one year in Alaska

We celebrated with an old standby, the usual salmon recipe, along with buttered and herbed pasta, green salad and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. The food was delicious, but I was more excited about the dishes we ate it on. For my birthday this past September, my husband arranged to have some pottery made for me to match a set we got from my Aunt Debbie for a wedding present. The pottery arrived last week, and we now have place settings for 5--dinner plate, salad bowl and soup bowl. I love the cool green color, and the variation in each piece that comes with being handmade. All the green pottery you see in the pictures was made by Dick Lang, a ceramic artist in Alfred Station, New York. Thanks so much to him for adding more beauty to our everyday lives! Thanks for the amazing packing job, too...all the pieces made the long trip to Alaska intact.

In other news, I made this coffee ice cream last week. It could almost be called espresso ice cream. The coffee flavor was strong but delicious. As it melted in my bowl, I imagined I was eating the thick, foamy cream off the top of a cappuccino. Mmmm. Next, I think I'll try a basic chocolate ice cream.

the first batch

I am proud to report that I have accomplished two of my resolutions already, and it's not even February yet. I had our pastor over for dinner, and made my first batch of ice cream for dessert that night. The next night I had my cousin Joe and the Judges, a family of 6 from church, over for dessert (we ate the rest of the ice cream). Good thing I had some easy resolutions. :)

I made cinnamon ice cream by tweaking the French vanilla ice cream recipe that was in the booklet that came with my ice cream maker. Here's the recipe. This is a half batch since I don't have a container large enough to store a whole batch in my freezer! Start this the day before, or in the morning if you're planning on making ice cream that evening. Oh, and if you have a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment, make sure it's in the freezer 15 hours before you want to use it.

Heat 1 1/4 cups whole milk (or half and half, if you want the richest experience--I used whole milk) until warm but do not boil. Add one cinnamon stick, broken into a few chunks, and a sprinkle of ground cinnamon (to add some nice specks of color to the ice cream). Cover and keep warm.

In a mixer, beat 4 egg yolks with 1/2 cup sugar until fully mixed. Remove cinnamon stick from milk and pour in a slow stream into mixer. Once fully mixed, return the mixture to the saucepan and heat slowly (I put the cinnamon stick back in at this point). Heat until little bubbles form around the edge, stirring constantly. Do not boil. Transfer mixture to a large bowl (leave the cinnamon stick in). Add 1 1/4 cups of whipping cream, a teaspoon of vanilla and 1/8 teaspoon (or a small pinch) of salt. Mix gently and refrigerate until completely cool (8 hours).

When you're ready to make the ice cream, attach the freeze bowl, dasher and drive assembly to the mixer. Turn to STIR (Speed 1). The machine has to be running before you pour the batter in. Remove the cinnamon stick. Pour the ice cream mixture into the freeze bowl. Continue on STIR for 15-20 minutes or until desired consistency. Immediately transfer ice cream into serving dishes or freeze in an airtight container.

It's hard for me to be patient while the ice cream is churning. I had to check on it every few minutes. Time goes by so slowly when you're waiting for homemade ice cream! It is well worth the wait, though. It melts quickly since it doesn't have any stabilizers, so be prepared for a soupy mess in your bowl if you don't eat it fast enough.

Since we had seven people over for dessert and I had made a small batch of ice cream, there was only enough for each of us to have a little scoop with a brownie. On the way out the door, the seven year old, Noah, said, "Next time, can you make more ice cream?" Yes, I told him, I certainly will. Large freezer containers are on my shopping list.

SADness?

One of the most common questions I get about living in Alaska is, "Isn't it dark there all the time during the winter? How can you stand that?" After answering that question over and over again while we were home for Christmas, I began to think a little bit more about it. I don't consider myself to be a "back to the earth" kind of person, though I would like to be a little bit more. There is very little about my life that changes with the seasons. I get up and go to work five days a week, whether it's light or dark or cold or warm. True, in the winter it's a bit more of a process, but my life doesn't change drastically because of it. Often the people that ask this question are like me. We don't forage for our food. We stay indoors the majority of the time. We drive most places. We use artificial light whenever it's dark out. So why does it matter so much to people that it's darker in Alaska in the wintertime?

I've been learning more about Seasonal Affective Disorder since I've been here. It's more prevalent here and I've have some acquaintances at work who are being treated for it. I realize that it's a serious condition causing depression, but I like thinking about the connection between our bodies and light from the sun. I like that our bodies still respond to the world around us even when we've become so industrialized. I think most of us feel a touch of SADness during the winter. Here's a list of symptoms, taken from the Seasonal Affective Disorder Association's website:

Sleep problems:	Usually desire to oversleep and difficulty staying awake but, in some cases, disturbed sleep and early morning wakening
Lethargy:	Feeling of fatigue and inability to carry out normal routine
Overeating:	Craving for carbohydrates and sweet foods, usually resulting in weight gain
Depression:	Feelings of misery, guilt and loss of self-esteem, sometimes hopelessness and despair, sometimes apathy and loss of feelings
Social problems:	Irritability and desire to avoid social contact
Anxiety:	Tension and inability to tolerate stress
Loss of libido	Decreased interest in sex and physical contact
Mood changes	In some sufferers, extremes of mood and short periods of hypomania (overactivity) in spring and autumn.

