The Food

Some, uh, interesting plates have gone out on my dinner nights.  If you ever wanted to be transported to a mid-90s Better Homes & Gardens dinner party that is either Brought to You By the Color Mauve or subtly revealing of a personality disorder, welcome, sit right down.  It will all taste good (really!) -- even if I awkwardly describe the salad as being tossed with homemade pickle-liquid dressing.  Somehow, duck night is so very purple: cherry-red-wine sauce, cabbage or roasted cauliflower, fingerling potatoes...some force swallows light frequencies throughout the visible spectrum, leaving only shades of violet.  "Middleterranean" night is vibrant yet dingy (perhaps an irrepressible manifestation of the region's sociopolitics?) with chalky tapenade and flecks of spice all over.  Italian night is a brilliant frenzy of color, culminating in a dessert composed with fine-dining precision.

Are things too brown, too beige?  Sprinkle some paprika.  Yes, even on chocolate cake.  All the eggplant mushy and discolored?  Roast or grill the shit out of it, saving the skin to chop into tiny squares you can caramelize and sprinkle like confetti.  Some stuff looks pretty nice.  Thinly-sliced radish makes the salads elegant, and grilled pork tenderloin is just classic.

And then there's breakfast.  Ahhh, my chance to have total order and replicability.  The symmetry of rows of pancakes on platters, the grace and harmony of simple things done well.  Because no garnish or sauce or special treatment can improve upon a pile of crispy bacon.  And for a while, on clear days, that's when the sun shines in the kitchen windows.

I derive an inordinate amount of happiness from this lemon tart + shortbread cookie + lemon curd + brie.

EAT YOUR COLORS

It's a good thing.

The Wind in the Alders

I'm not usually one for "doing the voices" -- maybe a bit higher or lower tone depending on age and sex, clipped and precise or drawling.  I'm sure my nephew would enjoy goofier interpretations when I read to him, and luckily the characters were vivid enough on their own when Matt and I read to each other.  But of late I've been inspired by two of my day-off buddies to amp things up a bit.  Their creative accents and tones so bring to life "The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place" and "Skunk and Badger" that I'm following suit. From within a tent we put on quite a performance for anyone in the vicinity of Kayak Beach on Kachemak Bay the other night.

We started reading aloud a couple weeks ago when, after dinner dishes and work was done but it was a bit early for bed, several of us gathered of an evening.  This past weekend we had extra days off, and three of us journeyed in storybook fashion to a storybook land: a boat ride, a short drive, a long drive, another boat ride, to Grace Ridge trailhead at the far end of a fjord, in misty, densely wooded mountains.  Past towering stands of devil's club and cow's parsnip; along a steep and muddy path; traversing a land now lush with ferns, now low mossy tundra; filling the air with varied cries to warn bears of our presence as we encountered alarmingly frequent and fresh piles of poop; we ascended to a hollow just shy of the summit and set up camp among the clouds.

It was very beautiful.  Some patches of snow provided drinking water, and intermittent rain didn't stop my stove kicking out good meals.  The next morning began with heavy fog down below which rolled up to sock us in with uncanny gauze.  It wasn't quite to the level of imminent danger, but our perspective and sense of time were utterly suspended as we wound our way down, seeing only a hundred feet or so ahead.

And like Rat and Mole after an Edwardian adventure, I'm back in my cozy den, washed up and well fed, curling under heavy blankets to be rested for the next chapter with my fellow creatures.

Dramatic foreshadowing...

Not quite its thickest, but you get the idea.

view upon arrival

On Hats

One of my earliest memories is being 3 or 4, riding in mom's Datsun in winter, with my knit hat on.  It was scratchy against my forehead and pressed my ears against my head, muffling my hearing.  As snow melted in the car's warmth, little spheres of water beaded along the hat's edge and tiny rainbows fringed my view.  I enjoyed this effect; but I did not like hats.  As a perspire-acious person, a warm person, an itchy person, a self-conscious and not naturally fashionable person, hats have always been a source of compound discomfort.

Ok, I guess the pictures are going here this time.  The wild roses are still going strong.

Yep.

A wonderful little beach to pull off on.

Among the many joys of my current job is not wearing a hat in the kitchen.  Our mixer might not always get full power, I might pause with floury hands to clap the life out of a dozen mosquitoes, but I'm not getting forehead rash from a sweaty cap.

But I have to concede there is one activity for which I willingly don a brim.  Kayaking along our shore, east and west in the near-endless afternoon, I more thoroughly enjoy the craggy curving coast and boundless forests when I can minimize squinting.  I was also pleased to find during yesterday's rain that my hat bill protrudes enough to keep my hood up and my glasses mostly dry.  I felt like a huge dork, and the loons were surprised enough by my sartorial choices to stare back at me for some minutes before diving, perhaps to chortle over the awkwardly maneuvering paddle-creature.

