food

Bringing in the weeds.

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We had a cooler-than-usual May, which made us reluctant to put things out early. It’s only in the past week that our planted lettuces were big enough to start semi-harvesting.

(Why “planted” lettuces? Because we’ve been startled by rogue lettuces – and Asian greens and quinoa – popping up everywhere. More on that in a minute.)

Longing to eat something, anything, that was fresh, I started bringing in the weeds in the first week of June. Some were actual weeds, such as the fireweed in the illustration. Epilobium angustifolium was consumed by Alaska Natives long before we got here. I’d been reading about its edible qualities and decided to give it a shot because nothing else was fresh at that point. (Except dandelions, and I find them too bitter.)

So I picked some of the smaller plants, sautéed them in olive oil with garlic and ate them on some of DF’s amazing rustic bread. They tasted mostly like oil and garlic. No surprises there. Underlying it was a slight sweetness, similar to cooked spinach.

Here’s an amuse-bouche view of how they turned out:

At first glance, my friend Linda B. thought it looked like an insect. It does, kind of.

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Why you need a freezer.

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Before DF was in my life, there was another: Chester. Cool and calm, he collected great deals for me: manager’s-special meats, gleaned blackberries, bread from the bakery outlet, and on-sale veggies, flour and butter.

Chester was – and is! – a 5.5-cubic foot chest freezer. Right now he’s crammed mostly with on-sale meats; there’s room, because we finished up last year’s raspberries. Recently we’ve found some pretty astounding prices on late-date carnivore bait: ground beef for a dollar a pound, a three-pack of bratwurst for about 68 cents a pound and shank-end hams at 49 cents a pound.

About that last: It is not a typo. I can’t remember when I’ve seen ham at a price that low. Maybe…Never? And thanks to Chester, we were able to get three of them.

You don’t have to be an omnivore to appreciate a freezer, though. When frozen vegetables are available at fire-sale prices, you can get six or seven (or more) bags instead of being limited to one or two. Vegetarian/vegan frozen foods are increasingly varied in scope, so you don’t have to do everything from scratch. (Although my vegetarian sister makes and freezes a big batch of refried beans on the regular.)

And no, the electric bill hasn’t gone up noticeably. (At the time of purchase, I estimated the cost at 78 cents per month.) And even if today’s freezers weren’t super-energy-efficient, I would still want one. Here’s why. 

 

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Giveaway: Alaska-made chocolates.

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The other day I learned about a most, um, interesting confection: a dark chocolate bar (70 percent cacao) with Alaska sourdough and Alaska bee pollen.

I am not making that up.

Haven’t sampled it yet, but I will soon: DF and I plan to take it over to our beekeeping neighbor, thinking it will intrigue him as much as it did us.

What I did try was a unique specialty at Chugach Chocolates: “bean to bar” chocolates, made with single-source cacao beans from Vietnam, Fiji and Madagascar. The tasting took place after a tour to see how this small-batch chocolate company cracks, roasts, grinds and tempers its beans before flavoring and molding them into smooth, rich, delightful sweets.

This was dark chocolate unlike any I’ve previously tasted. I’m not sure I have the vocabulary to explain the different flavors, but I’ll give it a try: earthy, fruity, ever-so-slightly spicy and, mostly, dark. It made me think of the Mayans and how they drank their chocolate without sweeteners.

Not that this chocolate is bitter! It’s just that the reigning flavor was intensely chocolatey, rather than sugar-with-chocolate-added.

I’ve featured Chugach Chocolates before in my “support the local economy” giveaways. Now I’m ready to do it again, because I learned that they use ice packs and insulated covers to keep their delightful products safe for summertime shipping.

Wanna win? Keep reading.

 

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Does refinancing a car hurt your credit?

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Sometimes stuff happens: illness, job loss, divorce. When things get super-tight and you’re casting around for a cash influx your eye might fall upon that fairly new vehicle. Maybe you should sell it. Or you might wonder, “Does refinancing a car hurt your credit?”

Yes, it can. But in some cases it might be the best – or only – option for when things go sideways. (Looking at you, COVID-19.)

