It’s a long way from Charlie Trotter’s restaurant kitchen on Armitage Avenue to the banks of the Yentna River in south central Alaska, but both worlds came together recently for Kirsten Dixon.
Dixon and her husband, Carl, own the Riversong Lodge, which they built from scratch in the Alaskan bush. In the last decade it has earned widespread recognition for its fishing and cuisine.
Dixon, a 37-year-old rural Alaskan, was in Chicago for a month to learn haute cuisine in the kitchen of Charlie Trotter’s restaurant.
“I’ve learned much of what I know from cookbooks, and I know there is a lot to be gained from working in great kitchens,” says Dixon, who worked up to 12 hours a day in the restaurant.
“It’s slow at our lodge from September to February, and that’s when it gets busy in city restaurants, so I thought this might work.”
Through one of her suppliers, a Champagne dealer who knows Trotter, Dixon approached the Chicago restaurateur and asked whether she could spend a month in his kitchen doing whatever needed doing. Neither would pay the other, but it was hoped that each would benefit from the experience. Trotter went for it.
“It’s interesting to have someone in our kitchen from another part of the country, who works with different foods,” Trotter says. “She has a different outlook.”
Dixon has plenty to offer any kitchen. She has won acclaim in several national publications and was recently named one of America’s 10 best young chefs by Esquire magazine. Last year she published “The Riversong Lodge Cookbook” (Alaska Northwest Books, Seattle, $22.95).
“I noticed how Charlie’s kitchen is managed,” Dixon says, “and I learned a lot about new flavor combinations-also how to use flavorful oils, such as cardamom, fennel and vanilla oils, as a substitute for butter.”
She was also mindful of Trotter’s strong emphasis on presentation.
“Charlie does a degustation menu, a progression of small samples, sometimes seven, nine, up to 12 dishes, each portion served on an individual plate. He serves about 150 dinners a night and each plate is visually beautiful as well as flavorful.
“I was so impressed by the chefs for taking their time with each plate. I try to serve food in an attractive manner, but I don’t give as much attention to visual detail.”
Dixon moved to Alaska 13 years ago as a public health nurse to pay off her debt to the federal government for a scholarship from the U.S. Public Health Service. Soon afterward she met and married Carl, an avid outdoorsman. The couple chose a frontier lifestyle and bought an old 10-acre homestead 65 miles northwest of Anchorage in an area with no roads, where rivers and private dirt airplane runways are the main transportation routes.
Winter guests at Riversong come to cross-country ski, view northern lights and ride dog sleds. Most of those who want to see the swirling winter sky lights are Japanese. Guests pay about $250 a day, which includes room and board and a fishing guide in summer.
“I don’t want to emulate Charlie’s cuisine,” Dixon says. “It wouldn’t work in the outdoor world of fishing and snow.”
Besides running her entire bush kitchen from generator power and having to cart her groceries from a float plane or ski plane, Dixon confronts another rub with which Trotter rarely deals.
Most people go to his restaurant for the culinary experience. Not so at Riversong, she says.
“Basically, I have to serve two kinds of diners: One type wants to eat and get back out fishing as quickly as possible. The other comes for the food as much as the outdoors.
“I can give both the service they want by having a table d’hote-no menu, just serving our daily dishes.” Last summer 650 guests dined in the hand-hewn log house; Dixon employs two assistants during the summer high season.
A 3,000-square-foot garden and a greenhouse let her prove the adage that everyone benefits from eating foods raised nearby, she says.
“Foods grown close to home are more alive,” says Dixon, and much of her garden production lasts into the winter.
Before their finances allowed them to build a professional kitchen with a walk-in refrigerator, the Dixons’ only cold storage was a root cellar. Still used, it keeps a constant year-round temperature of about 40 degrees. She has plenty of berries for her guests as well as asparagus, varieties of lettuce, carrots, cabbage, peas, beans and oriental vegetables such as bok choy, all of which grow well in her garden where there is nearly 24 hours of sun each day in summer.
Fish is the centerpiece of many meals at Riversong. All five varieties of salmon, including the chinook, or king salmon, which can weigh in at 60 pounds, swim by in the waters a stone’s throw from her kitchen door.
“I know people come to us for the fishing, but maybe the food is why they come back,” Dixon says.
The Dixons also keep chickens and rabbits.
“We attempt to raise rabbits for the kitchen,” she says, “but more bears and coyotes enjoy them than we do.”
Also, the Dixons kill a moose each winter “for our personal use, not for sport,” she says.
The couple has two daughters, 9 and 11, whom they have home-schooled so far. And, no, Dixon never feels isolated. The family has a battery-operated radio phone as well as a computer, modem and fax machine, all run off the generator.
“I’m as linked up as the rest of the world,” Dixon says.
Even the darkness of winter, when there is daylight only from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., doesn’t daunt her. “I think it is kind of romantic,” she says.
Here are some Alaskan bush recipes adapted from Dixon’s book.
SMOKED SALMON CARDAMOM SPREAD
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
1 pound smoked salmon
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 lemon
1. Chop half the salmon in the bowl of a food processor. Add the sour cream, cardamom and pepper. Grate the rind of the lemon into the salmon mixture. Squeeze 1/2 of the lemon’s juices into the mixture as well. Process the salmon mixture until it is pureed. Transfer the puree to a large bowl.
2. Coarsely chop the remaining salmon and add it to the puree. Mix well, cover and refrigerate until serving time. (Other flavorings, such as fresh chopped basil, cayenne pepper or sun-dried tomatoes, can be substituted for the cardamom.) Serve on favorite crackers or bread.
SAVORY GRUYERE CABBAGE LOAF
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
This loaf can be served as a vegetable side dish or an entree.
1 head green cabbage, 2 to 3 pounds
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup diced yellow onion
Salt, freshly ground pepper to taste
3 eggs
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup shredded Gruyere cheese
1 tablespoon crushed caraway seeds
3/4 cup fresh rye bread crumbs
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9- by 5-inch loaf pan. Rinse, dry and quarter the cabbage. Slice the cabbage into 1/4-inch strips.
2. Heat butter and oil in a large skillet. Add onion; cook over medium heat until onion is slightly translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add cabbage and stir well to coat cabbage with the butter and oil. Simmer, covered, until the cabbage is wilted and has released its liquid, about 5 minutes. Remove cover and cook over medium-high heat to evaporate the moisture in the pan, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Beat eggs and cream together in a medium mixing bowl. Add cheese, caraway seeds, egg mixture and 1/4 cup of the rye crumbs to the cabbage. Place the cabbage mixture into prepared loaf pan. Press the remaining rye crumbs onto the top of the loaf. Place the loaf on the middle rack of the oven and bake 40 to 45 minutes. The loaf should be fairly firm to the touch and golden brown on top. Let stand 20 minutes before slicing.