Cooking with Gas

Our stove (most of the time) is one tough motherfucker.  Four giant burners nearly incapable of being set to simmer low, a bit of flattop griddle, a shelf that supports a couple gallon water kettles, and an oven that will bake both shelves full of food.  The caveat is, the oven seems to run between 50-100 degrees low (we're waiting for a thermometer...each day is a surprise!), and the door requires a carefully-tuned balancing act: ax heads weigh it down so it doesn't snap shut.  (This is a huge improvement over the bungee cord that used to prevent it from easing open.)  We get along most of the time, but last week she let me down over and over, to the tune of me making four desserts one night to have anything worth serving.  But she's got decades of service more than me, so I'm trying to absorb some of the wisdom that comes with (r)age.

Most mornings I walk out to the sloping rock face at the far end of the beach, to look out over the lake and across to the mountains, and enjoy the the varying shades of Listerine the sunlight brings out in the water. Strong winds whip up chop and the waves wash the gravel shore; milder ripples reflect the sun's rays onto the leafy trees like a slowly undulating barbershop pole; calm days feel primordial, as though the lake has been and will be exactly so, for time without end.  But of course everything changes, and each day is new.

shifty weather coming in

this week's new flower

The Road to Mirth-dom

Wow, so, hold on -- I just sat to start writing and something amazing happened.  I was going to describe our solstice celebration/mosquito-killing-voodoo, and as I took a moment to watch my flickering candle, a mosquito was drawn to it, foundered in and ultimately succumbed to molten wax.  (Oh the symbolism!)  The gods have been appeased by our sacrifice!

Ok, let me back up: a couple nights ago, several of us walked through the woods, processed across a log bridge with lit candles, built a fire on the beach, and burned a dozen or so mosquito carcasses collected from the common area.  We plead for relief from the blood-sucking demons, marked the passage of the sun's annual zenith, and threw in some scraps of paper scrawled with our hopes-to-be-manifested for good measure.

I also happened to see my first fireweed blossom of the summer on the solstice.  The magenta beauties are popping along with wild pink roses, little droopy bells of the low cranberry bush, starry white buds, and other colorful members of the flower parade.

The parade of guest dietary restrictions is also shifting into top gear.  This week's menu will simultaneously accommodate gluten-free, vegan, green-avoidant, no-foods-starting-with-"R," and zebratarian requirements.  We'll start with dried out spinach, an appetizer of salted water, then a savory oatmeal steak with soybean purée, and finish it all with a bowl of unsweetened cocoa powder you dip your tongue directly into.

Fireweed!

Rainbow-speckly guy!

The view from across the lake in a breezy mosquito-free zone.

Basic Kneads

One thing I thought I'd have down pat here was bread --after all, I made it every day a couple years ago, and at least once a week this winter.  After some finagling with the mixer, frantic kneading by hand, and giving the oven a good talking to, this week I was able to produce tasty rustic loaves, flatbread, and focaccia.  Bread and dessert are the first tasks of my dinner shifts, and I enjoy devoting my (mostly) undivided and fresh attention to baking before the time crunch of service shifts my actions into triage mode.  

Another happy thing is we are putting together a little newspaper here, with a satirical bent akin to "The Onion."  Writers have been assigned based on subject inexpertise; the advice columnist has received a multitude of questions; comics, the police blotter, classifieds, and foreign bureau reports are accumulating.  

We are also generating buzz for our Solstical Celebration Spectacular.  Plans are still forming, but one thing for sure is we'll burn a large effigy of a mosquito.  Their presence has markedly intensified, and last night I fought swarms off my face as I hastily set up my tent on a gravel beach.  An hour later, the wind gusted strong enough to blow over my tent while I stepped outside, as the stakes had little purchase in said gravel.  It was annoying to move everything behind a tree windbreak, and perpetually slither down my sleeping pad as the new spot sloped steeply, but at least the mosquitoes fucked off.

Calm before the storm, viewed through my tent mesh.

sunny paddle

focaccia with roasted eggplant tapenade and creamy Gorgonzola 

Advanced Retreat

I've made almost enough trips down to the basement to know where most of the food is now.  We have a fairly ingenious storage system given our restricted utilities capacity, making due with a couple freezers that run at night, a few propane-fueled fridges, and a half-dozen coolers fortified with ice packs.  There is enough electricity to run the KitchenAid mixer, though fucking up your chocolate frosting takes a noticeable toll on the battery bank.  Most often the stereo plays at a moderate volume, but once guests depart after breakfast, it's fun to crank up Dead Kennedys to finish washing dishes.

It's hard to say if the lake is really slightly warmer or we're building up our cold-water tolerance.  The level is rising as more mountain snow melts.  I performed my "wet exit" -- turning over and escaping from a kayak -- and can now paddle off on my own (with a radio, don't worry, mom).  Which will be a nice break in my routine of reading in my tent before dinner shifts start.

This weekend is a combination of group travel and accomplishing tasks that in civilization take five minutes but are woefully futile in the backcountry.  Electronically signing a PDF, getting blood drawn, obtaining camp stove fuel, drinking espresso, downloading episodes of a bizarrely entertaining food-obsessed anime series...  Nine of us crammed into an AirBnB condo to accomplish these and other mundane necessities.  But tomorrow we'll redeem things by hiking to a glacier, and I'll return to the sylvan retreat where I strive to make perfect little lemon tarts and crisp-skinned duck breast.

Pretty Great Sunset #1

Pretty Great Sunset #2