Just FYI, if you show up on an evening that’s a little slow, and if you appear to be enjoying the food, the chef will probably send over a little extra…
Yearly Archives: 2011
Without a doubt the best food in Fairbanks: Seoul Sushi Cafe. The chef is consistently creative, as in these tuna tacos, the food is consistently good, and the service is consistently quirky and pleasant. My only complaint is that I can’t eat there often enough.
Photo Post
(This piece was originally published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) Of all the Thanksgiving traditions I inherited from my family, “Always invite someone new” is my favorite. Over the years, this tradition has created some memorable feasts: I’ve reconnected with old friends, made new friends and watched as the “someone […]
Gratitude in a Pilgrim’s Hat
(This piece was originally published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) In 1993, I returned from a brief stint as a nanny in France with a suitcase full of stinky cheese. Nineteen-year-old girls should bring home kitschy black berets or sleek leather handbags, maybe even a snow globe with the Eiffel […]
Stinky, Glorious Cheese
(This piece was originally published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) People are sometimes surprised to find that I don’t own a blender, or a food processor or a spring-form pan. Recently a friend of mine was so appalled that I didn’t have what she referred to as a “proper spatula” […]
The Heart is a Muscle
According to UrbanSpoon, there are 231 places for me to get a bite eat in the city of Fairbanks. So why is it that when I’m trying to think of a place to have dinner on a Friday night, I can only think of 10 places to eat? Clearly, I […]
Operation “Eat It”
(This piece was originally published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) You know you’re loved when someone pit-roasts an entire pig in your honor. During the last three years, Eddie Kim, a poet and the most recent friend of mine to depart from Fairbanks, has become, as another friend put it, […]
Goodbye to All That
(This piece was originally published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) In his book “Street Food,” author Tom Kime wrote to “get a feel for the beating heart of any community, and to begin to understand a culture different from your own, you need to understand the food.” He’s right. For […]
Street Food or Something Like It
Caution: food writing creates a set of self esteem issues you probably haven’t seen since the 10th grade. Once word gets around that you write about food, people start acting funny. When a friend recently heard I was attending a small get together for which he was cooking, he remarked […]
Does This Blog Make My Butt Look Big?
Drinking season is almost upon us. Or, well, the summer drinking season. Perhaps my perspective is slightly skewed from hanging around too many MFA grad students, but it seems like Alaskans drink a lot. I know more than a handful of folks who brew their own beer, wine, or mead. […]
Drinking in Alaska: Don’t Bork It Up
First of all, the News-Miner, our local paper, asked me to write a monthly food column, and I was more than happy to oblige. My first one is out today, a short little piece on Salmon Cheesecake. Second of all, I want playlists. Dinner party playlists to be exact. I […]
Food and Music
“People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don’t you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do? The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.” —M. F. K. Fisher, Gastronomical […]
A Food Blogger’s Manifesto with Carrot & Beet Salad
(This piece was originally published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) According to a Hollywood legend, Marlon Brando intentionally flubbed his lines repeatedly while filming a restaurant scene for “Guys and Dolls,” forcing Frank Sinatra to eat bite after bite of cheesecake, a dessert Sinatra apparently hated. Sinatra stormed out in […]
Squash Skepticism About Savory Cheesecake With the Addition of Salmon
Michael Manly Miles was hard drinking and hard working, angry and funny, fearless and reckless, one hell of a farmer, and one loyal son of a bitch. If he hated you, you probably had it coming, and if he loved you, well, he loved you with a fierceness that most […]
Bread Pudding, Funerals, and the Power of Communion
My students eat dog. OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s not exactly a lie. Last week my World Lit class spotted the bags under my eyes and took advantage of the situation by asking off topic questions and making distracting statements. This kind of thing […]
Stuck in the Middle with Balut
What do you make for a man who was raised on a Midwestern farm, spent time in the Navy, and now writes poetry and runs ultra-marathons in Alaska for his birthday? You dig the grill out from under the snow, fill up your propane tank, and make him a […]
The Best Burger a Midwestern Farmboy Ever Ate
Something about being a parent brought out a fine appreciation for The Rules in me. Even the most carefree eccentric artistic types will turn into whip-cracking fascist tyrants when they find another towel on the bedroom floor, only minutes after telling a child to hang up the towel when […]
Baking Bread and Breaking Rules
Well. I’d had it. I’d finally wept enough over the distance of Southern food, the geographic distance and the emotional distance, so on Saturday, in recognition of the completion of UAF English Dept’s Graduate Student 6 Hour Comprehensive Examinations I threw together (with the help of a few friends) a […]
Alaska Style Southern Food Fest
I’m homesick. I would give my right pinky for some boiled peanuts right now. The kind sold hot from the cooker in a styrofoam cup. I would peel them, eat their meaty insides, and throw the shells out the window on I275. Then I’d stop at some other roadside stand […]
Georgia Boiled Peanuts: Nostalgia in a Styrofoam Cup
“To satisfy the human tastes and prejudices there is probably a daily expenditure of two billion woman-hours in the kitchens and dining rooms of the world… men who wax flowery and effusive about the excellence of Mother’s cooking should remember that her reputation was made while they were hungry boys” […]
Banana Nirvana: Thai Style Banana Cake
Fairbanks has my brain in its icy claws; the temptation to eat donuts and birthday cake by the truckload is powerful. It’s been -30°F (and colder) here for weeks and weeks and weeks. We’ve had a few days here and there of temps above 0°, but from Thanksgiving until now […]
Moonsets and Moonpies at Thirty Below
Reading a good recipe inspires my taste buds in much the same way that naughty pictures can inspire, um… carnal desire. I’m going to stay away from the idea of food porn for now, since I think the visual representation, while not in a category by itself, is a category […]
Language and Appetite: How to Write a Sexy Recipe
“Blues is a natural fact, is something that a fellow lives. If you don’t live it you don’t have it. Young people have forgotten to cry the blues. Now they talk and get lawyers and things.” –Big Bill Broonzy I’ve been thinking about Ganesha quite a bit lately, the pleasant, […]