The Dinner Files

I am usually lakeside, at the family cabin, for this holiday weekend. Circumstances happy (a wedding) and, shall we say, inconvenient (knee surgery but 2 1/2 weeks ago) kept me in unseasonably sunny San Francisco this year. There have been many ice cream cones (the ridiculousness of debating where go to—Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous, Bi-Rite Creamery, Humphry Slocombe, or St. Francis Fountain, all of which are to greater and lesser degrees in what we consider our neighborhood living, as we do, betwixt and between the Mission and Potrero Hill—does not escape us and we are well aware of this bounty of riches) and a wee bit of grilling, but my relative immobility has kept me pretty much out of the kitchen.

So I was going to write about missing being at the cabin, and how much I itch to be diving into the cool northern waters this time of year. My connection to northern climes was highlighted even more, however, with the news that my grandfather died yesterday.

It is sad because death is always sad and we loved him dearly, but I count myself beyond lucky to be mourning a grandparent when I am in my forties.* He was a funny, independent, good-looking man who died with his mind and his head of thick hair remarkably in tact. He had a strong Norwegian-Minnesotan sensibility, as best evidenced by the fact that he always told me that he checked the weather in San Francisco everyday to see how I was doing, the two things being, to his mind, inextricably linked. I might miss most how his strong Minnesotan accent pronounced my name, with a nice long o in the middle. Accents that strong—remember the guy shoveling his driveway in Fargo? for a moment there in the theater I thought the Coen brothers had somehow recruited my grandpa for the role—aren’t too common anymore.

I’m very glad I once made him the kranskake, an almond Norwegian ring cake served at weddings and other festive occasions, pictured above. He teared up when I carried it into the room on Christmas Eve.

On the one hand, it would be fun to make a kransekake today and I have the ring molds; on the other hand I also have two filets of wild Alaskan salmon in the fridge just waiting to be turned into gravlax, an equally fitting tribute. I’m going to go ask my dashing husband to set me up with a stool at the counter, strap an ice pack on my knee, and get to work.

* There are a lot of long-lived people in my family. I had three great-grandparents into my teens; my grandparents all lived to see me to at least 27. My grandfather’s grandmother lived to be 95, her father to 94, his grandfather to 93.

Luscious. Silky. Salty. Fishy. Yum.

This gravlax was all of these lovely things. It was also cured in the trunk of my car. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It started, as all salmon do, as an egg (yum, salmon roe!) in a creek or riverbed in a tributary that drains into the Copper River in Alaska. It grew and swam (and was swept) downstream into the cold, rich waters of the Pacific Ocean. The cold water made it develop a lot of fat, tasty fat that doesn’t congeal in the cold and thus is healthful and all things good for us humans to eat. It ate lots of stuff – crustaceans, squids, jellies, and other things that eat lots of marine plants and even smaller things that eat more marine plants. You know those omega 3 essential fatty acids health people are always going on about? They are mainly found in marine plants. So when things eat those plants and then other things – like salmon – eat them, the omega 3s build up in a most pleasing and beneficial way. Yet, like magic, this salmon remained low in mercury – they eat fairly low on the food chain compared to, say, swordfish or sharks, and they also simply don’t live that long enough (about 3 to 5 years) to build up mercury the way longer-loved fish do. Nice work, salmon.

This particular fish then had the great misfortune (or is that supreme honor?) to end up in Bill Weber’s gillnet last September (it was on its way to spawn – and die– in the same river where it was an egg). If I know Bill, and I don’t know him well but I have met him and heard him speak at length about how he handles his fish, this salmon was hand-picked off the net, bled (which drastically slows down decomposition), and immediately put on ice. Bill has all kinds of special and advanced methods because, at heart, the man is an inventor of things, an improver of ways.

There are people who will say – and they are probably right – that the wild salmon population is not doing so well and that, really, we probably shouldn’t be eating any of these creatures. We should let them all spawn and reproduce as much as possible. Fishermen and the communities they support, of course, have many arguments against this stance. I’ve decided that if there are only so many salmon left and other people are eating them, I want my share. I don’t eat it very often and when I do I buy it from fishermen I know are fishing responsibly and with great care so the fish I get is as awesome as possible.

And I did. Behold! A thing of great beauty!

It was then packed and shipped to SFO where my editor and pal Bruce Cole picked it up and brought it to his garage. I arrived, fillet knife in hand, and – visualizing but in no way imitating the clean, swift lines of the professionals I witnessed in Cordova – filleted this lovely creature while Bruce laughed at my lack of upper body strength (it’s a BIG fish!). I then took full advantage of my excellent fine motor skills, superlative manual dexterity, and expensive professional tweezers to pull out the pin bones one by one:

I then lugged it home in a trash bag with a few of its equally mangled brethren and one to fillet at home (so I could photoshoot it for you! see above!), packed it up very carefully, and put it in the deep freezer.

The Sunday before Christmas, I pulled this salmon out (yes, the whole salmon, both sides) and let it thaw. I did this because there is Norwegian in me and every Christmas (usually on the Eve) we have gravlax. It is what we do.

On Tuesday I rinsed the salmon, patted it dry, lay the two halves on a very clean counter skin-side-down, and sprinkled each half with 2 tablespoons of horseradish-infused vodka (usually I’d use aquavit, but we were out – yes, we usually have it in the freezer and yes, we ran out; what can I say, it was a trying fall). I then sprinkled each half with about a third of a mixture made of 1/3 cup fine sea salt, 1/3 cup sugar, and 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper. A person could add dill to this mixture – about ¼ cup chopped – if they were so inclined and I would be so inclined except that my dashing husband really doesn’t like dill and really, really, really loves gravlax and Christmas is, despite how some people may choose to proceed, not a time to torture loved ones.

I put one half of the salmon skin-down in a large baking dish and laid the other half skin-up on top of it so the flesh more or less matched up. I covered it with foil and plastic wrap, weighed it down with a cutting board that fit inside the dish, put it in the fridge and laid a few wine bottles on top to weigh it down further.

On that Wednesday morning I woke up at the ass crack of dawn. I took the salmon out of its dish, patted it dry, and transferred it to a small baking sheet I had sprinkled with half of the remaining salt-sugar mixture (leaving the two sides cleaving to one another the whole time but flipping it so the fillet on the bottom was now on the top) and sprinkled the top of the salmon with the rest of the sugar-salt. I then wrapped this whole thing in foil and plastic wrap and transferred it to its new home – a small $1.99 Ikea cooler lined with a kitchen garbage bag with several ice packs at the bottom. I then worked a small cutting board (that fit into the cooler) on to of the wrapped fish, put the various bottles of champagne we were bringing to Christmas on top to weigh it down, added more ice packs to top the whole thing off, tied the garbage bag shut, and zipped the cooler closed.

We put the cooler – FACING UP AT ALL TIMES FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DON’T MOVE THE COOLER! – in the trunk of my Honda Civic with scads and scads of presents (our luggage had to go in the backseat), filled our travel mugs with coffee, and carried a very sleepy son to the backseat where I’d made a nest with his favorite quilt, a pillow, and all our luggage. We hit highway 101 before the sun rose and drove north for two days (with plenty of stops to hike in redwoods, eat seafood, and buy one hell of a fabulous late-60s dress at a junk shop) until we got to Manzanita, Oregon.

On Thursday evening, I ransacked the cupboards of my friend’s mother’s beach house for a baking dish, unpacked the fish, flipped it again while transferring it to its new home, re-jiggered the fridge and found place for both fish and champagne. Then I said hello to the various lovely people with whom we were to pass our holiday.

Christmas morning, after Santa’s good will had been fully investigated, we got out the fish.

My dashing husband carved it and we put it – with or without cream cheese and red onion and capers as individual tastes dictated – on rye crackers, baguette, pumpernickel, and/or lefse.

We ate, we drank coffee, and before we knew it, our work was done.

I hope you all had holidays that were just as delicious and lovely and extended as mine were. It’s good to be back.

We had a bit of leftover salmon – and after the boys were done pawing at it to get all the crispy skin, it was none too pretty looking either. When I mentioned the possibility of salmon cakes my son jumped up and down, clapping his hands. Regular readers know that I take an almost sick pleasure in frugality. I’m not cheap, but I can really work the clever haus frau angle and something about wasted food makes me a bit nuts. Salads, cakes, and fritters are all ways to stretch leftover fish and seafood. To make what’s old new again, to make what’s not quite enough plenty.

Salmon cakes

Feel free to experiment away with these. I have no idea what you like in your salmon cake. You might want a bunch of minced peppers or chiles or some bizarre combination of spices. Go to town. These proportions of fish to egg to crumb, however, should serve you quite well. If you like mayonnaise in your salmon cakes, go ahead and add 1/4 cup in place of one of the eggs. Me, I can’t figure out why you would do that.

2 cups (about 12 oz.) cooked and flaked salmon

2 – 3 tablespoons minced green or red onion

2 tablespoons minced parsley (or combination of herbs of your choosing)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne (clearly optional)

2 eggs

1/3 – 1/2 cup panko or freshly toasted bread crumbs, plus more for coating, if you like

Flour for coating if you don’t want to use panko or bread crumbs, if you like

Oil for cooking

In a medium bowl, combine the salmon, onion, herbs, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Mix to combine. Move the mixture to the side of the bowl and crack the eggs into the now sort of empty section of the bowl. Use a whisk or fork to beat the eggs. Now gently combine the salmon mixture and the beaten eggs and think about what you’ll do with that minute of washing and drying an extra bowl that you just saved.

Stir in panko or bread crumbs. Breads crumbs vary *so* much that the amount is a bit tricky. You want the mixture to hold together, but you don’t want it to get too bread-y. If you want to form and cook the salmon cakes right away, you’re going to need to add even more panko. If you’re willing to form them and chill them, you can get away with less.

Spray your hands with cooking spray or oil them with olive or vegetable oil and form the cakes. I make mine about 3 inches across and an inch thick. Place them on a baking sheet, cover, and chill for a few hours for best results.

Dredge the cakes in flour or bread crumbs, if you like, but I find it’s not necessary and quite messy.

Heat a large frying pan over medium high heat, add some vegetable or olive oil for cooking, and cook salmon cakes, a few at a time, until golden brown on one side, about 4 minutes. Turn over and cook until golden brown on the other side and cooked through, another 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining cakes. Serve hot or at least warm.

I recently found myself sitting in a room in Yountville with a few other food writers, a whole mess of health and nutrition writers, some fitness writers, some food product development folks, a bunch of chefs, and the usual assortment of marketing and PR people that are so often present when the rest of that group gets together (we need someone to organize us, after all – and getting writers and chefs all in the same place at the same time appears to be a lot like herding cats).

The talk, much to my surprise, centered on healthy cooking and how we (“we” being writers and chefs) can help Americans eat better and I was bored. Really quite extremely bored. I was bored for several reasons.

1) I would never willing attend a talk on “healthy cooking.” I had thought I would be attending a much more specific ingredient-focused presentation and demonstrations. I already know a lot of what is generally called “healthy cooking.”

2) I don’t think people lack information about eating well. I think most people know they should eat vegetables and not fry everything. I think most people are stuck between a rock and a hard place of economics, convenience, and the horror of confluence that is human biological craving and food science’s ability to work those cravings like nobody’s business and in order to do great scads of business.

3) The notion of what “healthy cooking” is that was largely being used in that room makes me sad. It was more nutritionally driven than taste driven, more about what is in food than how we experience food. From what I have pieced together, unless people are really in touch with the experience of their food and how it affects them, switching how they eat is an uphill battle of deprivation and backsliding.

Then the discussion turned to class and I went from bored to wanting to pull my hair out strand by strand. That the worst food is the cheapest and that people with less money therefore tend to in general eat more of it is a question of federal policy (see “Farm Bill”) as much as anything and no matter how many articles I write about how delicious greens are, we subsidize high fructose corn syrup and not chard and discussing it as a question of nutritional education is insulting to everyone involved. Political education, perhaps. It certainly ain’t an issue that is going to be solved by lifestyle magazines.

Then – please, stay with me, I’ll get to the delicious salmon soon – the discussion turned to the children. Annoyance turned to hopelessness as the room took as unquestioned truth the notion of kids food. The need for healthy kids food. The challenge of kids food. Sneaking spinach into smoothies (and not telling the kids what made it green – “magic” was suggested as an explanation). The importance of kids menus offering carrot stick “dippers” instead of French fries.

Look, children tend to be pickier about food than adults. They don’t necessarily want to eat everything we eat. They also don’t know much. That’s why we need to teach them.

Just as we teach kids how to read and how to brush their teeth, we need to teach them how to eat. If we slough it off by handing them snack packs throughout the day, that is how they will learn to eat – constantly, with their hands, processed food. We can’t teach them in an afternoon when they’re in fourth grade – it’s a process. A long, slow process of offering different foods and explaining again and again and being consistent and letting them make choices when and where appropriate and laying down the law when that’s appropriate too. It’s like every other aspect of parenting. And, like all the other aspects, they watch more what we do than listen to what we say.

(I don’t think I ever got a dirtier look than the one I got from a group of parents at the park at 11:30 one morning when my son was three and I told him as he looked at the other kids constantly pawing through bags of Goldfish crackers and Pirates’ Booty that no, I didn’t have a snack because he’s already eaten it. Plus, I said, we’re going home soon as we were having lunch in half an hour and that it was okay to be a little bit hungry before a meal. To me it seemed like a teachable moment. Their faces told me they thought it was closer to abuse.)

Annoyance, hopelessness, and frustration with the world melted away when I got home and was met by a family that was super psyched to have me throw a salmon fillet on the grill and help me pick the last of the mustard greens from our completely over-grown garden and eat them tossed with a bit of rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and mirin. When my son made a play for the charred and crispy skin from my piece of salmon, I gave it to him with glee.

What? It’s not salmon season yet? Why no, it’s not. This fillet is part of a group-buy from a fisherman up in Washington state a friend put together. It was wild-caught Pacific salmon caught last season, bled and iced on the boat, cleaned and frozen the same day. We bought so much directly from the fisherman that he shipped it freight and the whole of it cost way less than retail. It makes me grateful not only for the family that eats it with joy and but also for the deep freeze that came with our house. Now I’m waiting for this year’s salmon season to start up so I can get some from the Copper River fishermen I met last summer.

Frozen salmon on the grill

The best thing I learned while up in Alaska last summer learning about Copper River salmon was that you can throw frozen salmon directly on the grill. It takes a few more minutes to cook, and works like a charm. Brilliant.

Salmon fillet, skin on – fresh, frozen, or defrosted

Oil

Salt

Pepper (optional)

Lemon (optional)

Clean the cooking grate on your grill – no need to go crazy, but scrape off any bits clinging to it. Rub the grate with oil. Now heat the grill. Get it nice and hot, but not crazy hot – you should be able to hold your hand about an inch above the cooking grate for a minute or two.

Rub the skin with oil and set salmon, skin-side down, on the grill. Sprinkle the flesh side with salt. Sprinkle pepper on too, if you like. Cover and cook until desired doneness. I find a fresh fillet that is about an inch thick is ready in 10 -12 minutes, but I like my salmon actually cooked in the middle. If you want that bit of raw, cook it less. A frozen fillet the same size seems to take an extra 5 minutes on the grill.

Notice I have not instructed you to flip or turn or move the fish in any way. The skin protects the down side, the cover helps cook the top side.

Use a wide spatula to lift the whole fillet off the grill and slide it onto a baking sheet or platter. Hold the platter over the grill and next to the fish when you do this so the fillet spends as little time as possible hanging off the spatula on either end.

Serve hot or at least warm with a spritz of lemon juice, if you like, or whatever sauce or condiment floats your salmon boat.

It was so good that Ernest asked why, exactly, it was so delicious.

I explained how the salmon came from a place that is very good for salmon, that the people who caught it took such good care of it. He looked over at me like I was a complete fool.

“I don’t think that’s why it tastes good, Mama. I think it’s because you took it off the grill at the right time.” Snap.

If that’s your point-of-view too, here you go – I grilled it using this super-simple method: I heat the grill to a medium heat (you can hold your hand about an inch over the grill grate for 3 to 4 seconds), I sprinkle the fish with salt, I brush vegetable oil on the grill grate and the fish skin, put the fish skin-down on the grill, I cover the grill, and I cook it undisturbed until the fish is done to my liking (I go by 10 minutes minimum, and figure about 10 minutes per inch if it’s thicker than an inch). If the fish has no skin or you’re worried about sticking, simply do the same thing but put the fish on a piece of tin foil with plenty of small holes poked in it. With salmon I always buy skin-on and cook it directly on the grill to crisp it up because if there is anything my dashing husband and inquisitive son love more than crispy crunchy salmon skin I don’t know what it is.

You can add marinades or rubs or whatever you dig, but did you notice that the fish does not get flipped? That, I think, is the key to happy fish grilling. And those fish-grilling baskets? I don’t have a place to put one, but when I tried them in the Sunset test kitchen I was not impressed. Sure, the fish didn’t stick to the grill, but it always made a bit of a mess in the basket itself.

So I grilled this Copper River sockeye salmon using the above method and it turned out perfectly – we all agreed (partly because I took my dashing husband’s fillet off the grill way before mine or Ernest’s because he likes his salmon pretty much not cooked). And next to it? It’s this fattoush salad minus the feta and olives. The lemony dressing and cumin seeds were fab with the plain grilled salmon.

I’ve been playing around with salmon. Lots of salmon. I returned from Cordova, Alaska with smoked salmon in jars and smoked salmon in vacuum-sealed bags. I was, for a brief moment in time, smoked salmon rich. We ate some straight-up, flaked some and put it on bagels as if it were gravlax. Then I made pizza. Salmon pizza. Two of them.

The top one is a crust cooked by itself (just a brush of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt), allowed to cool just a bit, slathered with cream cheese (I used that crazy delicious Sierra Nevada cream cheese – I wear a blindfold when I buy it to avoid the sticker shock), and covered with bits of flaked hot-smoked sockeye Copper River salmon, sliced ultra-ripe tomatoes, and minced green onion. I imagined it would be a lot like a bagel and it was.

The bottom one. Oh, that pizza. It was inspired by one I had in Cordova at Harborside Pizza that had smoked salmon and onion and bacon. The problem with that one – despite their awesome wood-burning oven in the back of a trailer – is that the crust was pretty thick and chewy in not a fabulous way and it had a lot of that very American tomato sauce that is, to my palate, quite sweet and then it also had a butt-load of melty cheese that isn’t quite stringy and stretchy but instead just greasy. In the world of typical American-style pizza, theirs was dandy. The problem is that I don’t really like those kind of pizzas. In fact, I thought I hated pizza until I was a teenager and had a different kind of pizza.

So I made a thinner crust, crumbled cooked bacon on it, spread around some onions that I had slivered and then cooked in the bacon fat from the just-mentioned cooked bacon, some flaked smoked salmon, and a grating of mozzarella to coat the whole thing and hold it together with a bit of parmesan grated over that for more salty flavor.

OMG. There is nothing else to say. Make this pizza! That would be something else to say, I suppose. This pizza, it was like crack. That’s another thing to say. Make your favorite pizza dough recipe (mine is below), buy your favorite pizza dough, or buy a Boboli and top it with the stuff I mentioned above.

A few tips for a good result:

1. Use good bacon – a meaty, porky bacon and cook it almost crisp before draining ti thoroughly.
2. Save the bacon fat and cook the onions in it. Don’t caramelize them, however. Cook them over medium-high heat until they wilt and look soft and yummy with a bit of browning just starting to happen along the edges (remember, they are going back in the oven). If you caramelize them the whole pizza will become too sweet – you need that tiny sulfuric kick cooked but not caramelized onions still have at their core.
3. Use good hot-smoked salmon – the kind that seems cooked. No lox or gravlax here (although, quite frankly, they would probably be delicious, but they’re not what I used).
4. Best case, scenario, you make your own pizza dough and then stretch it (don’t pull it, don’t roll it) into a thin, beautiful crust.

You may well have a pizza dough recipe you like. Please, use that! I bet it’s great. (To quote Elizabeth Zimmerman in Knitting Without Tears, “Mittens. Aha! Many people’s sole activity in the realm of knitting. To them I say skip this section. You are making the very best mittens, keep right on.” Of course, I’m talking about cooking and pizza, not knitting and mittens, but I’m pretty sure my clever readers figured that out all by themselves.) If, however, you don’t have a pizza dough recipe you love, you could use this one.

