A Potluck Life

Monday night I tried my hand at making Spanakopita, which is spinach, onions and cheese wrapped in phyllo pastry. This was my Greek dish for Greek night. Last Friday night into Saturday, I made two loaves of Challah bread for a gathering Saturday night. Last Friday after work, I rushed to make another dish for another gathering.

In previous weeks I’ve made vegetable lasagna for Italian night and in previous months have made all sorts of dishes, from Chinese dumplings to manicotti, from a spinach-artichoke dip to chocolate chip-banana bread to crab cakes. The next upcoming themed night is supposed to be The Big Lebowski – one wonders what one cooks for that.

I have marinated salmon at 4 am for a bbq the next day. I have left work early just so I can cook a proper dish. Suffice it to say, living in Wrangell and being friends with the people I am have made me download many a recipe, purchase many a spice, and experiment with food in ways I never imagined. Cooking – beyond stir fry and rice – and baking – beyond boxed brownies, although I still make those quite often – have become active parts of my life whether I wanted them to or not.

I’m not complaining. Potlucks are a way of life in Wrangell. With only four restaurants in town, and only three open during the evening – one of which is a pizza place/bar and the other two I’ve never been to during dinner hours – choice does not exist in dining out so we’re forced to create our own menus.

When I baked the Challah bread for Saturday night’s gathering, I had this feeling like it was Thanksgiving or Christmas. This sort of warm, excited feeling came to me and just the act of baking the bread was making me happier than I had been in a long time. It was really odd and I didn’t realize what that feeling came from until Monday when I was making the Spanakopita.

Spanakopita has to be baked (in case you didn’t know because I wouldn’t have prior to making it) so I had the oven going again during the dark hours before dinnertime. The lit kitchen with the darkness coming in through the window, the warmth of the oven combined with the chill that’s been in the air for a bit now – it all adds up to the reoccurring feeling of holiday time, of an inner warmth derived from feeling safe out of the cold and comfortable among family.

Being Chinese, my mom primarily cooked on the stove and rarely used the oven. If she used the oven it usually meant a special kind of occasion, like Thanksgiving or company coming over, and it always meant that it was fall or winter. She never used the oven during spring or summer because it made the house too hot.

So that’s where the holiday sensation comes from. I haven’t really felt that before because I didn’t have an oven in Hong Kong nor was there really a fall or winter there, at least in the way I knew it as. This is my first time having my own oven in climate that gets cold. While we don’t have the fall foliage in Wrangell, you do feel the change in the air that tells you fall has fallen.

I think the feeling also came about because I was about to share whatever I was cooking with friends. I don’t imagine I’d feel the say way if I were just using the oven to make dinner for myself, even if it is dark outside, even if it’s cold out.

Cooking and eating big, and oftentimes elaborate, meals with friends is a lot of what we do for fun in Wrangell (for those of you who were wondering how I fill my time here). And while the process can get stressful at times, the end result is always delicious.

Something New

One thing that people outside of Wrangell may not know about this town is that it’s very transient. While we have a large share of lifers – the ones who were born, raised, and have never left here – we also have the four/five month seasonals, the ones we hang out with and consider our friends for the time being, the ones who leave soon after that. It’s kind of like those friends I made at sleep away camp, except now we’re older and don’t make any false notions of K.I.T. (keeping in touch). Of course, as in most situations that involve expiration friendships, there are the special few who I never want to lose touch with.

And then there are the Crossings folks. Besides the Forest Service, Crossings employ the other population of young people in town. They constitute another breed of transient. Because of the nature of their job – three guides go out into the wilderness with nine troubled youths for 46 days in a row – Crossings people will be away for a month and a half at a time. While a few of them stick around Wrangell for the full time they are not in the woods, many of them will only be here for a day or two before going somewhere else, only to return for a day or two before their next program starts. And programs are starting and ending at all different times. So, for me, someone who is here ALL the time, this creates a revolving door effect of ‘Welcome back’ and ‘Have a good trip. See you in 46 days.’

Common questions that get asked by someone who has just come in from the field (i.e. the 46 days of hanging out with troubled teenagers) are, “What’s new in Wrangell?” “What happened in the past month and a half” and the ever popular, “What’s new in your life?” These questions are usually pretty daunting for someone like me, who, again, stays in town ALL the time, as life is life and the everyday, no matter where you are, tends to become a routine. It’s a darn good routine, but a routine nonetheless.

But this time around in the revolving door of hellos and goodbyes, I actually have something new to share. I am starting to teach dance class next week. Someone actually just came into the Sentinel office to pick up a registration form. There will be two classes on Wednesday afternoon – one for grades K-1 and one for grades 6-8. It’s all very exciting and nervewracking as I have never taught a dance class and I myself have been out of practice for a good two years now. But I think I can do it. It’ll be hard, to try to convey modern dance to students who don’t know what it is and to be in charge of them. But for many reasons, it seems like a good thing to do right now.

And it’s something new.