Category Archives: Food

Rather Deep in the Minus Shitties

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post on being buttoned up for the winter, but we’re well past that happy phase and deep into the reason we were buttoning in the first place. Now we’re topping off the buttons with scarves, sweaters, and extra blankets and burning the densest firewood for maximum heat.

Another crisp day in Fairbanks

Normally, the cold doesn’t bother me much. It’s a good reminder of where we live and the importance of being aware of your surroundings. Here at home we have plenty of firewood, and all is generally well with the world—as long as I remember to plug in my truck.

But we’ve been getting used to global warming making our winters less cold. One account I saw recently indicated that we haven’t seen weather like this since 2012. So, like many here, I am ready for a break from -40s and -30s and even -20s. Collectively, given my current state of mind (having looked at the weather forecast), I’m now calling this weather the “Minus Shitties.”

Oh, the weather’s in the minus shitties…

There are good sides. Here on a Science Saturday as I go over page proofs for a forthcoming paper, I see chickadees and redpolls coming in to the feeder; a Christmas-like ambience to the quiet woods; and I’m enjoying the good, crackling blaze of birch logs in the woodstove. And who doesn’t like this time of year? The fridge is stocked with rare treats just begging to be sampled. For lunch I had an exquisite Stilton and smoked-salmon omelet that would have had the gods themselves agog with delight.

Today we’re experiencing the earliest sunset of the year (2:39 PM), and I look out the window at some of next winter’s wood, diced and stacked in the woods waiting for the seasonal re-opening of the Boombah Haulage Company. Oddly enough, the company’s sole employee was able to get all of the wood that was on the ground and diced up stacked during our protracted freeze-up earlier in the year. The slacker doesn’t know how lucky he is. (Or does he?) When it warms up a bit, we’ll send him out on a stack inspection.

Wood for next winter, diced, stacked, and waiting for haulage.

Magic Shrimp

We have a simple, delicious recipe for shell-on jumbo shrimp that we use for celebrations. We call it Magic Shrimp. It’s dirt easy:

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Bread Crusto

This is the name we’ve given to a holiday family favorite. Or at least our version of it. “Fresh-baked, angelic, delicious Bread Crusto.” It can be made many different ways, but it’s based on rolling up a layer of dried fruit filling inside a tasty bread.
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Tamales

Rose and I enjoy making tamales over the holidays. Some of our fondest memories of traveling in Mexico in December are having tamales, fruit, and hot chocolate for breakfast or lunch. By making large batches of tamales and freezing single-meal packs, we’re able to enjoy tamales like this on occasional weekends throughout the year.

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Of Moose, Rivers, and People

It’s taken my mind awhile to get to writing this post. There has been a surreal poignancy to the world for many months, causing normal activities to seem abnormal, bogged down, and harder to sustain. The COVID-19 pandemic and abysmal government leadership cause enormous stress, as does the unusually high degree of political divisiveness during this election year. Work levels have been high, too, and I hadn’t taken enough days off.

So when September came, and with it hunting season, I looked forward to getting away on a float trip with a couple of friends to hunt for moose. Just getting outside and off the grid would be therapeutic—and it was.

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