Culture Camp- Part 1

William and TG at the Alaska Native Heritage Center

This is going to be a few posts because I took a LOT of photos.

Last month, my children and I had a chance to go to a culture camp. If you're not indigenous, culture camps are a way to learn about our heritage from Elders and people who live a traditional life. This one was a mixed culture camp, centering on Traditional Foods for the various indigenous people from Alaska. We were really excited about it.

It took place at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. This is definitely a place you should visit if you're ever in Anchorage. They have a village area set up in the back of the museum with the various building structures used by the tribes up here. The grounds grow a lot of plants that are used traditionally for food and medicines. It's educational and interesting and they focus on creating opportunities for Native peoples. There are young interns who do presentations, and there is dancing and indigenous artists selling beautiful things.

My family is Tanana Athabaskan. We come from the interior, even though my children and I have lived in Anchorage our whole lives. If you have younger children, you may be watching Molly of Denali with them. Molly is Athabaskan too.

The first day of camp, a whole bunch of us were processing salmon for canning. So we went straight to work. TG, William and I were in the classroom a little early, so we helped the teacher set up.

Salmon is preserved in a lot of ways, and canning is a modern one and important. We learned how to pack salmon into jars, why our teacher preferred jars to cans and we cut and packed up a lot of salmon.

TG processing salmon

At the end of the day, I asked TG and William if they had fun. They had worked, listened to a presentation on safe canning methods, and we walked around the museum some. I also got myself a pair of baleen hair sticks from one of the artists on side.

They both agreed it was a whole lot of fun. 

The qaspeq that TG is wearing is one that belonged to her grandmother. It's about 50 years old. You can get my free qaspeq coloing page here-Qaspeq/Kuspuk Coloring Page. 

A couple days later, we got to work on canning the fish. 

The salmon was packed into the jars raw. You can see what it looks like before and after canning in this photo. Canning it cooks it, and the bones soften so much that they can be eaten. A good source calcium!!  Canning can also be used to preserve other meats using a pressure canner. Our local extension service has instructions for canning walrus!! Becky told us how she made her canned moose stew. 

We also had a class on safety procedures. That was good. TG won a water bottle in that class and she was really happy. 

I missed a class on plants because I had an appointment. TG and William took extensive notes and enjoyed the class a lot. They both came home with jars of yarrow salve from that class. 

The plant class I did take, taught by Meda DeWitt was about nettles. We went out and picked some nettles, and stripped them. We learned about how to use the seeds to make a tincture, how to use the leaves for tea and food, and then made a simple hand-spun twine using the fiber. 

Then we got a presentation from Chef Sean Sherman. That was fantastic. If you don't know who Chef Sherman is- he is a James W. Beard award winning chef with a passion and vision for indigenous foods. He is also known as the Sioux Chef. 

I went totally fangirl when I found out he was going to be here! A couple friends of mine from Minnesota who had been to some of his presentations told me how much I was going to enjoy it. 

An Elder gifted him with some muktuk (whale fat and skin) that he shared. It was the first time that my children had tried muktuk. It was not the last time that week they had muktuk. They both loved it. Chef Sherman said it tasted like the sea. 

Chef Sean Sherman sharing muktuk. 

His vision is wonderful. It's about creating new recipes and learning the old recipes. Finding how which foods have been traditionally harvested in various regions, wild foods, foraged foods. He wants to empower indigenous people to set up businesses both for supply and finished products such as restaurants. It is an exciting vision and you can find out more at The Sioux Chef and NATIFS.

If you're interested in Chef Sean Sherman's book, you can buy it using the link below. Amazon affiliate links won't affect your price, and the small commission they pay helps fund this page.

Book Review- Put 'Em Up! Fruit

If there is a book out there that has made me more eager for farmer's markets and for my own berry patches and rhubarb to be ready to harvest, I don't remember it. Put 'Em Up Fruit- A Preserving Guide & Cookbook. Creative Ways to Put 'em Up, Tasty Ways to Use 'em Up is by Sherri Brooks Vinton who also wrote Put 'Em Up.

Enthusiastic, knowledgeable and creative, this collection of techniques and recipes for preservation and recipes for using what you've preserved will inspire anyone. It's presented in a great way that can be understood by absolute beginners to canning, dehydration, and other preserving methods. There are great photos throughout the book as inspiration, illustration and instruction.

So what makes this book so great? The variety of fruits and methods is certainly one thing. She explains different methods for preserving everything from every day apples to things like quince. Berries, rhubarb, pears, citrus and my favorite stone fruits are all included. The methods covered create jellies, jams, sauces, gastriques, infusions,homemade vinegar, cordials, fruit leathers and compotes.