I tackled this topic recently for Self.inc. “Does refinancing a car hurt your credit?” covers the good, the bad and the WTF of this complicated topic.

On the face of it, refinancing a car isn’t a great idea. But sometimes it could be the right thing to do.

The most obvious reason to refinance is because interest rates dropped. This is especially true if you financed with the dealer rather than looking around for loan options. Given that the average new-car loan is $34,635 and the used-vehicle loan is $21,438, even a loan rate that’s just 1 percent lower will make a big difference over time. (Not-so-fun fact: The average used-car loan is 65.15 months long and the average new-vehicle loan is 69.68 months.)

You could even get some cash in-hand if you do something called a cash-out auto refinance, which is similar to a cash-out mortgage refi. If having cash is vital, this might be the right choice for you at this moment in your life.

For example, if you couldn’t make the rent during a COVID layoff, a couple of months’ worth of payments might stave off eviction. Or if you have credit-card debt at 18 percent and were eligible for a cash-out refi at a much lower interest rate, you would be able to pay off the card and improve monthly cash flow. (Ideally you’d use some of that money to start an emergency fund, because the only thing certain is uncertainty and we need to positions ourselves to punch back at it.)

As always, you need to look at the big picture – and to look at it from all angles. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. 

 

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Frugal hack: Homemade yogurt.

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I’m having a bone graft today, to prepare for a dental implant some months down the road. Generally I look at dental work as God’s way of saying, “Oh, go ahead – have a milkshake for lunch.” But since this isn’t just a filling or a root canal, I have no idea how long it will be before I feel like chewing. One milkshake is fine; several days’ worth sounds cloying. That’s why I made a fresh batch of yogurt over the weekend.

Greek yogurt with some of the rhubarb compote I put up last fall is a fairly satisfying meal substitute. Protein, with no need to chew! Turning some of the yogurt into a healthy smoothie is another option that I think will help get me through the owie-mouth days to come. (Seriously: No idea whether it will be one or two days, or lots longer. This is my first bone graft and, I hope, my last.)

As I put the new batch into the fridge, I was reminded once again how simple it is to make the stuff. Draining it adds an extra layer of complexity, but it’s not that complex.

And the cost can’t be beat. I can get about two quarts of Greek yogurt, plus almost two quarts of whey (more on that later), for $2.61 to $3.14, depending on whether the milk is on sale. When the milk is so close to its sell-by date that it’s 50 percent off, then I pay as little as $1.57.

By contrast: A quick search of supermarkets shows one quart of Greek yogurt going for anywhere from $4.29 to $5.99.

If I hadn’t drained it I’d have gotten almost a gallon* of regular yogurt. But I prefer the thicker texture and milder flavor of the Greek-style product.

Ready to learn how to do this? Keep reading. I’ll also provide a life hack for making Greek yogurt the easy way. 

 

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National Agriculture Day begins at home.

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Today has been proclaimed National Agriculture Day, so what better way to celebrate than with a picture of dirt?

Whoops. That’s soil, not dirt. As a master gardener once told me, “Dirt is what comes out of your vacuum cleaner. Soil is a living organism.”

President Joe Biden proclaimed National Agriculture Day in order to recognize “our commitment to and appreciation for our country’s farmers, ranchers, foresters, farmworkers, and those who work in the agriculture sector across the Nation.”

Well said, sir. But may I suggest that we also appreciate the nation’s fruit and vegetable gardeners along with the big-time growers? After all, they are providing food for themselves and, often, for lucky relatives and friends.

And, dear readers: May I suggest that you join us? 

 

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Looking back at the garden.

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My dearest friend brought in the first snowball of the season today. (Note: “Today” meaning Oct. 18, when I started writing this but got sidetracked.)

He had no intention of tossing it at me. Wise man.

“I just thought it was funny that I could make a snowball,” he said.

DF was also glad that he’d (mostly) finished putting the garden to bed. All that’s left is to thin out a few rows of raspberries, a task I want to observe. If I have to do it for him some year, or even if I simply want to help, I won’t accidentally kill any healthy specimens.

