Since it’s so difficult to get the time to keep this updated I wanted to include a photo from Thanksgiving and then from today to give you a comparison of the current snow conditions. 

Sledding in November

 

 

December 24, 2008

Wind whipping snow drifts.

Eddie the Eagle Visits Every Year

He is very accustomed to being close to people.  He came to check out what I was feeding to the birds.  He was very selective and did not approve of my handouts.  He only stayed about 5 days and now he’s gone.  It was an awesome experience to be so close to him.

What a wonderful community to be a part of, especially during Christmas and New Years. The community gathered at the school for a pot luck and a visit from Santa where all the children of the community received a present.  The food was great with lots of good cooks and plenty of sweet treats.  New Years is going to be as much fun from the sounds of it.  It starts at 6 p.m. where the Community Church is playing the preview movie of “Fireproof” with hot dogs, popcorn and other such goodies.  Afterwards everyone will be mosying down to what the locals call the ball diamond where they will have 2 sets of fireworks and a bon fire.  The first set of fireworks are for those with younger children who can’t make it until midnight.  Everyone in town plans on it and all the businesses are closed.

Here are some photos of our children from Santa’s visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photos of Jessica and Adrian were foggy because the camera had been in the truck and was way too cold. 

 

The community party was the extent of our commercial Christmas.  We are making goodies, planning great dinners, making ginger bread houses and chocolate mice and enjoying the plays that the children have been acting in.  Other than that I’m afraid the retailers don’t like us this year!  Instead we will be celebrating Jesus’s birthday with a birthday cake and cards we made by hand. We all wish you a Merry Christmas and pray that your blessings are many and your tribulations few and may you also remember the reason for the season!   

Who doesn’t love chocolate? My favorite is dark chocolate and that is what I used to make the following tea cups. Once completed I filled them with chocolate mousse and called it a “Tea cup of Moose” which everyone tried to help me spell correctly. I wanted to spell it after Moose Pass! This dessert is not as hard as it may seem. I used balloons to dip into the chocolate and set them on parchment paper. I made handles also on parchment paper just free forming the shape of a handle and put them in the freezer until hardened. Then I dipped the handles back into warm chocolate and “glued” them on the cold tea cups and it hardened the handles into place. Here is the finished product:

 

A little dab of whipping cream on top makes a beautiful presentation.  Two things to remember when dipping your balloons: too hot of chocolate makes the balloon pop and chocolate goes everywhere, and spray a little light covering of oil on the balloon before dipping for easy removal once the chocolate hardens.  Enjoy!

I just wanted you to see where I spend a great deal of time.  It’s a very nice kitchen with the most spectacular view I’ve ever had in a work place. 

Front Line Cook Area.

Prep Cook Area.

Dishwasher Line.

This lodge hires about 15 new hires for the season of May through September.  We will be looking to hire again starting in January.  You too could work at this great place.  Just go to www.traillakelodge.com and fill out an application.

It’s warmed up today to above freezing and all the snow is melting which is going to be a mess when it freezes again.  The locals have told us we need to purchase some ice grippers for the bottoms of our shoes so we can walk when it does freeze.  Up until today it’s been walking and playing in snow around here.  The kids have been having a blast with a couple of snow boards they were given.  Every little hill has become their sliding places.  The last couple of days were less than 10 degrees.   OOhh Burrrrr!

Cooking is a pleasure when you have the luxury of time to get creative.  I love to go through cook books and think of new things to try out.  David always teases me because I have so many cook books and how I could never cook all the recipes even if I cooked a new one every day.  I did try something new and it actually turned out looking very fancy.  I call it Swans-on-a-Lake.  We actually have swans on a near by lake and they are quite beautiful.  This dish is made with berry blue jello as the bottom, merangue base, wings and head, and a custard cream filling.  It would also be very good with white chocolate mousse but I didn’t have any white chocolate.  As a picture is worth a 1000 words………………

If you have any good recipes you would like to share.  I would love to hear from you.

First snow on the ground was October 7th!

