Sweet Meats

                                         

      “ I like vegan meals,  I’ve tried many of them and they are good.  They would all be better with some moose meat thrown in.”

                                     - Steve Harrison jr.                                                                                                                            

   

 “Ooh that’s good!”  Pete passed the sampler plate to dad and returned to his position at the mixer.  I had already tasted it, and he was right.  The 25 pounds of chorizo sausage we had just made was just spicy enough.  The key, I think, was the jar of sliced jalapenos that Tamra ran through the grinder along with the meat.  The vinegary brine of the jalepenos was added to the spice mix too.   

    Each batch of sausage was tested in the same way;  After thorough mixing, I would grab a handful out of the mixer and disappear into the kitchen.  Five minutes later I would come out with hot samples for everyone to taste.  Eight different 25 lb. batches of sausage followed suit including two varieties each of Italian, breakfast, Cajun and Chorizo sausages.    

    With all this sampling I was worried that we would be too full to sample the brisket. Early in the day we had sawed through the bottom of the ribcage, freeing up the brisket. I popped it into the slow cooker with a nice barbeque- mesquite brine.  I poured in some worcestershire sauce and a Fat Tire amber ale along with some fresh garlic and topped it off with water.  Setting the crockpot on eight hours, I left it alone and got back to work.

    “Hi guys.” mom was at the door with two tins of fresh blueberry muffins.  “Who wants a muffin?” She had picked the blueberries last week when they were caribou hunting off the Denali highway.

    “I’ll have one, thanks mom.”  She scraped the sides with her knife to free it from it’s pod.  As she handed it to me I noticed that there were more blueberries to it than muffin.  Perfect.  There  must have been a half a cup of blueberries in each one.  With a walnut pressed into the top along with a sprinkle of sugar I quickly dubbed it the best blueberry muffin ever.

        Back to the meat.  Dad was cranking the sausage stuffer.  I was feeding the poly-bags onto the feeder tube as they filled, mom was labeling the bags and Tamra was pushing the course meat through for the second grind.  We better have a beer.

   Of all the sausage,   I decided that my favorite was the hot Italian batch that we mixed up with a bottle of Ménage à trois red wine, and a half-pound of fresh sage finely chopped in our mini food processor.  The distinctive sweet aroma of the sage filled the air in the kitchen as soon as it hit the pan.  We continued to busy ourselves with the meat processing, tasting, and storytelling.

See Tamra's wedding ring? Interesting.

    “ Hi everybody!”  It was the Buskirks.  As they walked through the garage door mom accidentally bumped a bottle of caramel-apple beer off the counter and onto the concrete floor exploding it with a loud pop.

    “Hey-oh! It’s not a good party until glass is broken!”  I announced.  Both Larry and Jane’s arms were full of fresh root vegetables and herbs from their bountiful garden.  Giant carrots, potatoes, celery, onions, brussel sprouts and zucchini were tucked into their arms along with bushels of fresh rosemary, sage, and parsley.  Behind them I could see that they had set down a nice cabbage the size of a basketball.  The unusually sunny summer had turned their normally awesome garden into a super-garden.

      In addition to the fresh stuff Larry handed me two jars of their special zucchini relish and Jane produced a platter with pre-cut samples of her beet cake.  Strange as it may sound it was the moistest chocolate cake I’ve ever had. Pure decadence.

   The Sunday afternoon mosied on as we processed meat, shared good food and good company.  We finished up the last of the sausage and finally cut up the second rib cage into meal sizes strips. Mom and Tamra began the cleanup.

    “Before you leave you have to come in and try the brisket stew.”  I insisted.

      An hour before it was done I dropped in big hunks of fresh carrots, potatoes and onions.  With the addition of the finely chopped fresh parsley, rosemary, and celery it was getting close.  As I stirred it up, the rich burgundy-brown sauce swirled it’s ribbons of liquified moose drippings around the chunky vegetables.  The brisket itself was lurking just under the surface ready to fall apart by way of fork, and melt into our mouths. I served everyone a bowl.   The creamy marbled fat  in the meat unveiled it’s distinctive moosey flavor.  “Wow, this is great” Dad said.  

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     At fish camp this summer I reread “Shadows on the Koyukuk”-a collaborative work by Sydney Huntington and Jim Reardon.  Widely accepted as a classic Alaskan book, Reardon pulls-together the vocal history of his friend Huntington.  They are both former board of game members.  Throughout the book Huntington’s storytelling weaves a rich tapestry of tales reminiscing of the old native ways of life growing up in the Koyukon territory as far back as his early childhood.    

