food

other, stories

Well, ok..no, it wasn’t really morning, and technically it wasn’t breakfast seeing as we ate at around 1 o’clock, but by george it was a beautiful morning and it was a beautiful morning all because of breakfast. This breakfast. It was THAT good. The bacon was thick and delicious, the french toast perfect, the maple syrup was the real stuff (and good quality real stuff, at that), the potato and onion and red pepper fry was exactly as delicious as it sounds like it should be, the OJ was cold and zingy and the coffee fresh brewed and hot out of the thermos. It has become something of a saturday afternoon tradition for the four of us here: a big hearty breakfast sometime after noon on saturdays, usually a similar sort of thing..pancakes or waffles or french toast, bacon or sometimes sausage, eggs often and/or when the supplies afford it, fried potatoes and onions and bell peppers.

You know, routines and habits and doing the same old thing sometimes get a bad rap. Don’t settle into a rut, don’t be afraid of change! Do something different each day. Do something that scares you! Well I am good with doin’ something scary and I do believe that complacency in most parts of life can be deathly. But I’ll be damned if I don’t love sleeping in till just about the same time on Saturday and then eating the same-ish perfect breakfast in the afternoon and then sitting back with a cup of coffee to enjoy the ensuing food coma.

DSCF4011
complete with a cameo appearance by none other then uncle silas
DSCF4010
yum.
other, photography

start with some vienna sausages and make some bisquick. narrowly averted disaster when i started to crack the egg into the pan instead of the pancake mix
start with some vienna sausages and make some bisquick. and don’t accidentally start to crack the egg (for the bisquick pancake mix) into the pan, otherwise you’ll have some weird eggy-texture-mini-blobs in the pancake.
get those little guys good and crispy and delicious
get those little guys good and crispy and delicious
add some savory spice and pour that batter right on in there, on top of that sizzlin' canned meat
add some savory spice and pour that batter right on in there, on top of that sizzlin’ canned meat
put the spatula down child, no use for one of those. flip that big-boy-size fried pan-meatcake like a professional
put the spatula back in the drawer, child, no use for one of those. flip that big-boy-size fried pan-meatcake like a professional
and the maple syrup, put that down too. while you're over by the cupboard, grab the bottle of sriracha, 'cuz that's what you need for a big-boy-size panmeatcake.
and the maple syrup, put that back in the cupboard too, you won’t need it. while you’re over by the cupboard, grab the bottle of sriracha, ‘cuz that’s what you will need for this big-boy-size panmeatcake.
photography

This is how it’s done.

buc-buc-bucaaAAAAAa!
canned corn. it's american.
beans, the magical fruit.
delicious tomatoes
ZING
BAM
other

What delicious snack did I just partake in?
a can of ravioli and a can of pineapple

Dinner last night:
ramen, canned beans, fried span, canned oysters, and canned peaches.
(that one was a little bit abnormal–sent my gut for a bit of a ride)

Breakfast when I have the day of lesson plans 100% ready (less common):
oatmeal with dried blueberries and coffee

Breakfast when I don’t (more common):
1 tin of vienna sausages and 1/2 a can of peach halves

Average dinner:
beans, scrambled eggs (from powder), and a biscuit

other, stories

What’s a bush order? Food. Bought at Costco in Anchorage, packed by a bush-shipping expediter, shipped up to Nome then helicoptered out to Diomede.

The mail came, finally, after a long wait. It came on thursday, and it made me happy for two reasons:
1. because the second half of my personal belongings (two rubbermaids) are now here instead of sitting in Nome
2. because part of my bush order came

Only three boxes (total: 60-70lb) of my 400 pounds of food made it before the chopper was grounded in Wales with a Check-Engine light. But in those boxes there was joy. Coffee. Fifteen pounds of it. In one of the rubbermaids, my coffee grinder and my espresso maker. In another of the three boxes, California Dates. Pure joy.

The chopper’s supposed to come again on wednesday, weather permitting, with (knock on wood) aprox. 320 more pounds of food in boxes with my name on them.

:)

funny, stories

(from two weeks ago)

Moving in the landlord showing me around opens up this huge industrial freezer in the shed, opens it up and I see vacuum packed salmon fillets it’s filled with vacuum packed salmon fillets. Feel free to help yourself, I mean don’t eat all of it, but the wife and I definitely won’t go through all of it, we won’t be here much of the winter.

Today I woke up late, nine-thirty, ate breakfast at ten-thirty, early afternoon snack of a few crackers and peanut butter. Weeks of living on ramen and beans and bread, I finally go to the huge industrial freezer in the shed. Realization at this moment: not salmon fillets. These are HUGE salmon fillets. One is like three. This made me pretty happy.

Huge salmon fillet on the counter at noon, thawed out at five. Which was good because at five the hunger came, and it came raging. Burner on high olive oil and garlic and salt in the pan, hot, in with the huge fillet sizzle crackle sizzle, put the glass lid on to keep it moist, potato in the microwave, five minutes later flip the huge fillet other side and bit more oil and garlic and salt and more sizzling and the kitchen smells so good, potato done and steaming and buttered and salmon done and crispy and up out of the pan and onto the plate with the potato.

Epilogue
Woulda been better with a good beer. Dear first paycheck, please come soon. And it woulda been even oh so much better shared, but I’m not sure how to get that done; the paycheck doesn’t help much. Oh wait actually, doesn’t match.com charge money? Hmm.

stories

(from a week ago)

Neighbor and his little boy walking out of their cabin when I walk out of my cabin to go do some business in the bath house, Hey Dave we saw a rabbit gonna go get him, the little boy dressed up in his stalking cap and jeans and boots and toting a bb gun just like the one I got Christmas morning how many years ago, Sure let me just do some quick business and I’m there. In my jeans and hoodie. It’s cold out.

My neighbor takes the road up the left and the little guy and I go right to wait, but the rabbit was too smart saw and knew he was being flushed into the blazing sight of a bb gun wielded by a dangerous 7 year old, so the rabbit doubles back past pops who doesn’t take the shot so his little boy can have another chance. They keep going, I go back to put on gloves, hands real cold, they keep going, the rabbit’s gone and the little guy’s feet are really really freezing cold Daddy I need to go back to the cabin my feet feel like ice! Daddy I can’t walk my feet are ice! So my neighbor hoists up his little boy and I carry the .22 in my right hand and the little guy’s bb gun in my left and we walk back to the cabin, I can’t feel three of my fingers even though it’s not that cold out right now, neighbor says OK lets go over to the other thicket and find another one so we go, find the rabbit highway and split and start, I’m shivering and wondering which finger I won’t feel next and then a white dash and I see where he went. Hey over here lets head back to the main road I think he stopped close by so we double back and the big white rabbit takes a few more strides toward the road then up, my neighbor still hasn’t seen him but I know I saw him, I stay put he goes up on the road and up further and back into the woods and back down and finds the rabbit. I get closer, still can’t see, Ok I can’t see him still, you see him? You see him then, ok, you take your shot. He wanted to give me a chance, but better a rabbit than a chance right? Crack like snapping a small dry branch echoes muted through dry cold air and Yup got him. Lost feeling in two more fingers on my left hand and where there is feeling it hurts like hell and now my chest feels kinda funny but not woosy because a cute rabbit just got shot, but something definitely feels not right, breathing feels funny. My neighbor goes to his cabin to grab a bite to eat and I go to the bath house to warm up and when I get in and close the door I feel really not good and my head hurts and my hands hurt where I can feel them and my breathing’s funny.

Hands under warm water, hands under warm water, things get better and five minutes later all’s well. Body into shock from cold body out of shock thanks to warm water, it’s been a while since I’ve been that cold. I step out and my neighbor’s got the rabbit on the tailgate of his truck and ready to go and he shows me how to skin and gut it, half an hour, now there’s rabbit in a pot in the fridge marinating and hearty alaska rabbit stew tomorrow. We shoot the breeze about how chicken at the grocery store is just ridiculous, how you can eat rabbit every day if you want, there’s a lot of these guys around. Go out and an hour later you have a pelt in one hand and a rabbit ready to cook in the other. Can’t even get to town and buy chicken from Safeway and get back in an hour.

Well, I will have to go to town for the veggies, but I think that’s ok.

other

So I’m watching the Real Madrid – Barcelona game last week and eating ceviche (a really delicious central american dish with fresh shrimp) and my gut’s all like “something’s not right man. These shrimp are at room temperature.” I’m a tough guy, so I ignored my gut.

Six hours later my gut was like “screw you.”

funny, photography

So yesterday I’m like “alright. I’m making scones.” Also yesterday I got pegged by a hum dinger of a cold, headache and stuffy nose and all the joy. After four trips to the grocery store, I had the ingredients ready to make scones. I made the scones and forgot one of the three cups of flour. A mistake like that has consequences: there was an aesthetic casualty.

 

 

other

And not a Guinness or corned ham with cabbage within hundreds of miles. And than it comes to mind is that there’s not a bunch of friends here to sit with around the table, drinking Guinness and eating corned ham and cabbage and laughing about protestants and catholics and the Irish and beer.

Same old same old, nothing like want to teach you what little things aren’t really all that little.

That all off my chest, I’m going to go home and change into my green boxers.

stories

So here’s what happened to me. First, the parasites got me, and they got me good.

Then, in a beautifully timed attack, my carton of eggs went bad.

All body aches and bad stomach pain and sometimes the full chowder-blow, parasites or bad eggs who knows. But seeing as I wasn’t really recovered from the parasites and I’ve never had parasites before to know, I figured it’s part of the process.

As they say, the best thinking is done in the bathroom. At three in the morning Sunday in the bathroom I set to doing some really good thinking and realized that my carton of eggs was bad.

Up till three in the morning Sunday, I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually felt honest anger in my heart towards a food item.

I threw them in the garbage. But I’m still angry.

I fear that the beloved American Easter traditions will never be the same for me. The next time I see that giant white and pink two-eared harbinger of those hideous illness-bearing ovalish-spheric white weapons disguised in garish pastel-themed paint, the twin-barrel is coming out quicker than you can say Cadbury’s. Three and a half inch magnum.

funny, stories

One-fifty said the woman. Not cool–last time they were one quetzal even, so I got on her case a bit. Are you sure? They must have gone up, last time they were a quetzal. Are they harder to find now?

I had gone to the market for fruit in the morning, searched for mangoes that looked good, and asked for the price.

She explained the price of the carton and how many, but I really didn’t want to do any mental math at all, so I just nodded and said Ok, I’ll take three.

Four for six quetzals, said the woman quicky. I thought–well, I guess if she’s gonna offer me a deal I oughta take it, so I said Sure, sounds good.

This afternoon as I pulled out the bag of four mangoes and thought about the price, I did a calculation. Six divided by four.

I was about to be frustrated, until I thought about having four mangoes instead of three.