On food

I wanted to cover a topic rather close to my heart: food. Simply put I love food. All aspects of food, and it seems that with each year I become more in love with food. And maybe about now I should switch the word love to obsessed, but I must remember that I am trying to keep up the front of sanity.

My love with food began with eating it. As I grew, my experience in food expanded, and I found that I really like eating food and trying new kinds of food. I have been striving toward authenticity in my eating for a while now – getting experiences that most resemble what they are advertising. For example think of Taco Bell’s image of Mexican food and a legitimate taco at a small taco shop owned and operated by Mexicans. Authenticity. More recently my search for authenticity has evolved to search for ways to actually eat food. Too many of the things claiming to be food is really anything but, and as a result has begun to terrify me. I recently heard of a dessert made at a fancy restaurant that has for ingredients not a single actual food – it is all artificial ingredients (ie chemicals). Interesting science fair project – horrifying gastronomic project.

Then came my love for preparing food. This is tightly linked to the first love: eating food. People, for some reason, are surprised that I like to cook. But my response has been the same for a while. “I cook because I love to eat.” It’s a means to an end at times, but the more I do it, the more I am taking pleasure in the process. To combine the ingredients and to end with a mouthwatering, eyeball watering masterpiece is magical.

Most recently came my love of creating food. I recently began a garden back home in Minnesota with my mom. It was a modest 20’x40’ plot that we rented from the local garden center. It started out as a brown rectangle with considerable chunks of dirt and an intimidating amount of clay. I was convinced nothing I wanted would grow and the weeds would reclaim my rectangle. But, to my infinite surprise, food came. Slooowly at first. And then, out of nowhere I had zucchini the size of, to steal a comparison, baby seals. And beets, and beans, and beans, and beans, and tomatoes, that I heard are too prolific, and potatoes, and strawberries, and hot peppers, sweet peppers, peas, watermelon, cantaloupe, squash, and lettuces, and lastly (I think) carrots. All these edible items erupting from a previously cracked, clumped, clay riddled patch of dirt.

And so with all of these aspects of food present in my life, my move to Alaska involved a high sacrificing all three of these loves for an unknown amount of time. At our new-teacher inservice before school started they asked us to write a fear down that we had for the upcoming year. I am not lying: I wrote about eating good food. The thing is, Tununak is 125 miles from Bethel, accessible only by air (or boat), and Bethel is another 400 miles from Anchorage, also accessible only by air. Our food options are incredibly limited. Limited and extremely expensive. You have never really experienced sticker shock until you walk into Swanson’s in Bethel. Ten dollar bags of Doritos…seven dollar Oreos…good thing I don’t eat much of either of those. But nine dollar gallons of milk, eight dollars for five pounds of flour. Add that to the fact that the native culture doesn’t value fresh fruit and vegetables limiting further access to such in the two stores here in Tununak. I was a bit worried.

Saving graces began trickling in, thankfully. Most of the teachers out here order bulk through distribution companies specializing in shipping to bush Alaska. My neighbors tipped me off to a company in Oregon, Azure Standard, that specializes in organic and natural foods. Here is where I got my 50lb bags of beans, nearly 100bls of flours, and pounds of dried fruit in addition to a lot of other real food items. We also heard about a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm based out of Washington that ships to bush country Alaska. Kind of contrary to the typical CSA philosophy, but the Full Circle Farms has brought fresh, organic produce into my life again, and for that fully forgive any corruption of the ideal they may be causing. Love number one is safe – I have access to real, authentic food.

The second love – preparing food, was totally dependent on clearing the first hurdle. With that done, I could prepare world-class food. True, I am still terribly limited. Back home I could run (literally) to the store and pick up a missing ingredient, but here that is not an option. The reality is that it takes about two and a half weeks from placing a food order to receiving the food. Which means I have to plan my meals out at least that far in advance. This has required a total shift in thinking for me, one that is full of frustrating disappointments when my mind, still stuck in MN thinking, comes up with a great meal idea (Indian) only to remember that I don’t have any rice – or cumin, or cilantro, or lime, etc. The final result, though, is a positive one. When I plan accordingly, my life is awesome. A recent dinner consisted of roasted fall vegetables (potatoes and squash mailed from my MN garden, beets and zucchini from our CSA); chicken breast (that I acquired on a recent trip to Bethel); salad with red peppers, cherry tomatoes, and carrots (all from our CSA), and bread that I made. Life is okay thus far.

I am still working on the third aspect – creating food. It is possible, and in fact, our principal has a grow room in his house where he gets fresh greens and herbs. I am still trying to iron out the details. I first need to procure soil. I had plans of getting a worm bin (using a couple thousand earthworms to compost food wastes) to create compost, and it still may happen, but our weather is cooling off fast and I worry about having worms shipped and arriving alive. Any advice here would be appreciated.

Even without the last being fulfilled, I am incredibly happy about the first two parts of my obsession. Being able to attain and eat good food is a comforting fact. Seeing our box of fruit and veggies arrive in Tununak is such an oddly pleasing sight, but I should have expected as much. I love food.