flashback february ⛰️ + ❄️ + 🍊 + 🍴
looking back to what I cooked on february 10th in the interior of Alaska / the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone / & Chiang Mai, Thailand
Welcome to a lightning round of what I cooked & enjoyed on February 10 for the past 5 years.
A flashback study in contrasts and literal, figurative + personal distance. Oodles of reckoning and growth.
As usual, reflection, galore - for the kitchens, markets, self - and what made it to my own plate.
Three states, two continents, and multiple shades of jess past / present / future / now, baby.
Shifts in my Cooking, then:
Learning to stock up on supplies for months ahead.
Not going to a market or store every other day for this or that.
Gardening in brief windows of time. Watching out for the rabbits, moose, bears, and cabbage moths.
An appreciation of pickles, preserves, the freezer(s), dehydrator, ovens (!) and all the seriously well-prepared, pantry inventories I can’t even begin to daydream about quite yet.
The long (long) winter years held SO much time to contemplate what would be for dinner, snacks, bagels, dessert. Pasta from scratch. Bread, at least once a week. Cookies. Tortillas. Pitas. All of it.
Rustic. Rural. From-scratch. DIY. All of that.
Time and space, to figure out what was interesting / possible / satisfying, with what was on hand.
Meals out were a rarity in Alaska and Wyoming. Oh, the former we were so ‘spoiled’ in Portland. Too easy.
Making a habit of writing down dinner plans and recipes again. Culinary memoirs, recorded. Talking about food on the internet once more, after a big break following the VVC era.
Studying, foraging, harvesting.
Pieces published in Edible Alaska. Slowly, surely, drafting notes on a book about it all. The rustic vegan Alaska years. On hold.
Some Shifts in Cooking, now:
Cooking for one.
Cooking less often.
Cooking without my cookbooks.
Cooking with a new-found minimalism, in terms of supplies + tools.
Time Travel.
Flashing back to February 10th...
This time last year, February 10, 2025
💫 Chiang Mai, Thailand
Ah, flashing back to the final day in Chiang Mai, where I’d learned to let myself eat / read / cope.
The vivid ease of sitting down for stir-fried curries for lunch at 29 Coffties.
One last fresh orange Americano at Thor-Phan Roasters, where I pre-emptively and wisely choose beans for what came next. I wasn’t strong enough for instant quite yet.
I flew out that very evening to Bangkok, and then cozied up for the morning & afternoon on an 8+ hour bus ride west to volunteer at a dog sanctuary in remote Sangkhlaburi. Life, experiences.
Two years ago, February 10, 2024
💫 Canyon Village, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Sure, sure, it was the Superbowl ™.
I was inspired.
I made buffalo seitan chickin’ nuggets.
Shallow-fried in a cast iron, rested on a cooling rack I think fondly of, and from a recipe I can’t recall. Huh. That was so unlike that iteration of me. It had many steps. It was great. It was worth it.
Crudités, my go-to tahini parsley ranch, and a big kale-lentil salad with pickled banana peppers. Girl, I cooked. Girl, I had a passion for flat-leaf parsley. Girl, buffalo was formerly an Americana constant in my life.
Go back another, and I was in... February 10, 2023
💫 Denali Park, Alaska
Hi. I’m looking - we’re looking - at cooking-in-deep-winter on a plate.
Cute vintage plates from a Portland thrift store, with little doubt.
The homemade: sourdough discard tortillas. A favorite pastime, really.
The pantry: what looks like chipotle-sauced soy curls.
The long-lasting: green-now-whiter cabbage slaw and pickled…cucumbers!
Plus, the Etsy glossy titled coasters that were a birthday present.
Pieces of another well-lived lifetime ago on a kitchen countertop. At the second favorite kitchen in Alaska, (though the upstairs neighbor was a nightmare).
Four years ago… February 10, 2022
💫 Denali Park/just south of McKinley Village, Alaska
Going back to my first cabin with running water in Alaska!
Yes, that means what you think. While it was not drinkable water, the former we could shower and wash dishes & hands again. No longer dreaming about those little things one takes for granted.
What a time. I cooked on a truly retro, near-century-year-old stove that ran on propane. They were small propane tanks that sometimes ran out. The huge ones behind the cabin were far too scary to transport to & fro. I had a back-up convection oven for toast and power outages, because, winter storms. One time, a bear was struck by lightning and fell on the nearby power lines, and we lost power for a few days. I swear that was the casually told story by reliable old-timers.
Best bread & crusts of my baking career. And it was something of a career, including a stint with a sourdough bagel CSA and private catering.
⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️ In the first photo above:
Whole wheat sourdough pitas, baked handcut fries, more cabbage slaw, more homemade dill pickles (a la water bath!), marinated beets, and what totally strikes me as baked - not fried - falafel.
In the second photo:
jess (hi, it’s me) blows a kiss at a past life, from a past life, from a true life. I adored interior winter. Middle of Alaska, living below the largest mountain peak on the continent. Wearing the vegan Marmot synthetic down coat, that’s currently in a storage unit in the (lower) mountain states. Duct tape on the elbow. Mandatory warm hat and crimson lip stain. Not under a neck buff, which meant Spring was coming in a month or four or five. I can see the buff below my chin, which means it was maybe above 10F. Less windchill for a glamorous photo opp.
Make it five... February 10, 2021
💫 Denali Park/just south of McKinley Village, Alaska
Behold, the beige.
A then-second winter in Alaska.
A profile of a long winter dinner on a plate. When it was not feasible anytime soon to drive the 2 hours north up to Fairbanks on a big grocery run.
We had cabbage, we had frozen blocks of tofu, we had a giant bag of rice and there are two types of pickles on this plate. Something below it all I’m not certain of. Guest appearance by the Alaskan lingonberry coasters that I think are from Value Village, also in Fairbanks. Two of those sweet coasters are now in that growing infamous, aforementioned divorcee storage unit, and the other pair (packed in my giant suitcase) sent home with my visiting sister to Brooklyn via Chiang Mai.
Off camera: VITAMINS. Hello, for darkness and nutrition.
Okay, six years ago, what the hey - February 10, 2020
💫 Healy, Alaska
Circa my first full winter in the subarctic.
Another set of endearing plates.
Vermicelli, red curry sauce, hardy winter veg, likely frozen kale, oven-crisped sesame tofu.
Covid had just begun.
I went so far, and had (omg, and have) so much more to go.
And this February makes one unexpected + continuously intriguing + worthwhile year here in Da Nang, Vietnam.
In Retrospect, in terms of my Cooking...
Nowadays, I’m cooking colors & fresh herbs, incessantly. There’s nary a cabbage, nary a project, and rarely potatoes. Degrees of hiatus, and chagrin.
Topping my twice-a-week Portland farmers market routine with the ability to visit local produce markets on a daily basis.
Dining out more than I ever did in my busy finance & nonprofit & event planning career(s) years.
Yes, yes, with a contemporary lunchtime budget that would wow the jess of her twenties & thirties who was thrilled when her happy hour tallboy & handcut fries (or tator tots & hot sauce) tab was under $15 usd.
As my sister flatly sums up my change in cooking: Access to ingredients.
Hers? Getting better. Because, as she explains, “that’s what most people do”.
I never thought I’d cook…less.
Then, I cooked for a family (a duo). Now, I rarely cook for others. I cook for myself.
No sadfacin’ anymore.
The dishes I cook these days are meaningful. Delicious and personal, in a way I don’t experience in my meals out & about. Different, intentional, nostalgic.
Moving ahead, reflecting up a storm, ordering noodles, studying noodles, and grooving into this singular, seriously sunnier-again existence.
Going from growing mild winter kale in the Northwest / / to the stark winter lifestyle in Alaska / / the notably more-remote & boring long winter in Yellowstone (Wyoming) / / and / / that ultimate (for now) day of hot curry + sunshine in Chiang Mai, Thailand / / that led to the brightesss & re-awakening I’m at today.
How were you cooking differently in recent years, vs. now?
References + Relevant Links:
the chiang mai report, scone archives august 17, 2025
the khao soi that changed my life, scone-osity february 25, 2025
this week in recipe links + cookbooks, scone archives february 23, 2023
four not five, these scone archives july 2, 2023
tales from the Fairbanks run, scone-z february 23 ,2022
weekend pancakes, scone-y february 14, 2022
Psst, want to support the scone archives and not ready to pledge a monthly subscription? It’s cool. Perhaps, oh-so-kindly treat jess to a $5 cup of coffee (which is quite a few where she lives in 2026!!) : ) ☕
In non-conclusion: Thanks for reading this far down, however long or short you’ve been witnessing these scone archives unfold.
I appreciate you. And you. And you.
More soon. Ish. <3
So interesting to think about how one’s cooking style changed over the years. I hear you on the minimalism and improv without cookbooks. For years after writing my cookbooks & photographing everything I made, I had cooking fatigue. Now, I’m falling back in love with cooking again. Seems like you & cooking are in a long-term relationship
Loved this, Jess! Love that self affirming intentional cooking approach that you’re in now. Of course ‘now’ wouldn’t be possible without the ‘then’. Such a beautiful , inspiring journey. Thank you so much for sharing-!