  One of my favorite passages reads as follows:

   [That’s the way it was then.  Whenever a moose showed up in the Koyukuk, someone would find its trail and stay with it until he killed the animal.  Once the moose was taken, camp was made, and every bit of the animal was used.

    Chief  John and his wife had banked the base of their tent with moose hair for insulation, and they had made a moose -hide bed for each of their five dogs.  Chief John had found rocks at a nearby bluff with which to break the bones so they could boil out all the nourishing fat and marrow.  They had skimmed the fat off the top of the water and with it made a soup.  It was surprising how much fat they got out of those bones.  I ate with them, and with a little added rice, that soup was delicious.

    Some of the meat was cut into strips and dried into jerky.  They cooked and ate all the of the intestine parts and large blood vessels.  All the meat from the head ( some of the sweetest meat on a moose) was removed, cooked, and eaten.  No usable part was wasted.

    “Need help getting back?”I asked.( a young Sydney Huntington)

     “No we stay three more days to finish the skin,and cook all the bones, we take our time.  Maybe stop by muskrat camp on way back to Hughes- after breakup.  No Hurry.”]

     Why not celebrate the harvest? Why not savor it and taste some of the best parts?  This idea has always intrigued me;  it’s almost romantic.  The moose, largest of the deer family, is such an exceptional animal.  It deserves the extra care and attention to detail.  It is the ultimate prize in Alaskan subsistence. No other Alaskan game animal is as widespread and provides nearly as much food.   The windfall of the moose is not only a year’s supply of fresh lean protein, but it tastes good and is very versatile.   

    A Forrest Gump-eske rattling off of our common moose table-fare includes the following: moose steak, moose pot roast, moose ribs, moose hamburgers, moose meatloaf, moose tacos, moose spaghetti, moose chili, moose fajitas,  moose sausage, curried moose, moose meatballs, moose cube steak , moose brisket,  Moose-a-roni, moose sandwich, shredded pulled moose, corned moose, moose pizza (Italian sausage), moose summer sausage, moose bacon, moose liverwurst.  Well worth the effort of the hunt and all the time processing.  Moose is good food.       

     We had no intentions of cooking intestines and blood vessels that day for dinner, or breaking bones to boil out the marrow for that matter.  In our own way though, we too were taking our time to enjoy our own sweet meats and celebrate the bounty of life through the death of a moose.  

      

    

The Final Ride

                                          The Final Ride

    I am ready.  I feel good.  I know I can do this.  The master carefully unloaded me from the truck.   What I don’t understand is, why does he keep piling more stuff on me?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m up for the task, but did I see him stuff a “twelver” of beer into the yellow bag?   And what’s that a rubber raft?

    You know,  he never got around to replacing my right handle but he did dry me out for two whole weeks in his garage (I lost four pounds...mostly water weight.)

     The first mile was a good test for me;  main beams... strong, top rails... holding, gussets and axles... solid.  Oh, and did I mention he bought me brand new tires?  Amazon I think.  The new rubber under me bolsters my confidence even more!  I am a lucky girl and he is a good master, but why are we stopping?  

    He’s throwing rocks.  Miss.  Miss.  Hit.  For some reason he’s left the comforts of this nice trail and has returned with this strange, flopping, white and brown bird.  Why is he smiling?  Oooh it’s dripping blood on me now.  Stay focused.  

    We made it far that first day.  He set up camp as the sun was setting over the Western mountain ridges.  Peculiar; The click-clack of some weird hoofed animal ran past us in the pitch of darkness this night.  It passed by the master’s tent within ten feet!  I thought I heard sleigh bells, but that might just be my overactive imagination.  I get carried away sometimes.

    The next day we would double our efforts in mileage, but it seemed like much more because now the hills were against us.  Nearly horizontal, the master would dig in the balls of his feet to drive me upward.  He was breathing hard, and we would stop often.   Up and up we went.   The rare sun and heat of the day (for September that is) kept my humidity levels stable but I think it distracted the master from his duties.  Often he would linger on rest breaks to “look” around.  I forgave him for he is a good and true master, and over time I have learned patients.

    Day three was a trying one indeed and it was one I will never forget.  After cresting several (what I thought were) large hills we stopped for rest.  From here the trail had taken us to the bottom of a mountain.  There was no place else to go but up.  Sure enough the trail cut into the hillside at a steep incline.  “This is going to be tough on him.”, I thought.  We took a longer break here and I appreciated it.  I think the master did too because he spent about twenty minutes sitting on a nearby hill that was infested with some small blue circular fruit.  He was stuffing them into his mouth as fast as he could and had a giant smile on his face.  What a pig!   But, with stained blue lips and a bounce in his step, he seemed to have a new lease-on-life.   He gripped my lone handle with his left hand and stiff-armed me with his right on my transom railing and up we went.

