RVGR8escape

Alaska- Homer Day Four

July 1 Sunday Tutka Bay cooking school on the schedule for Gage, Reid & Liz today. We had to catch the water taxi at 10:30am so we had a bit more of a relaxing morning compared to the last two days. Within the Wild is the lodge that Kirsten Dixon and her husband , Carl, operate. It a beautiful, serene place and Kirsten offers cooking schools on Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays during the summer season to lodge guests and the public. The cooking classes are held in a re-purposed crabbing boat which was originally a World War II-era troop carrier. It is rustic, yet beautiful and can accommodate up to twelve people at a time for a cooking class. The class we took was Japanese cooking of ramen noodles..no not the ramen noodles you buy in a little bag that you add hot water to. These are made fresh and we also learned to make the broth that they are served in; choosing our own vegetables and spices and adding miso paste that Kirsten showed us can be flavored in many ways. At the end of our lesson we sat down to a wonderful three course lunch. First course was a green salad with apples and king crab! Next our ramen bowl; our own hand-made noodles, broth flavored with the vegetables we had cut up and spices we had choosen, miso paste, and a delicious piece of salmon fresh off the dock that morning cooked by one of the lodge chefs. It was scrumptious. The final course was a pot de crème made with green tea that Kirsten and her daughter Mandy had brought back from their latest trip to Japan. This was topped with sliced strawberries and orange zest. What an elegant lunch! We were so full! We also all received a signed copy of Elizabeth Andoh's cookbook, Washoku, when literally translated means “harmony of food'. I really enjoyed sharing this with the boys and they always seem to embrace any new experience that we try although they are not all as exciting as a mountain climb or a Denali plane ride. It is such fun to travel with them.