With apologies in advance for almost turning this diary into a travelogue...
I met Tanya on this site in 2013 when she wrote to me expressing her astonishment at our shared intimate knowledge of legacy HP/UX and Informix software.
Before our eventual face-to-face greeting, I learned much about this amazing woman. She was of Russian and Inuit lineage and dearly loved her home town of Fairbanks.
She owned multiple properties but her heart belonged to her homestead cabin. It was very remote and only accessible via treacherous river travel.
If you all have familiarity with homesteading, you know there are draconian rules governing mandatory improvements.
Despite the almost insurmountable obstacles she built a two-bedroom cabin with functional plumbing, and managed to annually clear enough land to meet the BLM's requirements.
She did that with minimal help. Her on-again, off-again male friend did supply her with a generator and some power tools but not much labor. Another more helpful friend air-dropped food and some other supplies occasionally.
Her nearly unbelievably rugged pioneer spirit was never more evident than when she wrote email saying she had killed a bear and felt badly for doing so. She said it was hungry enough to try to tear the walls of the cabin down to reach whatever it smelled inside. She tanned the hide and canned the meat. She brought some of that back with her on her next foray into civilization.
I didn't like it much.
Canned bear
She welcomed us in to her Fairbanks home with a delightful Romanian herring roe snack that I will share below.
In the mean time... this digression serves to help illustrate just exactly why I was willing to move out of my custom luxury home in California to the hinterlands of the Arctic.
She wasn't the only reason - we had put our home up for sale and were dead set on leaving the Golden State for just about anywhere else.
The sale was amazingly fortuitous because in 2016 the home and the entire town of Paradise was erased in the Camp Fire.
Tanya had been recruiting me to work in the government offices where she spent her summers.
They could not find anyone with the skills necessary to maintain and update the antique software and applications that made the Borough function.
It took some doing to convince my wife that living in interior Alaska was a good idea.
Eventually, of course, we did make the move and were well rewarded.
I made a boatload of money but more importantly we experienced the best and worst the Arctic has to offer.
The things we liked the least were the all too frequent -55° F days and interminable darkness of winter.
The things we liked most are numerous.
The sky glows green and blue almost every night with the Aurora Borealis
Aurora over the Chena river
Wildlife is abundant and HUGE. Eagles the size of pterodactyls and moose the size of elephants.
Young mom and offspring in the back yard
The almost unimaginably vast landscape is gorgeous.
Endless vista — taken at 10 pm on the summer solstice
I could go on for pages but that isn't what this diary is about. I'll close this preface with the notes that Tanya passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2020 and I reached retirement age that same year. We metaphorically tossed a dart at the map and moved to New Mexico.
Fairbanks is not a culinary capitol. It is a boom town well past its prime. Think Reno with less glitz.
That being said there are some nuggets in the scrabble.
Fairbanks' closest claim to fine dining is the Turtle Club.
The menu is limited but what is there is top notch. The prime rib is divine and every element of the well-stocked salad bar is fresh, crisp, cold, and delectable. As you may expect, it is pricey.
Some locals will sing the praises of the Silver Gulch Brewery but to be honest the only item on the menu worth ordering there is the Scotch Eggs (maybe the best I've ever had).
They also have (for my money) the best craft beer in the State.
I'll give a shout out to my go-to lunch spot: Taco King. This is not part of the chain of the same name, it is an independent joint staffed by excellent cooks.
Two quite surprising (to me) elements: Thai food and sushi.
There are more Thai kiosks dotted about town than coffee kiosks. Virtually every intersection and wide spot on the highways. Every strip mall or shopping center has at least one Thai restaurant.
I find this a bit odd because there is no commensurate Thai population in the town.
The eateries are all good — even the roadside shacks — but the best restaurant of all is Lemon Grass. The owning family has a sister restaurant of the same name in Chiang Mai and I hope to visit that one someday.
It is rare for me to be able to say but there is not one dish I have eaten at Lemon Grass that has not been totally stellar.
There are two sushi places of note. There are several others, but don’t bother. The first and most popular of the good ones is Fuji. It is always well populated and seating can be a problem in tourist season.
The food and fish are good, hence the rating of better than any other in town save one.
Prices are average, probably a bit less than you would expect. Service and selection are nice.
However... far and away the best is Ajimi. The fish here is better than almost any other, anywhere.
Language is problematic, the proprietors speak very little English but the menu is fairly self-explanatory. They serve truly awesome preparations.
Ok, poking my head up from that particular rabbit hole… back to the business at hand...
Herring Roe Appetizer
(important note: some commercially available stuff marketed as herring roe actually comes from the male fish, meaning it is herring milt, not roe. Take care to examine your selection to make sure it is fish eggs)
(not so important note - you can substitute almost any roe; tobiko (flying fish) or ikura (salmon) are some choices — I’m taking Tanya’s word for this, I haven’t tried any other than herring)
10 oz. milk
½ teaspoon salt
2 oz. semolina
2 oz. herring roe
3 1/2 oz vegetable oil
3 1/2 sparkling water
freshly squeezed lemon juice from at least one lemon
1/2 finely chopped med size white onion
small tart shells, lightly toasted if they aren’t pre-cooked
(optional but recommended) shiso for garnish
Heat the milk in a saucepan. When it starts to boil, add the salt and semolina, stirring constantly with a whisk. Cook until the mixture thickens, then let it cool completely.
Transfer the cooled semolina mixture to a bowl and mix in the fish roe.
Gradually add the oil and sparkling water, alternating and pouring in a thin stream while mixing continuously. Stop if it threatens to get too thin. The final mixture should have a dense and creamy texture.
Add freshly squeezed lemon juice, adjusting the amount to taste for a bright and tangy flavor.
Add the mixture to a piping bag with a star nozzle and fill the tart shells.
Garnish with a sprig of shiso if desired. I love love love shiso with any seafood.