      Several hours later, and after many rest breaks, we crested the last of the hills.  We made it!  My work here was almost done.  Over the hill we went.  He even jogged a little on a downhill stretch (I know I can be difficult to control on the downhills, I blame it on the master for not installing brakes.)

     Is this it? Have I reached the final resting grounds?  He’s setting up his tent.  He’s cooking his food.  Oh here he comes.  He’s removing my wheels!  He’s breaking my beams to remove my axles.  He’s cutting my crossbeams with his camp saw.

    And now like I’ve dreamed about all these lonely years, I can clearly see he’s starting a fire.  Oh my, what’s that in the bottom of the firepit?   There,  frosted over and completely rusted, are the remnants of my kindred brethren.  The iron fasteners of my long lost lineage!  My wood grains want to tear-up but my relative humidity is too low.  I am emotional nonetheless.
     I know it will sting a little at the beginning but I am fully prepared for this.  Long have I lusted for my passage to the undying lands.  Today I burn.  

The Inaugural Running of Kesugi Ridge Traverse

“ I do not always run ultra marathons, but when I do, I prefer Kasugi Ridge”

    Captain Paul -Chaplin active duty JBER

  Paul, Nate, and I were taking up the rear.  Anyone that was going to drop from the race had already done so at the Ermine hill trail intersection.  Essentially the halfway point of the race, there was still another fifteen miles to go.  We were the last of the Mohicans.  Never having met before, Paul and Nate soon discovered that they both grew up in Pennsylvania.  Down the trail we jogged, hiked and shared stories.  We all realized that the miles passed a little easier with each others company.

     It’s true the thought of bailing out at Ermine had crossed my mind.  By then my legs were already barking at me, but when I found out that I’d made the cut-off time (by a margin of five whole minutes!) I had to keep going.

     I quickly realized that If I’d gone down at Ermine,  I wouldn't have been able to let it go.  It would have festered in me ( much like the blister that formed on my left foot), and in a couple of months it would have even gone-so-far as to bother me and before too long I would have had to commit myself to coming back to try again.   A few hours of physical suffering now is better than months of self-loathing later.  Know thyself.

    We dropped down the backside of Ermine down a steep slope  losing much of the elevation that we’d gained. From there we had a few miles of winding through swampy, muddy lowlands.  At least a mile of it we traveled on the tops of two-by-sixes.  The plank walkways were built by the park service rangers and crew and it was a nice break from the drudgery of trekking through the soupy glop of the muddy trail.

     Finally we began to climb out of the brushy lowlands and onto some of most remarkable terrain that I've ever encountered.  I followed the trail to where it seemed to end at the base of a giant smooth granite formation.  It was like a colossal granite UFO had been pushed up from the earth somehow.  The next cairn trail marker was near the top of it. Up we went.  From there we could see that we were only on the first of a whole series of these things.  To call them boulders would be to disregard their enormity.  We walked along the tops and sides of these wondrous geologic formations for almost a mile.  Up and over and along the smooth rounded surfaces we went.  “Wow, I should have brought my skateboard”  I remarked, earning only modest chuckles from my equally exhausted companions.  

   

    “Kasugi ridge was named by Shem Pete.”  Dave Johnston told us.  He was on hand at the beginning of the race to give us a brief history of the trail.  Dave, who was instrumental in building most of the trails in Denali State park in his rangering days,  is a local treasure and has a wealth of geographic and cultural knowledge of the area.  “It means the ancient one in the native tongue of the Tanaina”.  Ironically, ancient is exactly how I felt in the days after as I hobbled and winced with muscle soreness. I digress.

    “There are two things to be thankful of today while you are running the Kasugi trail.  The first one is that you can thank Brian Okonek for dissuading me from putting the trail on the tops of those peaks.  That would have been an additional 1,500 vertical feet for you to climb today.”  The race course as it stands gains around 4,500 vertical feet of elevation gain over the course of the whole race.  Another 1,500 would be the equivalent of climbing Pioneer Peak located just outside of Palmer, a formidable climb.

     “The other thing to be thankful for is that at one time there was a proposal to put a road from the Princess lodge area, up onto the ridge running it’s entire length.  Luckily it didn't come to pass.”

     Dave was right, that is something to be thankful-for indeed.  The thought of bulldozers carving and scarring their way through the alpine tundra to make way for the inevitable barrage of vehicular traffic is an abhorrent one.  To punch a road into the park would be to trivialize it.  I am reminded of a passage in Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: “A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.”  Abbey, referred to once as the most prickly of American conservationists was an ardent defender of the wild lands and outspoken critic of what he called industrial tourism.  

