Nice Kitchen Boys*

end of a damp damp trail

low tide island in Turnagain Arm

I’m, like, pretty okay at cooking.  I can reliably make a diverse array of dishes that taste good and range in appearance from not awful to actually appealing.  I also have a healthy sense of humility (bordering on devaluation) about my abilities.  Luckily, I have crossed paths with some thoughtful, diplomatic cooks who helped affirm and grow my skills.

A memorable kindness from my fancy restaurant days was my favorite sous chef overlooking that I called him by the wrong name half the time after he warmly greeted me at the start of each shift.  (In my defense, John and Paul, the charcuterie guy, looked alike, were both friendly, and my mnemonic device of “he’s a member of the Beatles” got me nowhere.)  Feeling he was genuinely glad to have me there somehow made the gougeres bake better.  Also at this restaurant, without being a bit patronizing, my favorite line cook taught me the proper and most efficient way to sweep the insanely busy and crowded service kitchen during dinner.  Resetting after each rush is a practical necessity as well as a mental form of cleaning house, to clear out the past and go on with what’s next.  Yet another good soul there told funny stories and helped me improve my atrophying knife skills while scoring, blanching, and peeling the 500 pounds of tomatoes we processed into petals.  He was able to draw me out from shy servility and I came up with a time-saving organizational scheme.

When I turned up in Antarctica with precious little line cooking experience, my trainer friend cooked all the breakfast eggs to order while I stood frozen in terror beside him at the giant griddle.  He invited me several times to “just jump on in whenever,” and remained chipper and patient while I neglected to do so for the entire three hours.  In fits and starts I wobbled through the next day, and he praised me as though I had done him a huge favor.  After a couple weeks I could run the whole show myself (and hungover).  I try to remember from this that ignorance and naïveté can just be temporary.

This summer I have the pleasure and occasional inner unworthy-squirminess of working with two cooks both incredibly talented and pathologically nonchalant about myriad challenges and mishaps.  They accept and manage my errors of judgment and execution without batting an eye, and collegially share suggestions and solutions.

This isn’t supposed to be all humble-aw-shucks.  What I want to get at is the good faith/optimism/encouragement that some people emit, like sun beams that we can turn and face like a flower seeking photons in order to unfurl.  Many thanks.

*All of these examples happen to be guys.  I’ve efinitely been graced by more than my fair share of kind and generous kitchen gals as well.  Especially dear Lisas.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

near our campsite

the high road to Seward

fireweed showing off

It feels kind of cliche, but I guess I’m going to write about some of my feelings in conjunction with Lost Lake.  Because sometimes the universe is trying to tell you something, and the universe is not always subtle.

As I grope along this odd path I think I’m on, through the physical and psychological wilderness, from time to time I’ll spot a nice sunny meadow in the distance.  My step quickens, my eyes lock onto that destination, and my muscles and willpower set to.

What is it like to reach Lost Lake?  It’s an idyllic respite hidden in the mountains—you’ve happened upon a spot “lost” from the modern world, from spoilation, from lazy and prying and jaded eyes.  One could disappear up into the snowy peaks surrounding it, or beneath its cool blue waters.  You could cast your memories and hopes, like so many skipping stones, turning them over in your hand before releasing them, irretrievably, into its depths.  Lost Lake conjures the idea of the long swim that makes up each life, crawling and pulling, breath after breath, mile after mile, day after day, ever tiring yet hesitant to reach that other shore.

Ahem.  So I hiked to Lost Lake with some lovely friends who made sure I didn’t get lost.  We camped on a sunny meadow, overlooking the lake.  We suffered scores of pestering flies and mosquitoes to make maybe the best ever macaroni and cheese, and then piled into one tent to joke and fart and laugh, and then nod off to the soothing narration of yours truly reading from a book of Alaskan natural history

Play It Cool

At first we thought Jerome was messing with us so we would speed up, 

but there really was a baby goat!

In other news, the dirt track in Kenai is amaaaaazing fun.

Now this is more like it—cool and rainy.  I’ve pulled a fleece on over my sweatshirt here in the tent.  Layer upon layer of cozy protection is what I want, twelve months of the year.

My parents are great parents, don’t misconstrue the following anecdote.  We usually kept the thermostat at a cool 68 degrees in winter, which lasts five months in northern Michigan.  My room was at the northwest corner of the house (read: the coldest part), and by the time the furnace air reached my room it was lukewarm at best.  My complaints of cold toes were many times met with the rejoinder, “Well of course, you’re only wearing one pair of socks!”  

When December rolled around during college in New York City, I’d wear two sweaters, like you do.  Actually, it turns out, like no one does; you could practically hear the record scratch as people openly gaped while I peeled off coat, then sweater, then sweater in a steamy bar.

When Matt and I bought our house, exciting new avenues of frugality opened up.  Leaving it at 45 degrees was just a hair too low to keep the lesser bathroom pipes from freezing, unfortunately.  It also meant two sweatshirts and thermals before diving under the ice-cold bedding, carefully tucking the down comforter all around without even a hole for your nose.  The olive oil solidified in the kitchen cabinet, and since it was silly to heat the whole water tank just for the weekend, we’d boil some on the stove to wash dishes.

This is not to say that I like being cold.  Rather, I understand and appreciate it, and can work with it.  Wear a third jacket; eat some chocolate; run around; breath in deep and think about its quieting effect.

