eG Foodblog: beans - My beloved town....

[beans]

Traveling is always tough.

I had my first bite to eat on Northworst en route to Minneapolis, aka "the Kremlin" to the oldtimer Nortwest employee. It was a Quaker oat and raisin Chewy with a cup of luke warm black coffee.

Turbulant flight over the Dakotas.

The next segment of the trip I opted for the turkey sangie. It came with that Hellman's Dijon Mayo, small bag of Fritos, a tiny sealed cup of Spring Water and an apple. It was dinner roll sized, but not all bad. The apple was sour.

Alaska Air was dismal. "Juice" service with salty Beer Nut brand peanuts. The juice was in these little 3 ounce sized portions. I felt like five years old again while taking a sip from these. I opted for the apple juice. I sat a bit in Seattle and people watched. One of my old regulars from Sitka's Pioneer Bar was on board the same flight!

I got to Sitka and had the worst watered down Belvedere Martini, up, I've ever encountered. Back up plan -- my favourite Alaskan Amber, but somehow it wasn't the same beer I adored a couple years back when I lived here. Maybe it was the pint glasses and excess soap (from washing and not a thorough rinse) killing my enjoyment.

But before the martini flop, my aunt and I took a brisk walk through town. New food happenings here. A new sushi place appears days away from a Grand Opening! My friend's Mojo moved (a small cafe that used to have odd operating hours). It still looked quite styling in its new location and remained as ecclectic as its artistic owner. In the old Mojos was a new place called Luigi's. It looked postively charming. Must stroll by when I'm not power walking and huffing and puffing to catch up with my very cardio in shape aunt!

What a gloriously sunny day. I thought it looked odd that many of the pituresque mountains didn't have any snow on their caps. Nor the volcano.

*yawn* It's late. Good night y'all.

[tinytim]

I grew up on shotgun lane, wonderfull place.

[beans]

By Market Center? Welcome to eG tinytim!

I found the restaurant I'm interested in is Ludvig's and not Luigi's. Spanish tapas are featured... I must make it over there this week!

Found some old favourites for breakfast (kinda lumpy oatmeal) and lunch. We ate smoked sockeye on large Sailor Boy brand crackers. The salmon wasy from my Grandfather's stash that he caught, smoked and jarred himself.

Grocery shopping was hit or miss. I forgot how hard it is to find a particular product or brand and then try to find it here. Oh well, jarred and premade mayo is mayo right? It does state "real" on the label.

It's a good thing we take an early evening walk of about 4+ miles. My Grandfather eats breakfast precisely at 8:30 a.m.; lunch at noon and dinner at 5:30 p.m. No deviation. I eat half of that at home and never on a schedule!

I'm formulating my mental list of goodies to pack up to take back to Cleveland. There appears to be several varieties of caribou/reindeer sausages. (yum) And I think I'm going to hunt down a good source for Sitka Rose jelly and some Sitka Spruce Tip Syrup. Didn't shop too much as there was a cruise ship in port and I had little patience for the touristas and their general milling about. (They will, without fail step off the curb and into the street to photograph this or that and not observe traffic! Grrrrrr.) Got a fab picture though -- it's of my Mom posing with a gigantic stuffed (fake) bear. Now if I can only get my laptop to recognize the USB cable for the digital camera....

[Suzanne F]

Beans, thanks for doing this. Alaska is like a whole other world, and it's great to learn about it. (Hope you get the cable hookup working; would LOVE to see the pictures as you describe stuff.)

[beans]

Beans, thanks for doing this.  Alaska is like a whole other world, and it's great to learn about it.  (Hope you get the cable hookup working; would LOVE to see the pictures as you describe stuff.)

Thanks Suzanne.

Oh, this is an entirely different world indeed. My family does some fun stuff with food, however my Grandfather will think he's trying to please me by making up pork chops and scalloped potatoes instead of diving into his deep freezer for halibut cheeks, venison and whatnot. I'm gonna venture into bear country and see if I can find some of the tea we pick and dry, any lowbush cranberries and some "goose tongue" on a few beaches I know where they grow in the salty tidal flats. I think it is way too late for fiddleheads. And possibly I may be able to forage for mushrooms. The bears are busy with the last of the salmon run, so I may be able to tiptoe right by them while they are lumped over and in a food coma-nap relatively unscathed. Where we used to go into a swampy/bog area has been "developed" and turned into a new postal office. That was where we'd pick those tart little cloud berries.

