I'm writing by candlelight primarily for the ambiance as the sun is still coming through my screen door at 10pm. Yesterday we moved into our tents, and I've got a pretty nice setup with my bedside table doubling as a desk (I have a milk-crate-cushion chair). We painted our ceilings white to help brighten things up, and with canvas wells and east- and west-facing windows I'm catching a good deal of our twenty or so hours of daylight.
For two weeks we've been collecting brush, splitting logs, shoveling gravel from the beach onto pathways, cleaning, organizing, and otherwise preparing the Kenai Backcountry Lodge for summer guests. We are on a remote bit of Skilak Lake, a short boat ride or loooooong paddle from the road system. Food and propane and replacement axes come in, trash and used toilet paper and thoroughly-danced-out leisure suits go out.* We have solar panels, a generator, a couple wood stoves, and filter our water from a creek.
*Costumes are encouraged on many occasions, especially staff dance parties.
Today was my first full day in the kitchen, for a mock (run-through) dinner. Ahem, friends: did you know that it has been EIGHT years since I was in culinary school and worked in fine dining? That inventive garnishes and conceptual flourishes -- if they ever remotely took hold in my repertoire -- have utterly atrophied during my subsequent tour of industrial kitchens and humble cafes? And now they want me to plate four courses. And now my kitchen boss is making savory agar-agar jelly pearls for his Japanese molecular gastronomy. Shit, man. So I tried to play to my strengths and made a bunch of Italian food. Runny polenta, you have carried me through yet another challenging situation. And thank you April Bloomfield for acquainting me with how wonderful and useful fried rosemary is.