Pizza Dough

In a large bowl, combine 3 1/2 cups flour (bread is great, but all purpose works fine; also you can substitute up to 1/2 cup of the flour with whole wheat or rye flour for texture and flavor), 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon yeast, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 1/2 cups warm water. Stir together, cover, and let sit overnight in the fridge. (Don’t have that kind of time? Use 2 teaspoons yeast and let sit 1 1/2 to 2 hours at room temperature.)

Divide into 3 balls and let them sit about 30 minutes while you heat your oven to 500. A pizza stone in your oven will help ensure a crispy crust.

Work with one ball of dough at a time. With lightly floured hands on a lightly floured surface, stretch the dough into a very thin disk anywhere from 9 to 12 inches across. Put on a pan or a well-floured peel or back of a baking sheet if you’re using a pizza stone.

Quickly put the toppings on and slide into the oven/onto the pizza stone. Cook until bubbly and crispy and melted and how you like your pizza, anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes depending on your oven, equipment, and taste.

Salmon carpaccio with fennel relish. I know a lot about this dish. As I was eating it I had the pleasure of telling my dining companions that, in fact, I had caught the fish.

“How psyched are you?” and other enthusiastic confirmations followed, despite the fact that the Cordovans I was sitting with all eat salmon they catch themselves on a regular basis (about twice a week was the average in my informal poll, but that’s just counting dinner; if you add in lunch the weekly average more than doubles due to the apparent popularity of salmon burgers).

I should clarify one teeny tiny fact: When I say that I caught the fish I really mean that Thea Thomas, a Cordova salmon fisherman, caught it while I was on her boat.

I’d like to say I helped, but that would be a gross exaggeration. “Didn’t hinder too terribly much” is probably a more accurate assessment. While Thea donned some intense rubber gear and worked in the driving rain and freezing wind, I poked my head out of the heated cabin every now and again to try and get a decent picture without my camera getting too wet. In doing so I often asked if she could hold still for just a moment. And another moment while I wiped the lens. And another moment while I adjusted the angle. Oh, and just one more because the light seems a wee bit better at this part of the ocean an inch from where we were before.

At one point I asked her if she normally fished in such weather. To her credit the expression that betrayed how naive my question was barely flitted across her face before she said that yes, when the fishing was open and good she did indeed work in the rain. She did not add “silly city girl” to the end of her answer, which, in retrospect, was an impressive sign of her friendliness and general good character.

Thea, like many other Copper River salmon fisherman, uses gillnets. Like most of her cohort, she works alone (although her delightfully polite young nephew visits every summer to work as a deckhand for a bit). Unlike most of her cohort who spend their fishing days on gun-metal gray vessels with small cabins in which they often live for weeks at a time, Thea works on a cheery and brilliantly blue boat with a small cabin in which she often lives for weeks at a time.

The salmon she catches – the season moves from the king salmon in May through sockeyes and then cohos (called silvers by those who fish them) before the season ends in September – are trying to get up into the Copper River to spawn. And who can blame them? It’s a little chilly but otherwise looks like a lovely place to raise a family.

They have lots of fat built up for the fresh water journey, during which they stop eating and use a lot of energy (the Copper River is long and difficult to swim up even for a fish driven to swim up it, hence the prized richness and quality of Copper Rive Salmon). Once they spawn, they die. As they go upstream they start looking like, well, like they are going to die. Bits of their flesh starts flaking off. Sections of their bodies turn ghostly white. (In a perfect-circle-of-nature way, their rotting flesh will serve as a protein source for the hatchlings they die to spawn. That might sound a bit horrific, but don’t we all feed off our parents in one way or another?)

Out in the Prince William Sound and Gulf of Alaska, however, they’re still in salt water and fattening themselves up. So Thea set out her net, let it sit, hauled it back, and started picking off salmon (and a few flounder that were promptly returned to their ocean home) as they came in.

Then she posed for a picture that – and I’m just guessing here – isn’t a normal part of the routine as she cut the salmon’s gills to bleed it.

