberries and the water/juice in the pot and set over a medium heat. Stir frequently and make sure that the berries are not burning on the bottom of the pot. The longer the berries cook the more jam-like they will become. I like a good thick sauce and therefore let the cranberries cook for about half an hour, or until all the extra water has evaporated out. The berries will start to pop and mush together, a lovely swirl of autumn fragrance in the kitchen air. When the berries reach your desired consistency, the cooking is complete. Cranberry sauce is very easy to make, full of antioxidants and amazingly strong in taste. The berries are also an easy ingredient to be creative with; try adding some of the following flavor mixes into your sauce-

• ·         Honey and fresh rosemary (honey produces a runnier sauce because it is a dense sweetener and it does not gel the fruit as nicely as sugar does due to a difference in reaction with the natural pectin).
• ·         Brown sugar, 3 cloves, a few chunks of fresh ginger and an apple or pear chopped into small pieces (sugar will make sauce more jam-like).
• ·         Maple syrup and a whole orange, peel included, chopped into small pieces, a dash of cinnamon.
• ·         A substantial amount of ground cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon and clove (plus brown sugar as the sweetener) results in a subtle but distinct chai-flavor. If you enjoy looking for needles in haystacks, throw whole cardamom pods and cloves into the sauce and fish them out when the cooking is suffice. Using whole nutmegs and a small grater also provides for better aromatic and taste bud properties.

Voila! Enjoy the sauce with local cheese, spread over artisan bread or as a glaze on your favorite dinner meat. To preserve the cranberry concoctions for the long haul, check out the canning directions and safety tips from University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extensive Services. The recipe above will last for a little while in the refrigerator, about a week; to ‘put up’ the sauce, or preserve it like the jam and jelly found in grocery stores, food products must be processed in a hot water bath or a pressure cooker to kill potential harmful bacteria.

http://www.uaf.edu/ces/preservingalaskasbounty/index.html