Let's find out what Alaskans know about living in the darkest season
Notes on: Harry's French onion soup, chatbot love, letters, connection, good meatballs, weird grapes, small nuns, seasonal coffees and manifesting ✨
Think, for a moment, about a love letter. Imagine it arrives in a rectangular white envelope with a cool stamp in the right angle of the corner. Your name and address are drawn in square, tidy handwriting. Now think about holding that letter but not reading it yet, knowing it is meant only for you. That was once a common feeling. Now, it’s truly rare.
Once, I found a bundle of letters my parents exchanged in the early ‘70s, over a summer my dad was on the Slope and Mom worked at the Talkeetna Motel. (Aside: here’s a very old story in the New York Times about the motel, its sourdough, and its legendary owner, “Evil” Alice Powell). My parents were divorced most of my life, so I pored over those letters, looking for clues about the time when they liked each other. Mostly they wrote about routines — Dad dealing with culverts, eating steak and baked potatoes on a day of the week he looked forward to; Mom making blueberry pies and stirring sourdough and wiping tables. I lost track of the letters, but held onto one unusually sentimental line that Dad, who was in his guitar playing-phase, wrote: “I miss you more than music.”
We rarely communicate in private now. Everything we search on Google or like or post or message about on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok is picked up and evaluated, noting our habits and interests, associating those with trends that indicate our moods, all to expertly customize feeds that might better keep us scrolling, getting bumps of dopamine, looking at ads, buying things. (Test this: write to your friend on Instagram about neck cream. See what happens.) You can’t really function in the world without a silent tech interlocutor. Your conversation with a friend in the grocery store is probably more secure than your most intimate text. At the same time, the ease of digital communication means we aren’t seeing each other in person and we’ve never been lonelier. In my opinion, that’s probably why we can’t agree on basic facts and people are falling in love with chatbots.
Anyway, I say all this because Alaskans have always been uniquely expert at human connection. Stand alone in the middle of a frozen lake on an early January morning, feel the press of a wide starry sky, and you understand why we’re good at finding others in the dark. From the maqivik, the Yup’ik steam bath tradition that dates back to ancient times, to the ladies’ bridge clubs of early Anchorage to the fast-growing Nordic skating scene, the darkest season trains us this way.
Until the sun starts coming back, I thought I’d take you all along on a little reporting mission to explore what we know about living well through the darkest time. Food is right in the middle of it. (If you have ideas, write me.) If you don’t yet subscribe, now’s the time to sign up for this ride.
In the meantime, this week, consider using a communication platform no one is trying to monetize. Write a letter expressing love, admiration, thanks, encouragement, even a one-sentence invitation for a hang. (You’ll be surprised how hard it is to write longhand.) Who knows what will happen next? All you need is a stamp.
What’s for dinner: My friends, it’s French onion soup with a side of total ‘80s Anchorage nostalgia. I went down what my friend Fran calls a memory wormhole, thinking about eating French onion soup as a kid at long-closed Harry’s Restaurant. Dark and boothy, the place used to be nestled in the Midtown Key Bank building. It was named for a Harry Truman, who, at 84, refused to leave when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 and did not survive. I wrote a tribute recipe for the Anchorage Daily News. (And found eight perfect soup bowls at the Midtown Goodwill!) Also, Aunt Ruthie sent me her favorite recipe for ricotta meatballs. Make an extra batch and freeze them, she said. I do what my Aunt Ruthie tells me. Also, she didn’t send a dumb link, she took a picture because she printed out the recipe. From this, we can all benefit:
Little treats: It is grape season and you should not miss the relatively affordable and also awesome grape selection at Carrs-Safeway right now, including several versions of extra flavorful cotton candy grapes and alien-looking but also tasty moon-drop grapes. This is also the time to pick cranberries and lingonberries so you can do things like make this tart at Thanksgiving. If you need some berry intel, these guys can help.
As the mother of two boys who once obsessed over trucks, my favorite event this week is the PIC-A-Truck, where you can bring toddler-age truck enthusiasts to climb around on police, fire and garbage trucks for free with a diaper donation. I loved this story from Michelle Theriault Boots about the twists and turns in the life of a Cuban architect who fell on hard luck but then became an artist in Anchorage, thanks to gentle encouragement from a nun. (If there’s a diminutive nun in a story, I’m going to love it.) Also, I keep hearing about the cherry and charred rosemary seasonal coffee at Chugach Mountain Roasters. And here’s a video about the neuroscience of manifestation, in case you’re in need. ✨
Thank you for reading this far. (Did you miss last week’s newsletter? Here it is: Next Gen Mexican is the buzz in Anchorage 🇲🇽.) If you want to invest in a ride-along on my adventure in living a more connected life in the coming season, upgrade today to a paid subscription. You can read for free as long as you like, but paid subscriptions, which start at $8 a month or $80 for a year, are a meaningful support that keeps me writing. They also buy you access to my full archive of stories, exclusive recipes and restaurant mini-reviews, early notice about events and workshops, and entry into my occasional birthday cake raffle. You can also become a founding subscriber, doubling down on this local writing food/culture project for $240.
Write to me with your feelings on moon-drop grapes, decent autumnal coffee specials, best places to stroll under the fall foliage and anything, really.
Thank you, always, for reading. I’m taking a vacation for a week so will see you in two.
Julia
P.S.: For my newest recipes and access to stories I link to, subscribe to the Anchorage Daily News and Edible Alaska (and maybe get the New York Times cooking app. It’s worth it!). Search all my recipes and writing at juliaomalley.com.
P.P.S: Qween Maya has some words for you.
*Eagle-eyed editor-for-hire Egan Millard reads this newsletter. Hire him. 🦅*
Wow, that coffee sounds amazing! Time for a stop in, I think!