The day I arrived my Grandfather had a buddy come drop by for lunch with some herring eggs (frozen from last Spring when they were collected while spawning). Just days before that my Mom, who has been here a week longer than I, said they pulled out some abalone from the freezer and sauteed those up in butter and garlic. I missed those, although I have to admit I'm not too big on the herring eggs. They are loud in your mouth, but taste mild and salty like the sea!

There is much time yet to have some of those yummy local goodies. I'm hopeful.

If I can't get this dog of a laptop to recognize the USB cable, I may need to resort to the dust covered "new" digital camera my Grandfather got for Father's Day and his new Dell computer that appears that he has never turned on. (ooooh, fun toys!!) Either that or I'll put the blog on pause until I return to Cleveburg and then load up and process the pics at our restaurant office. (The owner generously loaned me the camera -- all I have are dinosaur manual SLR Canons). The weather is teasing me today cause I did see bits of blue sky. I love the advantage of deleting a pic on the digital Nikon and retaking it with bright blue skies and the sun beaming.

I think today I'll visit my friends at Sitka Sound Seafoods and see if they've got some good dungies and spot shrimp. If so, I know I'll be in a heavenly food induced coma myself.

Oh, Fat Guy, if you're reading this, I had to laugh as I went past the store front for all of the furs hats and coats. Right in front, was that fur covered jock strap. I didn't look to closely, it may have been a thong! It was the source of amusement for many tourists in town for the day of fleecing by the storekeepers!

[Jaymes]

What a gloriously sunny day.  I thought it looked odd that many of the pituresque mountains didn't have any snow on their caps.  Nor the volcano.

No termination dust yet, eh?

And I love that bit you mentioned about sitting at the Seattle airport watching the planes load for Alaska.

There's no mistaking them, is there? Alaskans truly are a breed unto themselves.

So do all your relatives ask you if you like living 'outside'?

Edited September 18, 2003 by Jaymes (log)

[beans]

Snow on what are referred to as the Three Sisters! Very pretty. Everyone here keeps asking me why I returned to Cleveland. I wonder that myself.

Jaymes, entering into the Sea Tac Airport and walking down the Alaska Air concourse, you *know* you are in a different place! Cowboy hats, scruffy beards, fisherman jackets (the type that are proudly embroidered with the F/V ________ -- their beloved seiner/troller/gillnetter), lots of Cabella's garb too. Some things never change!

Well, I have some king salmon thawing nicely for dinner.

I'm having a wonderful time with my Grandfather's new Dell. Somehow a fatal error keeps popping up and disconnecting and restarting Windows. Grrrrrrrr. I'm not exactly a Windows XP fan either, but I'm trying to find the source of this bug....

I wish I had a chance to get over to Juneau to see you Foam Pants! After all it's only a channel and a few mountains to hop over!

oops, fatal error again. Something called the Remote Procedure Call service was terminated unexpectedly.... Ugh.

Edited September 18, 2003 by beans (log)

[Bicycle Lee]

I'm dating an Alaskan Amber and she too is a tasty treat

[Toliver]

Beans,

The fatal error could be a worm. My mom has the Home XP and she kept getting a message that her computer was now rebooting/shutting down. Her tech support told her it was the latest worm virus.

You may want to run a virus scan and/or visit Symantec's web site.

And to put the thread back on topic, this is a wonderful report. I am looking forward to reading more about your homecoming and the celebration for your Grandfather's birthday.

Mmmm...King Salmon.

[KNorthrup]

I always wonder the same thing for the first few days, and then you remember.

Come to think of it, I always ate Sailor Boy pilot crackers in Sitka and nowhere else. A staple on my grandfather's boat.

Ironically, I received a completely unexpected care package from there in the mail last night and it included a bar of Theobroma chocolate and two bars of another local brand. Moose something? White wrapper. Two chocolate companies in a town that size. ???

[beans]

K:

There is a store downtown near the old post office that is the Chocolate Moose. I have a pic for you, but this durn laptop.... The Theobroma "factory" is still way down HPR on the way to the ferry, just past Halibut Point. Yes! Two chocolatiers! The Chocolate Moose has truffles, espresso and teas for sale. They share space with the florist too.

Today the sun's a shining!!!

Lunch has been always smoked sockeye. This is the stuff when I was at university that I wrote my Grandfather and asked for a few cans to be shipped. It is pure love.

