Anchorage's Crystal Gallery of Ice opened last weekend, and I went by on Sunday & Monday to catch some photos of the carvers at work and of their finished creations.

So, for starters ... what could you do with a chainsaw, power dill, and a flame-thrower,  if someone gave you a block of very special arctic diamond ice like this? FWIW: this is very special ice, transported in from Fairbanks for this event.  As always, clicken to embiggen. Also note, once you embiggen, you can simply click through the pics as a slideshow.

Chainsaws are used for the initial rough-out carving, power drills for the detail work, and final polishing is done with a flame thrower. These pictures were taken on Sunday, January 11, 2015, between 3 & 4 PM, as the carvers were making their finishing touches before the 5PM judging.

And these photos were taken in the evening of January 12, 2015.

This entry, Spring, was carved by a team that came all the way from China for this Anchorage competition. Sadly, they met with an automobile collision on their way here. Still, they managed to present this entry for our local event. Though they are hard to see in my photograph, those are two carved ice deer in the foreground.

 

Special thanks to Melanie Mangione and Chris Berryhill for their carver's insights.

For professional photos and the contest winners, please also see: http://www.anchoragedowntown.org/upcoming-events/crystal-gallery-of-ice/

Sharp n' Smokey!

This post is for my niece Claire, and her penchant for sharp cheddar.

Start with a good sharp cheddar cheese:

I like to cut it into smaller blocks. This is a very crumbly cheese. I was not able to cleanly cut it lengthwise. Maybe a cheese wire could do the job. I set one small block aside for comparison after the smoking.

I set them up on parchment paper, on a perforated grilling tray: 

Into the smoker, with the cold smoke generator. The temperature this day was around 30°F. Inside the smoker rose up to about 41°F throughout this process.  

The cold smoke generator is just a new soldering iron and a tin can of smoke pellets. You can find more detailed instructions easily online. Just be sure to use a new iron, and to burn off any coatings from the can. I get about three hours of smoke from one can full of pellets, and switch out between a couple of cans throught this process. This is very well smoked cheese!

Whatever it is you smoke, keep the smoke thin & blue for the best flavor. Clouds of white billowy smoke will make your food taste of creosote. 

 

The fruits of our labor twelve hours later, with that reserved block of cheese that was not smoked in front, for comparison. 

Now, I wrap them and refrigerate. I find it best to let the blocks mellow for a week or so, just to let the smoke flavor more permeate the cheese.

While I do this because I like the flavor, it is worth noting that I have never had a block of cheese I have smoked go moldy. Even softer and milder cheeses, such as Monterey Jack, have kept a long time without going moldy, once they were smoked.

The Road to Fairbanks ...

Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour never filmed The Road to Fairbanks. Was this because they had cush gigs in sunny Southern California during the golden years of Hollywood, and only left home for travel to exotic locales like Rio, Bali, and Utopia? Who knows? Maybe if they had known the forecast was for clear weather and high aurora activity they too would have made the northward trek, as I did this last weekend. Anyway, here are some pics from the trip. (As always, click the pic to embiggen.)

Mt. McKinley as seen from Trapper Creek:

 
Low winter sun:

Aurora Borealis, taken January 3, 2014, from Golden Heart Plaza, Fairbanks, Alaska:

Back in Anchorage, I stopped at the Glen Alps trailhead to take this picture of the full moon: