"Please, God, don't let my friends die today." This was my conversation with Jesus as Tonya and Anita took off the runway today. We had such a good time we hated for it to end! We went up the trails and visited the lakes, hunted for sea glass and enjoyed a baby bonfire on the beach last night, and James took them out on the ocean today. We had hoped to get a chance to go halibut fishing, but the weather didn't seem to know what it wanted to do and being stuck on the open ocean in skiff during a storm was not something any of us wanted to add to our list of adventures. We did, however, have time to snack on a traditional native Alaskan dish, akutaq. This is often called Eskimo ice cream and I just happened to have a recipe because Anita made me up a cook book before we came that was filled with recipes for Alaska (one that still makes me giggle is "Tasty Beaver Meat"). Traditionally agutaq is made with animal fat that is whipped up until it's fluffy and berries and seal oil is added over it and often includes fish. We used Crisco, left out the fish (mostly because I forgot about it and didn't have any thawed out), and refused to include seal oil. I must admit it was actually kind of good. It tasted a lot like icing, which makes sense when you think about the ingredients. People in the village have their own version of agutak, which they do not refer to as Eskimo ice cream. It has a mashed potato base instead of fat, and includes fermented fish eggs and seal oil. I'm not sure what all else gets put in it because I knew I wasn't interested in it after hearing about the eggs and oil. I'm usually willing to try anything once, but haven't been knocking on any doors for this dish. Anita and Tonya both tried the "Eskimo ice cream version" with me and agreed it wasn't bad, but we were not able to convince Mike to give it a try - he has no sense of culinary adventure. Hopefully they enjoyed the trip as much as we enjoyed having them and hope they enjoy their trip back. Now I'm praying they miss all the troopers and have moose catchers who don't drive too slowly.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Same Conversation . . . Almost
"Please, God, don't let my friends die today." This was my conversation with Jesus as Tonya and Anita took off the runway today. We had such a good time we hated for it to end! We went up the trails and visited the lakes, hunted for sea glass and enjoyed a baby bonfire on the beach last night, and James took them out on the ocean today. We had hoped to get a chance to go halibut fishing, but the weather didn't seem to know what it wanted to do and being stuck on the open ocean in skiff during a storm was not something any of us wanted to add to our list of adventures. We did, however, have time to snack on a traditional native Alaskan dish, akutaq. This is often called Eskimo ice cream and I just happened to have a recipe because Anita made me up a cook book before we came that was filled with recipes for Alaska (one that still makes me giggle is "Tasty Beaver Meat"). Traditionally agutaq is made with animal fat that is whipped up until it's fluffy and berries and seal oil is added over it and often includes fish. We used Crisco, left out the fish (mostly because I forgot about it and didn't have any thawed out), and refused to include seal oil. I must admit it was actually kind of good. It tasted a lot like icing, which makes sense when you think about the ingredients. People in the village have their own version of agutak, which they do not refer to as Eskimo ice cream. It has a mashed potato base instead of fat, and includes fermented fish eggs and seal oil. I'm not sure what all else gets put in it because I knew I wasn't interested in it after hearing about the eggs and oil. I'm usually willing to try anything once, but haven't been knocking on any doors for this dish. Anita and Tonya both tried the "Eskimo ice cream version" with me and agreed it wasn't bad, but we were not able to convince Mike to give it a try - he has no sense of culinary adventure. Hopefully they enjoyed the trip as much as we enjoyed having them and hope they enjoy their trip back. Now I'm praying they miss all the troopers and have moose catchers who don't drive too slowly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment