Category: Food

Christmas Eve 2010

Okay, it has been a while!  I wonder if anyone believes how incredibly busy a small town can be?  Enough said.

Christmas Eve 2010 was worth the effort put in.  Mom and I planned, then parceled out some cooking duties:  Cookies – Greg Hawthorne, Gingerbread cookies, Alena Syverson, Scallop ceviche, Wendy Svarny-Hawthorne, who promptly parceled that one out to  her son, Nicky Hawthorne.   Brie with cranberries in puff pastry, Wendy, as well as hot crab dip.  Laresa was designated the official setter-upper, which includes setting up the table, the buffet, and the dreaded wrapping of the silverware.

Of course Mom cleaned house for almost 2 weeks before hand.  Holiday cleaning…why didn’t I inherit that gene?  On the 22nd and 23rd we started cooking in earnest.

Nicky Hawthorne's scallop ceviche....delish!
Alena's gingerbread cookies and Zoya's million layer Russian cake.
Cookies made by Greg and Mom; truffles by me.
Silver salmon lox, octopus, and pickled salmon.
Yum...Perushkies, brie, layered shrimp & potato salads, ham, curried rice, etc.
Gert Svarny, without whom the party would be nothing!
SP digging in!
Catching Sam just at the right moment!
Greg Hawthorne and son, Jacob, enjoying themselves.
Yekatrina, Michelle, and Zoya, hanging out in the kitchen!
The tree!

Enjoying family, friends, and food.  What could be better?

The potato crop was a success!

After last year’s semi-success at growing a potato crop, we made another go of it.  With a year of experience under his belt, Caleb planted a nice crop of organic robinta potatoes, running the rows in an east/west configuration. 

Potato Crop 2010

After more research, I talked him into actually letting the plants flower and die back – like they are supposed to do!  Keeping him from digging them before it was time was tricky.  He can be pretty sneaky.  So far, with about 1/3 of the crop left to harvest, we have gotten about 28 pounds of some of the most delicious potatoes I have ever tasted! 

They come in all sizes from enormous to cute, petite bites.

Several of them have been split – I guess growing too fast.  None of them have been rotten.  Yay!  They slice like butter, even with a dull knife.  And no matter how we cook them, we marvel at how good they taste. 

Olive oil, kosher salt, and thyme - then roast.

I think there is a possibility that next year we might try them outside the “greenhouse”.  

   Otherwise we will never be able to grow enough to suit our needs.

What happened to summer?

Having September open up like the summer we had been waiting for was odd, in itself.  Temperatures in the mid to upper 60’s was the best we’d had for the summer of 2010 and we were thrilled to be fishing for silver salmon in our shirt sleeves.   A bumper crop of salmonberries was the bonus for them being almost  a month late.  And we were fooled into thinking the blueberries would be just as late, but they were already ripe before the salmonberries were done.  And so were the mossberries and so were the cranberries.  And then the weather started turning, like hitting fast-forward while watching a movie.

My mamma picking berries surrounded by the changing colors of the tundra.

Now, mind you, I am not complaining about the weather!  That is against the values of the Unangax^.  I am just disconcerted with the unpredictability of our weather over the last several years.  I guess I have become complacent over the last 30 years, or so, in knowing what to expect and when to expect it.  I am all for a good storm.  I never sleep better than when the wind is blowing at least 50 miles per hour.  I just was taken unawares by the termination dust in September and the north wind sneaking into my berry patches.