I was rather excited yesterday that I got to finally cook without Mum and Grandpa hovering. One peering eye and I faked him out with having a Campbell's can of Tomato Soup on the counter and I was off! From his seasonless (ie, herbs or spices) I made roasted tomato soup (from scratch), the usual smoked sockeye on Sailor Boys, and with the traveling produce folks from Chelan, Washington wherein I got some wonderful peaches, a melange of sorts with Tillamook Vanilla Bean Icecream. My Grandfather is used to having dessert with lunch and dinner. Little did he know, in this "dry" household, these little peaches had zip from a very old bottle of Orange Curaçao (must have been from the days of my Grandmother's fruit cakes -- at least 15+ years ago!!), cinnamon, vanilla and sugar. They were "sinfully" delicious!

So far for dinner we've had some boring but good halibut. (My Grandfather's preparation -- he seems to feel he's the only one to cook dinners around here! Alaska is very, very, very men do this and women do that....) He breaded it in a mixture of pancake mix (!) and deep fried it. Wish it could have been a beer batter.... But the halibut turned out moist and quite delicious. No gourmet preparations here. Simple stuff. It sort of annoys me too, as I seem to have noticed I require a sauce with everything. I can no longer enjoy a slab of meat slapped down on a plate fresh from the grill plain. It must be served with some wonderful and flavour enhancing sauce!

Pancakes are in order before my Grandfather returns from church.

The food here is sort of stuck in the 1950's, but for its freshness, is wonderful. Can't change up too much on the old guy elsewise he'll just push it around the plate with a glaring eye.

Have yet to discover this new "Ludvig's" with the Spanish tapas. The only place, other than the steak-a-rama (with unidentifyable, huge cuts -- I know, I ate there when I lived here and asked our server to please identify the cut and grade of the beef!! She didn't know! *Danger Will Robinson!!!!*), that requires reservations.

[beans]

The fatal error could be a worm.  My mom has the Home XP and she kept getting a message that her computer was now rebooting/shutting down.  Her tech support told her it was the latest worm virus. 

You may want to run a virus scan and/or visit Symantec's web site.

Toliver:

Thanks. It wasn't a worm. (yuk) I scanned away with the newest Symantec and found nothing! I found out the network settings were wrong. There wasn't a network! Ended the problem nicely, however then I realized I was using MSN and there isn't a local provider for MSN!!! Somehow my Grandfather signed up and got suckered into the additional long distance surcharge for Juneau!!!!! So, no luck with getting the pic thing to work, just yet. Gee, GCI is the local ISP at no long distance.... No telling him either! Stubborn!!

The king salmon was so wonderful, it is beyond mere words. I thank God that little fish swims out to the open ocean and feasts in cold waters to gain that savoury fat!!! Tonight, an occasional treat, a white king. It will be roasted in honour of my poor cousin that suffered a horrible boating accident. Actually this is a huge community dinner in his honour and the proceeds go to a scholarship. Sauteed abalone too. This is a real treat, but very sad, however a wonderful celebration of how this person enriched all of our lives.

[beans]

I have a few days to catch up on!

The foraging has been dismal with the storms and heavy downpours. The wind gusts were up to 70 mph yesterday! Today is the last cruise ship for the rest of the year! Makes many of the Sitkan residents quite happy! Some of the downtown stores have already closed their temporary shops until next late April. I'm thrilled just about everything is on sale....

Thinking of food prices, the herb and spice prices are unbelievable. Some of the seasonings are about $12.00 a bottle (like rosemary and basil) for the standard McCormick's size. Yikes. Next year I plan to stop at Spenard's to purchase some herb plants for the garden.

For our dinners, they have been rather homey, but quite good. My grandfather took some king salmon and steamed it to soft, moist and rich perfection. We had the usual white rice and mixed frozen veggies (his favourite). The evening before my aunt invited me over for a "subsistence" dinner. The salmon (I think it was a coho) was caught by my uncle and the assorted berries for dessert were picked and frozen into deep freeze. She made a "stew" with the salmon pieces with usual potatoes, celery, onions and carrots. She served along side, a traditional fried bread that everyone in this town adores. I guess every ethnicity has their own version of a doughnut. These little flat, fried bread dough pieces were served with butter, honey, powdered sugar or any of her jams. (strawberry, blueberry or salmonberry). Oh, and garnish for the stew were dried black seaweed ribbons they collected last Summer. It was lovely.

I'll be sad to leave tomorrow.