Food and Drink

How Alaska eats: Recipes and restaurant dishes for your 2019 get-in-my-belly list

Newsletter #28: A time for reflection (and pie)

I did a little research this week, looking at which 10 recipes readers loved most in 2018. Makes a person start developing theories. What does it say about our collective mood, for example, that the most popular recipe of 2018 was for gooey zucchini brownies? Or that it appears we were all really into things pie, be it salmon, caramel or sweet potato? We also went hard on rhubarb (Exhibit A; Exhibit B). Were we trying harder than usual to comfort ourselves with sugar? Were we looking for more food-shaped reasons to bring friends together? (I’m pasting in this gratuitous pie picture because look at it...)

Our reviewer Mara Severin has a very smart list for you of quick, delicious things to eat in Anchorage. This includes hot chicharrones, empanadas and this gorgeous soup that you can only get on Saturdays at Charlie’s Bakery when they make dim sum.

[Read previous newsletters here. Find more Alaska recipes here.]

And, if you’re looking to invite a little good luck into your 2019, try Shannon Kuhn’s recipe for Hoppin' John. Once you find yourself on the other side of party season taking a hard look at your muffin top, we have just the salad, with kale and citrus, to start you off on the right foot. (Oh kale, how does so much virtue get projected on one leafy vegetable?)

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If I might recommend a small resolution: Support local cooking and local news and subscribe to the digital version of the paper? Here’s hoping you close the book on 2018 with style and grace and don’t have a headache in the morning. See you next year.

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READER’S CHOICE: BEST RECIPES OF 2018

BEST BITES OF 2018

Julia O'Malley

Anchorage-based Julia O'Malley is a former ADN reporter, columnist and editor. She received a James Beard national food writing award in 2018, and a collection of her work, "The Whale and the Cupcake: Stories of Subsistence, Longing, and Community in Alaska," was published in 2019. She's currently writer in residence at the Anchorage Museum.

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