Her net was still coming in, there was work to do. The bleeding salmon was put on the floor, where it slid to my feet. Aggressive predator no more.

We brought our tiny catch of three sockeyes back to Cordova and had them hand-filleted by an expert, who can fillet a salmon faster than I can shoot with my camera, at Copper River Seafoods.

[Side note: Did you know there are machines that can fillet fish? I did not and found that fact fascinating. They do not, I was assured, do as good a job as a person, they just do it faster. Custom orders, fillets for smoking, and other situations where looks and super-duper premium quality matter – such as my dinner – are still filleted by hand.]

From there the salmon went to the chefs preparing dinner who chose to pound the living daylights out of it to make carpaccio. To their credit, the fish was so fresh and well-handled, without bruising or damage, that it was perfect to take advantage of that way.

[Another side note: I've heard from many experts that salmon should be frozen if you're going to eat it raw because of concerns about parasitic worms that the freezing kills. So far I appear to be parasite-free. Fingers crossed!]

My beef, so to speak, with the salmon carpaccio was the pounding. To be more specific, it was the noise from the pounding. It was loud, steady, distracting and it took place less than 15 feet and one all together too thin wall away from where I sat trying to follow a detailed technical discussion of cutting-edge fish bleeding practices on one side of me while asking questions (questions that would qualify me for enrollment in Salmon 101, Fishing 101, and Alaska 101 courses if such a placement exam were given) of a very cheerful and patient soul.

I learned this about fishermen: When they work, they work hard. Most of them I met were obsessive about the quality of the fish they caught and went to great pains to treat them well.

And then there are the boats. These things are as neat as pins. Clean as whistles. Exceptions exist, I’m sure, but I didn’t see any. They are named and cared for and tinkered with and, if my experience is any example, pointed out in the harbor with pride to new acquaintances. I kept up my end of such conversations with this question: Is it a bow-picker or a stern-picker? Feel free to use it as you see fit.

That salmon carpaccio began as a 4-lb. sockeye salmon headed for the Copper River. It was caught at Strawberry Flats by Thea on her fiberglass bow-picker in some gnarly freezing rain. Ireneo filleted it at Bill and Pip and Scott’s place. Adam and Dan and Trevor pounded, cut, and plated it. I think Marley helped. Beth ordered the fennel. I ate it while laughing with Bert and Mike and Robert.

All of that is to naught, of course, unless it’s tasty. Food can have all the backstory in the world, but if it doesn’t taste good you’re still not going to want to eat it.

I ate all my carpaccio. And would have happily eaten seconds. And thirds.

[Final side note: I don't want to forget Cheryl, who took the carpaccio picture at top and so without whom this post could not exist.]

I spent a few days in Cordova, Alaska learning about Copper River salmon. I thought I knew a fair amount about salmon before I went. I could name the five types of Pacific salmon we get on the West Coast, I knew the general life cycle of salmon, and I certainly knew a myriad of ways to prepare and eat salmon. Hell, I’ve smoked it on my stove top, I’ve grilled it in corn leaves, I’ve made more gravlax than you could shake a stick at, I’ve even witnessed my New York City born-and-bred mother-in-law boss the fish cutter at Zabar’s around and make him get out a new piece of Nova. I now know a lot more about salmon. A lot. Really almost a frightening amount.

The other thing I learned about, however, is Cordova. I sort of fell in love with the place. You know how some places are great to visit but the thought of moving there doesn’t even cross your mind whereas others tempt you with visions of a different life? For some reason I’m always tempted by places that get quite cold and dark in the winter. Perhaps it’s the Norwegian in me, or a childhood largely spent in Minnesota so that dark cold somehow feels homey and inviting (or I just appreciate how glorious summer feels after that freezing blanket of winter). Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and Bergen, Norway, for example, loom large in my fantasy path-not-taken life. I’ll now add Cordova to the list.

The trip had several highlights, but I’ll just talk about the final one here. On Sunday night I had the pleasure of eating dinner around the kitchen island at Mikal Berry’s amazingly cozy and serene craftsman bungalow while the incessant “liquid sunshine” as the locals call it leaked from the sky.

