observations from the last month, not all of them culinary

1. I had yak meat for the first time, in the form of yak kebabs at my cousin Jess's wedding. It was really good meat, tender and fully flavored. This might have been because of the marinade, or the grilling job. Either way, I would definitely eat yak again. Here's hoping this restaurant gets it on the menu. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

2. When making pizza for 15 people (6 pies), the cornmeal used to slide the pizza off the peel and onto the stone will build up in the oven. It will cause black smoke to roll out of your oven every time you open it. You should take down and disable your smoke alarm as a preventative measure, and open all the doors and windows that you can. Still, the pizza will keep on tasting delicious. (I used some King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour in the crust this time around, and I liked it.)

3. "Summer" in Alaska can mean 45 degrees, with constant rain. There was new snow on the mountains around Anchorage in July. In the last two weeks I have wished several times for another sweater, warmer boots, and gloves. I spent eight hours on a glacier cruise out of Seward, eight hours on a bus trip in Denali National Park, and several hours at an outdoor wedding being cold and wet. Oh, Alaska. Sometimes you're not very easy to love.

4. Making chocolate pudding late at night with my sister is fun. I wish she lived closer, so we could cook together more often.

5. I ate steamer clams for the first time at Ray's Waterfront Restaurant in Seward, and they were really good. I think it was more the broth than the clams. The clams themselves were small and a little chewy. The broth was amazing. It had white wine, butter, herbs, garlic and onions in it. I sopped it up with bread and wiped the bowl clean. I think I could eat cardboard cooked in a broth like that.

6. I was asked to provide communion bread for church, and I took my duties quite seriously. What kind of bread would Jesus eat? I hazarded a guess that Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread would be right up there. So I made it for the first time, and was pleased with the results. Next time I might make it into two loaves--in my oven, one loaf rose up so big that the top burned a little. I didn't cook the bread in a Dutch oven. I just slid it directly onto my pizza stone, and poured hot water onto a roasting pan under the stone to make steam. It worked fairly well. Still, I can't help but wonder if it would have turned out better in a Le Creuset Dutch oven. Would Jesus condone a $200 purchase just to make better bread? What if it was multi-purpose, and made really great stews and casseroles?