The recipes for using up your preserves are also a great reason to enjoy this book. You'd expect a lot of desserts, and you'd be right of course. Fruit lends itself well to desserts, but there are also a lot of savory recipes. Not just for cooking with your preserves, but also one for blueberry ketchup my daughter wants to make after we go blueberry picking later this year. There are main courses and side dishes included in the recipes. The recipes are good for entertaining and family dinners, mostly simple enough to make with great flavor and texture combinations.

The information is fantastic, the author explains the methods step by step in a clear and concise way. She also includes cutting instructions so people can learn the basic knife skills to really make things beautiful. The instructions include great, full color photographs for visual learners.

The book starts with a table of contents of course, but at the end also includes a resources guide and a very complete index.

Absolutely recommended to anyone interested in food preservation and canning. This is one that will be used extensively throughout summer as more things ripen and become available in both my garden and at local farmer's markets.

You can watch videos by the author right here- Put 'Em Up! Fruit - You will learn how to make a blackberry gastrique, how to can using the water bath method and a recipe for using the gastrique with downloadable PDFs of the recipes shown.
The author is also going on tour to promote her book and you can catch her all over the country at farmer's markets and book stores. Check out the schedule HERE.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Book Review- Backyard Foraging

Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn't Know You Could Eat by Ellen Zachos is a collection of weeds as well as commonly grown garden and landscaping plants that are edible and not generally grown for food.

It's written for people who have recently started foraging or who have been doing it only for a short time and would like to know more about what is edible and ways to prepare it. Full color photographs and lots of information written in an easy to follow conversational fashion make it a very accessible book for people who are just starting out.  The plants cover a fairly wide range of regional zones.

It starts with learning how to identify plants to be safe and how to harvest in an ethical way, and then talks about how to harvest in a way that doesn't destroy the appearance of your garden and landscaping. It explains about young shoots, foraging flowers, nuts and fruits and digging for edible roots. It also has a great section on the tools you'll need to enjoy your harvest.

Getting into the plants, each plant is described completely and has both the common name and the Latin name listed. The text explains how to harvest, and which parts of the plants are edible, and how they are best eaten. It will also show dangerous lookalikes and how to tell the difference. It's sectioned by types of edibles.

The first section is leaves and stems that are edible. This includes things like chickweed and miner's lettuce that can be eaten raw in a salad as well as things like fern fiddleheads that are best cooked.

The next section covers edible fruits and flowers. This covers crabapples and highbush cranberries as well as  things like juniper berries, roses and prickly pears.

Next up, nuts and seeds- I'm really impressed with the authors attention to detail about harvesting throughout the book, but this is where it's handiest. Nuts can be hard to harvest and she explains very well about how to harvest and prepare the nuts.

After that, roots, tubers and rhizomes (generally the stuff that is underground)- there are plants you expect to find like wild garlic, but also a lot of flowers that have edible roots and bulbs.

The last regular plant chapter is those superstar plants like my favorite dandelions that are almost all edible. It explains how each part of the plant that is edible might be eaten from root to flower.

Then comes the easy to identify 5 safe mushrooms- everyone who forages and likes mushrooms should become knowledgeable about these. She explains the dangers of mushroom hunting and why mushrooms should always be cooked. Then she shows how to identify spored, gilled and toothed mushrooms. After that, she introduces the reader to 5 kinds of mushrooms that are very easy to identify and safe to eat.

The last chapter covers cooking and recipes for your harvest. It discusses preservation techniques and has some great recipes for jams and jellies. It also has recipes for baked goods, soups and other dishes.

It's very well indexed, and this a book that I happily recommend to anyone who is beginning at foraging and wildcrafting. I've been an active forager for years, and found some things in it that I'd forgotten about or that I didn't know.

Published by Storey Publishing- check out their Facebook page for lots of great contests, recipes and ideas.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

Korean Food Bazaar

Around the block from my home is a Korean Catholic Church, and once a year they have a food bazaar as a fund raiser. Authentically cooked food and it's hugely popular. It seems like we've always got something else going on that weekend and miss it though. This year, I made a point of it. All of these photos except for the one of TATG were taken by her, and she's just getting used to a new camera so there are some focus issues.