This corn, chile, and salmon chowder would have been fabulous enough, but both it and the homecured gravlax she served beforehand were made with salmon she caught herself. On her commercial salmon fishing boat. There aren’t many women commercial fishermen in Cordova (or other places, I imagine, I just happen to know only 6 to 8 of the over 500 permit holders in Cordova are women – I met three of them – more on that tomorrow).

The chowder was followed by a homemade panna cotta garnished with rhubarb compote she harvested and made herself and blueberries and salmonberries (those things that look like giant raspberries) she picked from her garden between courses.

With the panna cotta Mikal served her homemade cranberry cordial. I make a cranberry liqueur of which I was once very proud. Those days are over. I need to relearn how to make it. Mikal’s blew mine away. Of course she starts by gathering wild cranberries in the fall….

It was a calm, easy, homey meal that especially hit the spot. As much as the weather was less than sunny, so too was my constitution that day, what with the previous night having been spent out drinking with a lethal combination of fishermen and chefs. Honestly, I don’t know who is more trouble. Or more fun. I am most seriously out of partying practice. Plus, from what I gathered, bars in Alaska close when everyone leaves, so there is nothing to send you home except your own good sense which, of course, by that time you’ve completely lost. I didn’t even follow my own hard and fast rules to avoid hangover disaster: Don’t change drinks, Don’t change venues. No good comes from either one. That moment when someone says “Let’s go to The Alaskan!” when you’re already in a perfectly fine bar or other drinking venue? That’s the time to go home. You know what I did instead of going home? I recruited people to join us. Mistakes were made. Fun was had. Lessons were learned, again.

My dashing husband and I enjoyed the lovely sunchoke gratin (with a few potatoes thrown in for good measure) above and a side of broccoli for dinner. Why didn’t Ernest join us? Well, the thing took forever to cook. More than an hour when all was said and done.

In the meantime we all dug into some rye bread from Esther’s, a bit of snøfrisk, and a piece of smoked salmon that had been sitting around our fridge long enough. Ernest filled up on that, some carrot sticks, a few slices of cheddar cheese, and an apple. Oh, and as much of the crispy salmon skin my dashing husband toasted up when we finished the salmon as he could grab out of his father’s hands.

It was an accident, I swear. It started with a conversation with my mom about streamlining and editing the Christmas Eve menu. Before I knew what had happened it seemed I had hijacked the menu and was put in charge of executing it. Clearly, my mom was ready to pass the torch. Plus, she’d rather play with her grandson than cook and, if I’m honest, I’d rather cook than play with her grandson.

I’ve always loved how my family celebrates Christmas. First of all, we celebrate on Christmas Eve. Second, we make a meal of appetizers. Third, when I was growing up the menu revolved around fish and seafood. A sample menu from 1987, according to notes Santa left in my stocking:

• cashews
• veggie pizza
• veggie dip
• brie en croute
• muffins
• shrimp
• smoked salmon
• eclairs and cookies

Does not that sound delightful? I have no memory of the “muffins” and can’t imagine how that would have fit with the rest of the menu, but I imagine it’s code for something. Somehow that morphed into this collection from 2006:

• nuts
• whitefish
• smoked sturgeon
• nova salmon
• chicken wings
• ribs
• marinated veggie salad
• veggie pizza
• paté
• cheese and fig spread
• crackers, rye crisp, pumpernickel
• roasted veggies
• black bean and corn salad
• brie en croute
• olives
• cheese plate

Hum. Kind of random, right? Three kinds of cured fish plus shrimp plus ribs plus wings? Everything on that menu was tasty, but it was a lot of food (if memory serves, it didn’t all fit on the table).

So we pulled it back a bit this year and returned the menu to its roots.

• smoked whitefish
• shrimp (U.S. wild-caught white shrimp lightly steamed)
• crackers & rye bread
• gougeres (cheese puffs)
• garlic-stuffed mushrooms
• crudité platter with spicy yogurt dip
• sheep-milk cheese plate
• celery, date, & walnut salad
• cookies

It was still too much food, but that wasn’t entirely my fault. My uncle sent salmon he had caught and smoked himself. How do you not serve that? Also, the cheese went essentially untouched. Why eat cheese, we all clearly agreed, when an entire whitefish lay before you?