Monday, March 28, 2011

Chena Lakes

Awhile back, when daylight barely stretched to 5:00pm, and daytime highs topped out at 0 degrees (one a warm day) I went for a trek at Chena Lake Recreation area. In the summer this place is hopping, I'm sure. Nice big lake for fishing and kayaking, beaches for soaking up that precious vitamin D and only 30 minutes south of Fairbanks.

In winter, not as popular.

Freezer Cooking

This post is a departure from my usual musings: no ice, no men, no embarrassments. I know, I know, what's the point, right? This post is about freezer cooking. I'm a fan of freezer cooking and have been asked a lot of questions about it. Since I recently did a freezer cooking day, in Alaska, I thought I'd post about it.

Freezer cooking is also known as "once a month cooking." Basically you buy a truck load of ingredients, cook a gazillion recipes in one day, stuff it all in your freezer and pray that the electricity never goes out. At the end of it, you have enough dinner meals to last a month. Or maybe more! And, cooking this way is cheap, cheap, cheap!
Ingredients. This pile pales in comparison to past cooking days.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

BARF

Born And Raised in Fairbanks.  Yep. This, is how Fairbanksans who have lived here their entire lives refer to themselves. "I'm a BARF." I didn't make this up (believe me, I wish I had). I was told this by my new found hair stylist. He was proud. I like it: short, accurate, double entendre. The perfect acronym.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Break Up

Moving to a new place comes with regional sayings and ways of using words that are unique to that place. Alaska is no different. We've been over Cheechako. And the opposite of a Cheechako is Sourdough. Meaning, someone who's lived so long in Alaska that they smell sour from living in a dry cabin. Sure they may know a thing or two that us "cheeky babes" don't but really they just need indoor plumbing.



Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Eavesdropping

The other night as I was writing posts for the blog I realized that I was privy to quite the conversation. Since I don't have internet at my luxury apartment I use the free wifi at the coffee shop to update my blog.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Wistful

It's the official first day of spring and I'm finding myself wistful for snow. Oh, there's still plenty of snow around Fairbanks. We've been having day-time temperatures in the 30's fairly regularly now but nothing has melted. Folk tell me that from here on out it'll keep getting warmer. Undoubtedly there will be one more snowfall, just to make people crabby, and then it'll be full on melt.

You Know You're in Alaska When...

You know you're in Alaska when you see the following...

Moose crossing sign:


Snowshoeing in Denali

I didn't realize how close Denali National Park actually is to Fairbanks, until the Spring Break Road Trip to Anchorage. So snowshoeing in Denali it was to be on a fine Sunday. I loaded up the snowshoes, my back pack and headed off. During the winter, operations at DNP are limited. The visitor center is closed, as is the bookstore. But they do have a ranger working and of course you can get your stamp for your National Park Passport (a main reason for going!)
 
Everyone has an ice sculpture!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Locked Out

Two weeks ago I locked my keys in the trunk of my car. All the car doors were locked. It's an easy enough mistake to make. I think. It was the end of the day (Friday, no less) and I was headed home. I opened my trunk with the remote to dump the myriad of things (book bag, lunch bag, coats, gloves, scarfs and who knows what else) that I carry each day into the trunk. Everything went in the trunk. This is what I do everyday; I toss everything in the trunk before grabbing my purse and keys.