Walking into the parking lot, the 2 groups cooking over fire were situated outside (it snowed this morning, it's raining now, Alaska weather is weird). One of them was chicken on skewers with peppers. The other was fish bread with sweet filling. She didn't get a photo of the incredibly cool thing they were cooking it in. It was cast iron, and huge. It rest over the fire and could turn to access the wells. The wells are fish shaped, with a lid that closes down. They would scoop in the batter, let it cook a bit, scoop in the sweet bean paste, then a bit more batter, cook until golden brown. TATG wanted to try the skewers, she was a little nervous about the idea of "fish bread" but after watching them make it, got a lot more enthused. William and TATG walked into the church with me eating one each.

Once we got in there, there were tables lined around the basement with hot plates and other cooking surfaces. It was hard choosing! We opted to share everything so we could taste lots. My favorite was a fried chicken in a sweet/spicy sauce. I'm pretty hit and miss with fried foods, so much of it is just too greasy, but this was perfect.

Nom nom nom. Did I mention that usually I avoid spicy too? But this was only lightly spicy and so very, very good.

William's favorite of course was sushi. It was good, mild, crisp and tasting. (photo taken after TG worked out the focus issues)

See that whole plate? I had one, TG had two, next thing we knew, William was eating the last one. He really loves sushi. (Gosh I wish he had shaved this morning- photo slightly out of focus)

TG eating one of the chicken skewers-

The serving sizes were generous, so we wound up very full at this point, but there was still so much more to try? What to do? We decided to get plates to go for dinner tonight, plus Michael was working and this way he can enjoy some of the food too. When we got home, TG decided she needed to eat another one of the fish breads.

The camera is an old one of mine, I offered her a choice of the cameras that her dad and I don't use, and she opted for a point and shoot that's a couple years old and a decent little camera. Since she had the camera and some of her duct tape items, she also took photos of them.

This is taped over a very ugly wallet she bought at a fund raiser for a veteran's non-profit organization her dad and I support. She bought it planning to cover it with tape and did this portal wallet. She's carried it for a couple years.

Her most recent is this purse (not in focus)

Which she lined with my owl tape!

I love the multicultural mix in Anchorage so much, and as much as I do like going to specific restaurants, the events are so much better. Sometimes it's hard to find them. Some of them do use Craigslist or our local newspaper, but mostly we watch for signs in specialty markets or on the many churches around town.

Green Giant's Giant Surprise Talent (sponsored)

Surprise talents, my family has a lot of them. My husband impresses me constantly with them. He can seem so serious that it would take most people completely surprise to find out that he can juggle and was a yoyo champion when he was young.

My dad seems anything but silly, but used to wake me up with the most annoying song ever that he made up.
"Wake up wake up you sleepyhead, get up, get up, get out of bed, wipe your eye out with a sock!"

Green Giant has a giant surprise talent too. The name that makes you think of frozen and canned vegetables also makes chips!! Crunchy, yummy chips with veggies in them and a lot of whole grain and fiber goodness. I got to try the Green Giant™ Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips and the Green Giant™ Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips – Sea Salt Flavor.

My husband and I, and our two children are all left-handed, but the graphics that I post on this site are all drawn with my right hand. So that's my surprise talent! The rest of my family has one that I can't do. They can all raise just one eyebrow. I've spent hours making funny faces at myself in the mirror trying to do it, and just can't do it all. But for them, it's easy, and for my daughter, it's two different looks depending on which brow she raises.

This looks doubtful doesn't it? She's not doubtful about the chips, it's just her raising that brow on demand.

Green Giant™ Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips – Sea Salt Flavor are so delicious. Crisp, delicious and lower fat than regular potato chips (40% less fat!). I love these so much and think they would be just amazing on a Southern style macaroni and cheese. If they last until dinner time. They are so good. 14 grams of whole grains per serving.

The other brow, her serious and making a point brow. 

 Green Giant™ Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips have all natural flavors, and the flavor is cheesy. Not the super, salty actually kind of gross cheesy flavor of a lot of corn chips, but a really wonderful cheddar taste that gets a bit of a salsa kick from the peppers and other vegetables in the chip. My husband said "These are pretty doggone tasty!" (yes, he said doggone, yes, I was absolutely charmed by it.) 17 grams of whole grains per serving.

Want to see lots of great surprise talents collected by Green Giant and learn more about these great new chips? Check out Green Giant's YouTube page and see the surprise talents they found. You can also like Green Giant on Facebook and upload a video of your own surprise talent!

Thank you to The Green Giant™ for being a sponsor. Show the Giant your surprise talent at www.facebook.com/greengiant

Pretty Cauliflower Fractals

This weekend we went to one of the local farmer's markets and the hardware store. At the market we found these gorgeous fractal cauliflowers. Click on images to see larger versions.