   Kesugi Ridge forms the backbone of Denali State Park and as it stands today remains a wild passageway through a ruggedly beautiful place that has yet to be tainted by the progress of Abbey’s industrial tourism.  A handful of artfully worked trails gracefully meander along its length.  The touch of man here is visibly and otherwise unnoticeable.  It’s the overwhelming brushstroke of the alpine biome swirling with the wet tundra meadows, paper birch forest and rugged geology that overcomes the senses here,  as it should be.

    As for the inaugural running of the Kesugi ridge traverse my hat goes off in a windy gale to race organizers Dave and his son David Johnston (Yes, there were three Dave Johnstons.  I know it’s confusing)  and mama Andrea Hambach.  Many other volunteers (whose names elude me- I was too tired!) brilliantly pulled it all together for us in the drizzling rain.

   And, as for myself, I was happy for the opportunity to experience the expanse of Kasugi’s ridges and to fill-in the blanks of my geographic sense-of-place alongside such excellent people.  Excellent people who apparently share my affinity for Alaska’s wild places.

Last Rites of an Old Warhorse.

     

    I was busy decomposing on the edge of the driveway and had fully accepted that I would become part of the dirt when the impossible happened.  It’s true that I had lost hope and that I was feeling sorry for myself.  I had just settled into the soggy funk of the wet Autumn rot when he appeared from around the woodshed.  He had two tires in his hands.  Suddenly there was light where before there was only dark and it felt like I just might make it.

         The master has always had a hard time throwing things away plus I think he’s alway liked me.  I over-heard him say that I might make a good planter to his wife.  Planter? Really?  Luckily the wife begged to differ.  In fact she begged to differ on whether I should be kept at all but the master stuck up for me!  I knew he wouldn’t let it happen;  After all I have yet to fulfill my destiny and I think at some level he’s always known that too.  So, over the years, I migrated further and further away from the family, from sight, and most regrettably from my calling.

    I was in the beginning stages of losing faith in the mission.  I felt that I was destined to melt into the earth.   I even prayed for more rain.  Everyday he would pass me to do other things. He moved me next to the woodshed last month but it was six months since he’d moved me before then.  His son’s bike leaned on me for nearly a week last spring.  I hated that but not as much as the twenty three times the dog urinated on me between April and November of 02, or the time the tractor carelessly ran into me breaking my right handle off.  (When he burned it in the woodstove; I mourned for a week.)   

    It’s true I’m no spring chicken.  The bright gleam of my doug-fir beams has long been gone.  Instead I am fifty shades of grey.  Alas, my main purpose for the last two years it seemed has been to serve as a framework for the spiders webs and grassy sproutings.  The Rusty Tussock caterpillars have been awful this summer ; I think I’ve got seven cocoons tucked up in my ribs.  Yech!  The grass tries to push me around and the fireweed are incorrigible, but it’s the moss I despise.  The moss have taken root in my lower cracks effectively sealing-in the beginnings of wood-rot from the outside-in.  Less pervasive but equally fowl are the Boletes.   The recent rains have facilitated the transformation of these obtrusive mushrooms near my starboard joist:  Upturned by the rain, the exposed fly-larvae wriggle and writhe in the slimy undergoo of the Bolete caps. I have had a front-row seat to its disintegration coming full-cycle right under my nose.  Lucky me.

      Aside from my pessimistic musings and whimpering tendencies I am not all gloom.  Although my nail and screw heads have rusted badly they still hold and they aren’t complaining.  You won’t hear a peep from my crossbeams either.  My axles are solid and I have benefitted from the addition of extra gussets , so I don’t wobble or creak (much).   I’ll confess that over the years I have taken a beating, it’s true, but I know in my soul of souls that below the rust and the rot,  I can still ride.

     He’s walking closer.  What’s he doing?   The days are getting shorter and he must be getting ready for the hunt.  He’s looking at me.  Oh my laws he’s lifting me onto the trailer, oh my lands it's really happening!  

     “Come on old girl.”  He called me old girl!

     He carefully slid the tires onto my axle and it felt like I was sliding into my favorite pair of slippers. A few washers  and the slide of the cotter pin had me fundamentally operational. He gently flipped me over and escorted me into the garage.  My gracious!  I can’t believe it, I’m going to the show!  Is there a remodel in my future and maybe even a new handle? Criminy, I’m going to the show!

     Thank my lucky stars.  I always knew the master was a good and true master.   Oh wonderful joyous day,  I have been recommissioned.

Warhorse