Yesterday I hiked up Mt. Cecil with friends, a classic pointy peak just across the street, a familiar feature we look upon every day.  There are still some patches of snow near the top.  I sweat buckets up the steep path but above the treeline we had a bit of rain accompanied by gusting winds blowing ethereal clouds of fog.  On the jagged shale summit perched a family of mountain goats, the baby eagerly hopping and galloping about.  We noticed hunks of shed fur clinging to sharp-edged rocks, whether trading their coats for lighter or heavier ones, we weren’t sure.  The three of us huddled above, double-coated and hooded, and the goats clambered down a bit to huddle below.

Spruce Moose

hazy Martian sunset

skies clearing a bit at Lost Lake

You know how delicious moose tracks ice cream is?  It’s so satisfying mining those surprise veins of fudge, crunching on the ‘lil peanut butter cups, the salty-sweet combo melting around the edges as you devour bowl fulls.  Actual moose tracks in the mud are pretty neat, too, shockingly large dinosaur-deer hooves, prints that pique the imagination.  Witnessing their making, however, is rather alarming: before your very eyes, 10,000 pounds* of sinewy muscle, deployed with the agility and speed more commonly associated with pumas or sharks, press those angled toes into the ground.  (*Okay, more like 1,000 pounds.)  There is a particular fellow (gentleman moose?) (bulls are extra intimidating) who frequents the bog alongside our property.  There is a gravel path next to the highway that we use to travel between base camp and additional tent city housing.  Mr. Antlers greatly appreciates the ease of movement afforded by this path, the better to nibble on grasses.  I hadn’t seen him for some weeks when, about midnight, a companion and I chanced upon him in the dusky gloom.  Without meaning to be rude, he made it clear that he wished to occupy the path undisturbed, and we were only too eager to oblige.  The distance across the highway, however, proved inadequate to soothe his wary distemper, and so we prudently retreated to formulate an alternative campaign.  Each passing vehicle caused Mr. Antlers to nervously toss his head, like a horse but with a giant bone-chandelier-cudgel.  There was no choice but to appeal to our species’ superior technology.  I flashed my brightest smile and hailed the next car, and explained our predicament to the two confused fisherman within.  That fifty yards was short ride, but just as life-affirming a hitch as any I’ve ever landed.

Mr. Antlers (or an associate, perhaps) still felt a lot of consternation that evening, and trumpeted or roared or moo-ed or whatever, back and forth with a cohort, in the pre-dawn.  It was an arresting sound, reverberating through the night air, that animal bellow of simultaneous aggression and defensiveness.

I could tell you about our 4th of July In-Depends-Dance party wherein we donned adult diapers and drank ham-aritas in a clearing in the woods, but it’s really fun writing about moose encounters.  The other day I walked several miles to the big bridge and back, and just as I approached said bog, I heard strident splashes.  I hustled to a break in the trees and—quick!—peered down the slope to spy Mr. Antlers clomping around his backyard pool, squelching his hooves in the muck and snacking aimlessly before meandering back behind the spruces.  None of the cat-calling SUV idiots or doughy RV tourists had any idea what a kingly creature they motored by.

Spittin’

We had to stop in Soldotna to ride this homemade Alaskan animal carousel.

Walkin’ and spittin’

Some super solid bread, for sure

We’ve been here almost two months and the tighknit nature of our community is starting to grate on some people.  You wait in line with a plate for dinner; you hope no one “borrows” your personal shampoo in the showers; you find yourself socially exhausted because there’s always a friendly face around — ten of them in fact, asking how your day was but they already know because they heard about the bear you saw or the fish you caught from someone else already.  Yes, there are actual millions of acres of forest and mountains to retreat into, but our tents are six feet apart and no one can hide who they’re sleeping with.  And we’re all pretty supportive and team-oriented, but of course there are spheres of influence and power, favor to bestow and future jobs to angle for.  

You would never think it, but some of the best possible preparation for remote seasonal work is a) living in a densely-populated urban center, and b) the behind-the-scenes ego, gossip, and plundering at a church.  When people here get exasperated about the lack of personal space I think fondly/glad-it’s-over of the 12’ X 15’ office Matt and I illegally lived in, toting drinking water up two flights of stairs, showering at the gym, and wedging myself in and out of subway cars every stop for other people to enter and exit because it was packed so full.  And while it’s regrettable that seasonal jobs end up employing people who embellished their resume or aren’t the brightest bulbs, I’ll take them any day over a spiritually bankrupt, money-grubbing, selfish, sexist, piece of shit liar of a minister and boss.  (According to Dante, your special place in hell is a ditch full of vengeful reptiles whose ceaseless biting disfigures you and causes you to repeatedly spontaneously combust, Greg.)

Even the dense forest fire smoke is like so much city bus exhaust.  I’m glad neither really bother me, but I’m slightly concerned by my high tolerance.  Ok, ok, I digress.  All of this adds up to four of us hightailing it to Homer for a day and night.  Even allowing for Alaska’s excessive beauty, Homer hit a home run (one might say, a homer).  Mountains and glaciers meeting the sea in a quaint-sized town with a three-mile spit of sand to walk out on and enjoy gelato!  And an idyllic farm-campground just far enough out in the country, with charming paths through wildflowers and seashell-driftwood cabins!  Not to mention the first haze-free sky we’d seen in three weeks.  Alright, I do relish my own stretch of beach with sun-sparkled waves, fresh salt breeze, and nature’s good news unfiltered through words yet communicated crystal clear.