Adventures in Alaska:
A New Chefs Journey
It's 2023, post-Covid and I am writing a blog series about food and my experiences. I sit here thinking that this is just one wild dream that I will eventually wake up from. One minute I am growing up along the beautiful shores of the Chesapeake Bay, and the next minute my life is filled with a family of twelve, over two decades of military service, culinary school, and memories that movies are made out of. In 2021 during the height of COVID, I decided I would leave the military and start a new journey. A friend and mentor once told me to look into my phone and whatever I had the most pictures of is what I should be doing. It was food, and I had so many pictures of delicious food it was overwhelming. As any determined Soldier would do, I set forth on a road of self-discovery that has since brought so much meaning to my life. Sharing these past and future experiences is what I hope will help others succeed in their life transitions. It's about pushing forward when your intuition tells you not to. It's about overcoming that fear of doing things that aren’t comfortable, as in me writing this blog. At the minimum I hope to make you hungry, give you some great recipes, and remind everyone how food connects us all.
The dish I am most connected with and my favorite are an eggs benedict which I love to accompany with Maryland lump crab meat. Being in Alaska and prices soaring on crab, my next favorite is prosciutto. This dish is simplistic in form but has the complexity with technique to take you on a journey of a meeting with an unforgiving mother sauce. Hollandaise is one of the five mother sauces I was drilled on in culinary school. This sauce and I have a love-and-hate relationship that causes words that my kids should not hear to shoot out of my mouth in the early morning, yet I always keep coming back for more and have learned the easiest way to perfect this is by going slow. In general, this sauce is made of three basic ingredients egg yolks, butter, and lemon juice. With a few extra ingredients, you can make a hollandaise that your loved ones and friends will speak about for years to come. It can be enjoyed with fish, vegetables, and any type of protein available. I think the key is pairing your sauce ingredients with the protein you are serving, as in turkey would correlate with rosemary and thyme, lamb with mint, chicken with lemon, pork with sage, fish with dill, and so on.
I woke on a mission this morning and decided I would make a basil prosciutto egg benedict with tomatoes and shallots for Christen(wife) and I. Knowing there would be extras, I invited my good friend and neighbor Joe over to enjoy this delightful treat, yet he declined, stating that his day started a few hours ago and I was getting up way too late for this breakfast to be enjoyed. I laughed and continued on my mission of creating this delicious meal. This breakfast came out wonderful and my wife was filled with joy this morning as we sat and enjoyed the Alaska sunlight gleaming through the window onto our food. She broke the soft poached egg and let the bright yellow yolks flow like a river into a lake, this combination created bliss with the flavourful combination of lemon, basil, wine, shallots, and tomatoes that culminated in an explosion of flavors. Normally she will not eat a soft yolk egg, but for this meal, she waived all discrepancy and dove into the poached egg as if its texture wasn’t apparent. I stared and waited, and as soon as I saw that smile, I knew it was perfect! These are the memories I cherish. I will share this recipe with you when my daughter and her boyfriend arrive for a week-long adventure on Thursday. We will take you through starting on Friday to Saturday how to make a Mint and Lemon Eggs Benedict with Alaskan Crab. Be sure to read about it and check out any recipes we are using.