Resized, but otherwise unretouched. They are just that gorgeous. Then I did retouch some, increased the contrast, greyscaled then added color layers.

Here's a box I made with one of the psychedelic recolored versions.

At the hardware store, I needed bolt cutters for my thick copper wire. So I picked up a pair of bolt cutters. Turnip Girl made herself a very pretty scarf on big needles, and wanted to make herself a pair of big hardwood needles so we also got her some oak dowels 3/8 inch. Then we found out that 1/4 inch copper couplers fit perfectly on them. So she got those for the ends. She'll be making herself a pair of needles this week.

This is the scarf she made, the glove/mitts were made by Shelane Adu who was selling at the market. I swear, that snow cone is NOT poison and that she actually really enjoyed it. It was lime and mango, and she ate the whole thing. 

The shirt is from Threadless.

Eggs and Bacon Boxes

The idea of fried egg swiss dots with bacon rickrack makes me smile. I'm thinking of designing some fabric to print on Spoonflower to make an apron with toast patch pockets!

I hope you enjoy these boxes. I used the 2x2x2 template and the 3x3x1 template for this mini-set. 300 dpi, click on the images to get the full sized version. Print on card stock, cut, score, fold, glue. Should I make a matching recipe card set?

Thank you for all the birthday wishes I'm getting today!

Today, while my husband is at work, I'm going to make up some teriyaki sauce for him to use when he grills dinner tonight. He's planning on some sort of seafood. I'm not sure yet if that's going to be shrimp, salmon or halibut. It will be Alaskan wild caught whatever it is.

I added a new bracelet pattern for sale in my Etsy shop for my limited edition patterns. I like keeping my prices fairly low, so an average blank template in my shop is 1.60 and commercial use okay. My pattern collections are around 3-4 dollars each for several patterns. Because people keep telling me that underprice my work badly, I decided to do some limited edition patterns, the patterns are 3 dollars each, I'll sell 10 each then permanently retire the patterns. Making them up for sale is fine. The limited edition patterns all say that they are are limited edition, and there are 3 so far, all bracelets, Ninja Beader, Cherry Pie (inspired by the Warrant song) and the one below, inspired by Alice Cooper. "Your skin/so wet/black lace/on sweat"

Book Review- Twinkie Chan's Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies

Twinkie Chan's Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodie: 20 Yummy Treats to Wear is one of those books that I was looking forward to getting as soon as I saw it. I love to crochet, I simply adore cute, and everybody loves food right?
Oh my goodness. Eat something before reading the patterns, or you might get inspired to eat and crochet at the same time and that never works out well.
Most of the book is the most adorable scarves you've ever seen. Made up of motifs that are stitched together to make long chains. Motifs like cookies, cupcakes, soft serve ice cream cones, textured with stitches, all sorts of desserts and sweets, changing colors and accents creates different flavors to make long colorful scarves. The only non-scarf items in this chapter are a cupcake hat and a lemon coconut cake tissue cozy accented with very sweet cherries.
The next chapter is fruits and veggies. This has a great pattern for strawberry themed fingerless gloves, a green salad scarf of lacy shell stitches in green accented with crocheted veggies, a pink grapefruit scarf that I just love for the bright happy colors and a few other great scarves.
Next up is savory stuff. My favorite, the sushi scarf. 5 kinds of sushi stitch together into a wonderful scarf. My other favorite is the popcorn scarf made up of motifs that look like boxes of movie theater popcorn. There are also pizza, bacon and eggs, and a buttered toast scarf in this chapter.
While most of the book is scarf patterns, tawashi stitchers will notice that a lot of the individual motifs could very easily be made up as tawashi. The motifs would also be good to stitch on to other things or to make out of thread. So they don't HAVE to be a long fun scarf. They could just as easily be added to other projects.
It's a very cute book. Recommended!
Andrews McMeel Publishing Patterns include:
Cupcake Scarf- Candy Button Scarf- Cookie Scarf- Gingerbread Man Scarf- Lemon Coconut Cake Tissue Cozy- Rocket Popsicle Scarf-Soft Serve Ice Cream Scarf-Chocolate Cupcake Hat with Blue Frosting
Green Salad Scarf- Pink Grapefruit Scarf-Baby Radish Lariat Scarf- Pear Scarf-Giant Carrot Scarf- Strawberry Fingerless Gloves
Bacon and Eggs Scarf- Buttered Toast Scarf-Sushi Scarf-Pepperoni Pizza Scarf-Popcorn Scarf-Spaghetti and Meatballs Scarf