Most sufferers show signs of a weakened immune system during the Winter, and are more vulnerable to infections and other illnesses.

I don't know about other Alaskans, but I've noticed a few of these in particular this winter. I have been sleeping a lot. I get tired as early as 9 pm. I have been wanting to eat a lot of starchy and sweet food. I don't like to go out after I get home from work. I don't know if this has to do with wanting to avoid social contact or just that I want to stay warm and not deal with starting the car, brushing it off, and driving somewhere on slippery roads. Maybe I have a mild case, or what most of us call "the winter blues." I'm not worried. I hear on the radio every day how many more minutes of sunlight we're getting. Today the sun rises at 10:02 am and sets at 4:14 pm, giving us 6 hours and 11 minutes of daylight, a gain of 3 minutes and 43 seconds over yesterday! Getting outdoors during the brief daylight on the weekends helps too. Last weekend we went skiing on Saturday and Sunday. Winter is beautiful with all the snow and mountains up here.

Here's a recipe to indulge in when you're craving carbohydrates. Be warned, there's no protein and it's probably high in calories. I improvised and came up with this a few days ago when I made pasta, then looked in my cupboards for a jar of pasta sauce that I thought I had. There was no sauce. What to do, then, with half a pound of linguine? I had already made this chicken recipe and was envisioning having it with pasta and red sauce. Instead, I started thinking about something my husband used to order at an Italian restaurant in Rochester. It was pasta with garlic and oil, or "aglio e olio." Here it is, in all its greasy, carby goodness:

Cook 1/2 lb of pasta (something long and skinny--linguine, angel hair, etc) in plenty of boiling water until al dente. Drain.

In a large saute pan, pour 1/4 cup olive oil and heat until warm. Add 4-6 cloves of garlic, depending on how much you like garlic. I put the garlic through my garlic press, but you can just as easily chop it. Saute the garlic until golden. Add the pasta and mix well, tossing over medium heat. Add red pepper flakes to your liking (about two teaspoons? I didn't measure) and continue to mix. Serve with salt and pepper, and parmesan cheese if you want. We didn't, since the chicken we were eating was basically coated in parmesan. Serves 2-3, depending on how much you are craving carbohydrates.

Foodie Resolutions

1. My cupboards need organizing. Badly. I think a set of canisters will help with this, or a large amount of clear glass jars. Right now I have items from the bulk section in plastic bags, all intertwined and piled on each other. It's hard to find anything in the heap.

2. I want to become a bread baker. Okay, I want either me or my husband to become a bread baker. I think he'll be better at it, actually. He's more of a stickler for detail when it comes to cooking, where I like to substitute and improvise, which doesn't go well when you are baking. Anyway, I love good crusty artisan-style bread, and I've been meaning to learn how to make it at home for awhile now. I think this is the year. We have the book Crust and Crumb, which will be our guide.

3. I want to can, freeze and otherwise preserve more food this summer. I did can grape juice last year, but had to give it away when we moved. It's hard to know when we'll move again, but I still want to fill my freezer and shelves with summer bounty to hold us through the winter. It's in my genes. Mennonites are champions at this. It's about time I did it. This summer, all we managed to do was freeze half a bag of wild blueberries. It's a start.

4. Speaking of being Mennonite, I need to pay more attention to the cost of groceries. This is one area where I've been much more gourmet than Mennonite. I just buy what I want, regardless of the price. There's a certain purity to that but I need to be a little more practical. Someday our income might not be what it is now, and I should be a little more aware of what I'm spending on food in preparation for that. I'm still going to splurge on some items (good cheese, local produce, chocolate, fresh seafood, the occasional bottle of wine) but there are some areas where I could spend less. I could at least pay attention to sales.

5. Make homemade ice cream! Okay, that's an easy one, but I had to give myself something attainable. I got the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid Mixer as a Christmas present from my parents. It requires some planning ahead (the bowl has to be in the freezer for 15 hours before making the ice cream, and the batter must be mixed and chilled for a few hours) but I think it'll be great fun to make blueberry ice cream, pumpkin ice cream, cinnamon ice cream...yum.

6. Try more seafood. I live in Alaska. I grew up in land-locked western New York, though, where the only seafood available is bland and white-fleshed fish, rolled in batter and deep-fried. Since moving here I have learned to love salmon (that was easy!) and found some fun ways to cook halibut. I can occasionally be persuaded to eat shrimp, but so far I'm not that excited about it. I need to branch out and eat more varieties of fish. I'm not so sure if I'll ever like shellfish but I'd be willing to try some.

7. Have more people over for dinner. I love to cook and to have people over. So far I've been shy about asking people to dinner, worrying mostly about scheduling conflicts. We tend to eat dinner late. I'll try for weekends, maybe.

Whew. That's enough of a list for now. I'd love to hear thoughts, recipes, helpful tips, anything! Happy New Year, by the way!