Citizen Voices

It was very hard to stay calm and collected when I was calling home to Anchorage at 5:00 pm on Good Friday 1964, only to hear the chronic phone message, “Unable to complete your call due to transmission interruption in southeastern Alaska,” or something on that order. I had never heard anything like that before, but then I didn’t make too many calls home from Oregon while I was in college. Read more.

After my romp through the 2014 Whitney Biennial this past March, I took a crosstown bus from Fifth Avenue to the Armory Show on display on the remodeled Hudson River Piers 92 & 94 . With two hundred and five exhibitors, the Armory Show is the largest art fair in New York and really Disneyland for art lovers. Read more.

The woods after the first snowfall have a distinctive sound. The world becomes quieter, and any remaining sound is muffled, as though filtered through cotton. It’s in this new silence that I find myself snowshoeing through the trees. Read more.

There is no limit to my love of the food and flavors of Mexico. All the spicy, fragrant chiles, simmering sauces, creamy refried beans, fresh lime and cilantro...Mexican is my ultimate comfort food. See the recipe.

Knitting a blanket isn’t difficult. It’s pretty mindless. Monotonous. Endless. I much prefer knitting hats where there’s a definite start and end and it can be completed in an afternoon. That being said, there is something special about giving someone a hand-knitted blanket. See the pattern.

The weather has been warm and beautiful, the days are getting noticeably longer, and the snow is slowly melting. These are all wonderful things, but this year the sure sign of spring at Woodside Gardens is goose eggs! Gerdie has laid 3 eggs so far this season, and it has me excited for the year to come. Read more.

The early Persians were onto something. Skewered meats, seafoods and vegetables deftly seasoned and grilled or broiled to perfection are easy to whip up and always a hit. The variations on these Alaskan seafood kebabs are endless. Read more.

About a year ago, I received an email that professor Michelle Grabner would be one of the three curators of the 2014 Whitney Biennial Show. I asked Grabner if I could shadow her on her year long adventure of artist selection. The Whitney press office dismissed my project. Read more.

It was 1978 and the summer between my 10th and 11th grades. We were living in the Sand Lake area of Anchorage, just off of Raspberry Road. A bunch of us guys who went to Dimond High School had taken to calling ourselves the “Sand Lake Boys.” Read more.

Our living room throw pillows needed an upgrade. At $20-30 a pop, I wasn’t about to buy two new ones, so I dug through my fabric stash and found an old lace curtain panel. Two cuts and four seams later I had a couple of gorgeous throw pillows. Read more.

Looking out the living room window of our duplex on Iliamna Drive I couldn’t have missed Ruby on her hands and knees furiously yanking from the flower bed my newly transplanted flowers. We were new to Alaska, having lived our first year on Government Hill and new to the neighborhood, Susitna View Park, just west of Turnagain-By-the-Sea subdivision, where Mel and Ruby lived. Their son, Norman, and I had become friends. The year was 1954. Read more.

My love for Brussels sprouts extends far and deep, years before they became a fad at hip eateries in Chicago and San Francisco. It all goes back to a time when the idea finding a fresh Brussels sprouts at the grocery store in Fairbanks was unthinkable, and so ours came to the dinner table via frozen baggies from the super market. It all goes back to a time when Holly and I were obsessed with Barbies. Read more.

Here's a highlight reel of my best aurora nights in 2013, including THE best St. Patrick's Day aurora display. That was an epic night in Alaska with an EPIC FLIGHT to the stars! 2014 has great potential. We are still in the peak phase of the solar cycle and on any given night, predicted or not predicted, there can be a light show that will set you free.

Artists love to exchange their wares with fellow craftsmen. I still have chimes my older daughter, Jenn, made in kindergarten almost forty years ago. So when my friend Lawrence Vescera mailed me his sci-fi tome, Kiss It All Goodbye, I was thrilled to turn off reruns of The Borgias, pour some tea and begin the enchantment while forgetting icy roads outside my cozy nook. Read more.

My friend Laura asked me to make her new little one a tiny football hat. I was definitely up to the challenge. I was surprised how few knitted patterns there were floating around Pinterest. Most of the patterns are crochet, which can be made very quickly, but for a football hat I think knit has more room for detail. Read more.

This year I decided my resolution should be to explore more wine options and expand my wine knowledge base. Hard resolution to follow, right? Read more.

The pleasant tanginess of homemade crème fraîche, lemon and leeks harmonize with the buttery richness of wild caught Alaskan Coho salmon presented on a bed of homemade egg noodles. Light candles, play soft music, pop a cork and serve. See the recipe.

Hurry, you can still make it to Dena’Ina Way of Living with its preserved artifacts and dioramic recreations. But not to worry, the exhibition catalog will be available after the show closes. Dena’inaq’ Huch’ulyeshi, the Dena’Ina Way of Living illustrates how a population lived thousands of years ago without electricity, running water and modern medicine; be humbled by those who came before. Read more.

I tallied up my 10 favorite albums of 2013 and put a song from each in the mix. From R&B and rap to nu-disco, dance and funk, it’s got a little bit of anything. See the list.

For Christmas this year, my adorable nieces in Fairbanks gave me the holiday death plague. Complete with hacking cough, sore throat, congestion...you get the idea. I feel like death warmed over. In my delirious, sick-y state I decided I needed to bake something. I know, I know. I'm a terrible baker. See the recipe.