And healthy specimens they were: We froze about 30 quarts, I made about 16 jars of jam and his grandchildren romped through the rows, eating as many as they could hold. Which is, of course, one reason we do this: We want those kids to know where food comes from, other than Safeway.

I’d every intention of writing this article in late summer as “A walk through the garden.” I even took pictures. Due to various Reasons the article never materialized.

When I looked at the tiny white flakes falling to cover grass and the beds, I decided to go ahead with the piece. I wanted to see those summer pictures again, both as a reminder of what was and what will come again next year.

 

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Our daily bread.

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Bread-baking became a U.S. preoccupation during the pandemic. In some regions you couldn’t buy flour or yeast, not even for ready money*.

That wasn’t an issue for us, as we’d stocked up on both at Costco before the lockdown began. In fact, DF had been buying flour by the 50-pound bag for some time now. After all, he’d spent some of his formative years living in the Alaska Bush, with groceries delivered once a year. Having 50 pounds of ground grain just made sense.

In early summer we finally got around to trying a recipe I’d been meaning to check out for years: no-knead rustic bread. After we took our first bites, we understood exactly what the Internet has been bleating about since back in the oughties.

Damn, is it good. And damn, is it simple: four** ingredients, a bit of stirring, an overnight nap, a quick shaping and into a superheated oven.

The result is the best bread I’ve ever had. And we’ve become happily addicted to the stuff. “Daily bread” isn’t that far off: DF has been known to bake six times a week, depending on whether his grandkids have visited. Those two girls can eat more than a quarter of a loaf between them, with a slight gloss of butter (the preschooler) or with olive oil, salt and pepper (the sophisticated 8-year-old).

They stop eating only because we stop offering it. Yep, it’s really that good. 

 

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Cake is the answer. What was the question?

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The other day one of us (hint: it wasn’t me) removed from the freezer a container labeled “sour milk for cake.” It wound up in the fridge, where I eventually discovered it.

DF won’t exactly cop to having done this, but he did do it. Probably when he was rearranging the stuff in the freezer to make room for more things from the garden.

Technically I could have just refrozen it. After all, it was already sour – refreezing wouldn’t have affected the texture a bit.

Instead, I decided to stir up a quick Lightning Cake, from the old Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Pretty sure they named it that back in the day because it’s as fast as lightning to make.

It’s still fast to make, and it’s still delicious. DF took a huge chunk (almost half the pan) over to his mom, who’s 92 and possessed of less appetite than when she was young. I like to send pies, jams, cookies and cakes over because I figure the more calories we can get into her, the better.

The next day she phoned to report that she “ate the whole damn thing.”

Well, she’ll be getting another chunk tomorrow, because there was a lot of milk in that container. Also because the answer to many of life’s problems is simple: Cake.

DF’s granddaughters coming over? Let them make cake.

Feeling a little glum about deadlines? Let me eat cake.

Worried about how many sweets I’ve had lately? Let me share cake. Because rarely will someone complain if you bring over a slab of cake, even though some weight-conscious folk will react as though you’ve just introduced a stray cat: “That’s not staying here! You’re taking that home with you! (And can I have another piece?)”

 

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Back in Alaska, and gardening.

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I’m back from my emergency trip to Phoenix, and just off two weeks of self-quarantine. Alaska has had relatively few cases of COVID-19 and the city in which I live requires travelers to stay put for 14 days.

How I’m doing:

Happy to have had the chance to offer some emotional support to my daughter.

But also apprehensive that Arizona’s skyrocketing virus cases are going to continue to erode Abby’s well-being.

Feeling a constant low-level dread about COVID’s physical, emotional and financial impacts on the country.

Also feeling very, very happy to be back with my dearest partner, and back here in the coolth. The temperature in Phoenix was routinely more than 100 degrees, and as high as 113.

By contrast, we’ve had a few fireplace insert nights since I returned, a continuation of our cooler-than-usual spring. (It was 43 degrees this morning.) As a result, the garden is growing rather slowly.

Except for the English cucumbers. When I got back they looked like this:

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