Sorry about the glare in this photo.  I just wanted you to see what I get to look at as I work in the prep area of Trail Lake Lodge’s kitchen.  The lodge restaurant is somewhat backwards as the customer sits on the highway side and views the traffic and we work from the kitchen viewing this magnificent view and watching bears take their morning swim (this last September).  No one has sighted any bears lately.  The kids have been getting up at 6 a.m. just to go outside and play in this frosty ice and snow.  It mostly melted away today but the chill is still in the air.  I truly enjoy being in the warm kitchen and looking outside!  Yesterday I booked 2 more work crews so I am keeping very busy cooking breakfast and dinners.  More workers are arriving Saturday night.  They get to work outdoors all day and they are happy to come in and have a warm meal.  They are also very appreciative and it is a joy to cook for them.

Our winter hours for the restaurant are Fridays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sundays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.  Normally today I would be resting but besides catching up on my blog I am also cooking for the next month to 1 1/2 months for a work crew who are staying at the lodge while they are installing some tower equipment.  They will be enjoying my creativity at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day.  That means no sleeping in for me for awhile!  Besides Adrian travels to Seward for school now so he can go to a more structured program for Kindergardeners so he leaves at 6:15 every morning.  The rest of my crew has a leisurely morning walking to school at 8:15 and having another 30 minutes to play on computers before school actually starts.  The school system in Alaska is a very good one.  They provide a good learning environment and have lots of extra programs that inspire thought and reading.  The Moose Pass school has 2 classrooms.  One is K-3rd grade and the other is 4th-8th.  After that the kids travel to Seward for high school.  If you should choose to home school you can partner with the school for activities and the district will reimburse your expenses up to $1600 per child/ per year!!!  One of our crew members home schools her son and he doesn’t lack any equipment or program.  He has a telescope, microscope, science kits, books, etc.  It’s quite fantastic. 

Even though the restaurant is not open during the week there has been more to do than I care to think about.  Last Sunday while cooking on the line with 5 orders hanging, a grease fire broke out and was quickly extinguished (thank God).  That only hastened a deep cleaning that I knew was extremely over due!  For the next 4 days we took apart all the kitchen equipment and degreased and oven cleaned until our hands could take no more.  We also rearranged the kitchen and had a gas service company come in and replace some parts and hook up quick disconnects on gas appliances for easier moving and cleaning.  What a difference the cleaning and rearranging has made in the kitchen.  It is brighter, cleaner and getting more organized.  My list of to-dos is still very long and will take most of the winter to get completed.  We will also start hiring for the next season in January.  We will need a minimum of 5 cooks, 3 prep cooks, 3 dishwashers, 3 lodge workers, 1 handy man, and 4 servers.  The owner is currently looking for an administrator to handle all the reservations and accomodations for our elder hostel groups that come in.   

As far as the weather is concerned, it’s already snowing.  The last 2 days has brought big snow flakes.  Nevaeh said it looked as though a chicken exploded.  It’s not sticking as it’s not quite cold enough.  It is cold enough for me to be wearing long johns and a thermal shirt under another shirt.  We’ve all geared up for snow boots but we’ve been advised by the locals to get some ice grippers that slip on our boots or shoes.  They say it will snow and then rain and freeze and makes for some crazy slippery conditions.  Oh what fun!  The following are photos I took early this morning.  Looks chilly?

On Labor Day weekend we had visitors from Fairbanks.  David’s sons’ Kevin and David and their children came down for the weekend and the 12 of us went out on the ocean tour to see wild life and the Ice Glacier.  That experience is hard to describe in words or pictures.  It is something you would like to do in person.  The captain of the ship stops and turns off the engines so you can watch and hear the glacier break and fall into the water.  It’s magnificent!  We were also fortunate to have one of the nicest, calmest days of the entire season so we were able to go places not always safe.  It enabled us to see sea lions, seals, whales, puffins, and more.  The whales really put on a show for us too.  They were jumping and smacking their tales.  It was a day hard to repeat.  We also took the dinner tour and stopped at Fox Island for a buffet dinner.