I've been surfing sites for easy dinner recipes and alternatively, Flickr for inspiration and other things. Then I stumbled over some sort of application site that generated all of the tags I've used for my photos at Flickr. It was interesting to see them. More interesting was the fact that several of the words were very large, and others very small to denote how often I use them.

As for the recipe action, I've decided that enough is enough and I can't go through the rest of my time in the Arctic by eating stuff like Instant Noodles. So I decided to look at what ingredients are available to me in this little town and see what I could possibly make out of them.

I found a few recipes for Ziti, which I totally have on the brain but no actual Ziti noodles so that will have to wait until I can order them. Last night's dinner consisted of chicken, cream of mushroom soup and sour cream over egg noodles. Sounds kinda gross all typed out like that, but it was really good. And even though I had to stand there at the stove, actually cooking (and kind of bored by staring at the cupboards), I was happy that I got to eat something I had actually made.

I also made some fried bread (called scone by us Indians...and remember, only other Indians are allowed to call themselves Indians) which I brought to work with me, this morning. I know the Inuit make their own form of Bannock (scone/fried bread) but I figured mine might be different.

My cooking fried bread is usually a 50-50 thing. It can go either way. I might add too much flour, or too much water, or forget the baking powder, who knows. But sometimes it works. Last night was one of those nights. Well, I thought it was pretty good.

No real cooking tonight. Just reheating leftovers, and making this mexican layer dip thing for the weekend (a non-cook dish that I used to make all the time). Also, my old roommate and I are going to mass produce perogies this weekend. She knows how to make them, I'm just along for the ride (for help and company). Seems like a good alternative to my usual laying around-doing nothing sort of Saturday afternoon.

My idea is to start cooking a bunch of stuff on the weekends that I can reheat during the week. Healthier stuff than the Instant Noodles, and real meals so my mom can stop worrying that I'm existing on rice, etc whilst living up here. Emboldened by my moderate success of dinner last night, I think I can actually make myself learn how to do things correctly and (hopefully patiently) in the kitchen.

As for Flickr, I'm trying to make my photography better and want to be inspired by *something*, anything, so I've been looking for assignment groups to join. The idea is that if I have an assignment or homework to complete, that I will be inspired to take more pictures. For instance, I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr in almost 3 weeks. I used to do it daily. I want to do it that way, again.

The weather is calling for a huge winter storm for Hall Beach starting tonight and lasting all through the day tomorrow. Apparently, 10 to 15 cm of snow and Winds gusting at times to 70 or 80 km/h which will create near-zero visibilities in blowing snow. I mostly copied that from the weather page *grin*. We already have snow on the ground here. We had a nasty winter storm last Sunday which made my entire house move with every wind gust. It doesn't really bother me. As long as I can stay inside.

Still with me?

Labels: Arctic, Arctic Circle, cooking, food, photographs, photography, weather

I woke up scared, in my bed last night. A bad dream that made me sleep the remaining hour with the lights on, and missing another body in the house so bad.

Helicopters are constantly thundering above my head, lately. I feel as though I'm in some sort of military state where flights are the norm and that I ought to be expecting soldiers to slowly re-enter the community like lost brothers. But the town has been quiet lately, a lot of people have left to inhabit their summer camps and enjoy being 'out on the land'.

It's just me and helicopters, I suppose. It's such an odd sound to hear...one would expect it to be very quiet.

I've been rather ambitious the past few days. Yesterday I decided to venture out on the land and get some photos of flowers and things that are growing. I was eagerly anticipating the growth of a common flower in the arctic called Arctic Cotton.

They resemble cotton balls on sticks, the flower itself feels and also looks like white rabbit fur blowing in the wind.


Then today, I decide I am going to find someone to give or sell me an Arctic Char which is a common fish and also considered a delicacy around the world. I'm not normally a fish person, the best I can usually do is tuna from a can, or maybe perch or halibut. Something that doesn't taste fishy, which sort of defeats the purpose, right? So, I was driving all over trying to figure out who were regularly fished, and who might want to part with a fresh one that I can cook for dinner tonight. A friend gave me two idiot-proof recipes, and I was anxious to try it.

The thing about the north is that nothing comes in a tidy little package. I ended up coming home with this gigantic fish in a grocery bag, with his head still attached. At least his innards had been cleaned. At least, I think I was supposed to leave the main blood line in there...eep.


So, I chopped off the head, it's sitting in the sink right now. I was planning on taking it over to one of the sled dog teams that are posted on the outskirts of the village, but one head for 7 dogs doesn't really make any sense. So it will likely end up in the trash. I can't stop looking at it's eye balls. I feel as though I want to keep it around for awhile, like a little friend.


I made some steaks, I guess you could call them and saved those for tomorrow (in the event this evening's dish turns to disaster) and the other half of the fish is currently wrapped in tinfoil and being baked in the oven. I seasoned it with salt and pepper, some garlic (because I like garlic), a tad bit of olive oil and wrapped it up and tossed it in there. The only thing is...umm, well, I couldn't get the tail fin off because my knives are crappy, and the tinfoil wasn't long enough, so it's sticking out of the pan. Clearly, and this should be no surprise to you, this is an amateur job.

Hopefully, that won't hurt the cooking of the rest of the fish.

And for the first time, I touched the water that was the ocean. Salty water on my tongue.


And it just amazes me, the view from the shore of my melting ocean...

Labels: 'North', Arctic Circle, cooking, dinner, flowers, photographs, photography