Whenever I fry diced potatoes I add onion (or chopped leek if I have
onion hand), garlic, celery, a mixture of sweet and hot red and
green peppers and a wee bit of animal protein, usually something pork.

Potatoes O'Brien we call it, even those of us who
don't eat the things.

For some reason I thought Potatoes O'Brien was a baked in the oven
potato dish with melted shredded cheese on top. But I looked it up

I suppose one could be an O'Brien that way, but I
suspect that you were thinking of O'Rotten.

and I now realize the error of my ways. It turns out I've been
making them for decades

As the Moliere character says, "I've been speaking
prose all along and didn't know it!"

Potatoes O'Weller?

This mornings brunch dish was diced potatoes, no celery, with onion,
Caribe peppers, bell peppers, and ham seasoned with my all purpose
pork seasoning, Back Eddy steak seasoning and my own Italian mixed
herbs so basically just about everything in the spice cabinet. As an afterthought I stirred in some leftover corn. And since it was
breakfast, a fried egg on top.

Surely better than my breakfast potatoes the
other day. Yesterday, though, I had canned
corned beef hash (which I unaccountably love)
courtesy of the Doubletree.

From the appearance and low heat level I believe my so called Caribe
peppers are in fact Cubanelle peppers.

I don't recall having seen fresh chile caribe.

I'm not sure which is the right way to go, if there is one.
requiring such a short interval is going
to cramp a lot of people's style.

Frequent winter house checking and drain flushing is simply a
practical necessity in the north and everyone who comes here gets
to know that real fast.

One wonders about the explorers who went up
into terra incognita frigida. How were they to
know that there was gold, uranium, and diamonds
beneath their frostbitten feet?

So there must be commercial house-checking services.

There are.

Makes sense.

if there were no tenants or bad tenants in arrears I
worked for free.

Heh. It was incentive for you as the agent to keep
the properties occupied, then.

Yep and be careful choosing tenants too.

Makes sense. But what happens when you rent to
a deceptively cleancut and sober-looking tenant
who turns out to be a checkered demon in disguise?

So this is where the burden shifts. What about if
there's a theft and little or nothing is taken?
Breaking and entering makes some kind of sense,
whereas just plain breaking not so much.

Most policies have a $500 or $1000 deductible and I would never make
a small claim as I would loose my claims free discount for 5 years.

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty claims that you don't
have to have a perfect record to qualify for its
low-risk discount. Of course, it has to make up
with some kind of surcharge (insurance upon the
insurance), though.

I've seen electric blanket-type arrangements for
pipes in Alaska and northern New England.

That's called heat tape.

Ah.

Of course,
with a significant power out, that isn't going to do
much good, either.

They'll thaw pipes without a steamer though.

Ah.

18" of attic insulation instead of the standard 12",
8" walls [...] triple glazed [...] windows [etc/

I wonder if such provisions can
be written into forward-looking building codes.

Certainly. In 2012 the City of Yellowknife adopted the Energuide
80 standard which incorporates all those features and which far
exceeds the national building code. That's why I know first hand
that construction costs go up 20% while utilities are reduced 50%.

What's the breakeven time?

Walrus Stew
categories: Aleut, game,
yield: 1

Stew: Dice and salt meat, and bring to a boil in a pot of water. The
mixture will bubble up as it cooks, creating its own thick broth. Add
rice and onions.

Variation: Add diced seaweed or wild potatoes and consider adding a
little bit of walrus fat to enhance flavor of the broth.

Serve with: walrus coak (an Inupiaq word), which is walrus skin with a
about an inch of blubber still attached cooked with salt and water,
similar to muktuk from a whale.

(Chef's note: Eat this combo by taking a bite of coak, then taking a
spoonful of stew. Also, this walrus stew is a very traditional recipe,
unlike the recipe for polar bear stew, which represents a newer
interpretation of an otherwise traditional meal.)
Diomede Dessert

Berries with reindeer fat: This is Little Diomede's regional variation on akutaq, more commonly known among non-Alaska Natives as Eskimo ice cream
-- a dish that literally means "mix them together." In Diomede,
salmonberries are the main berry used in this recipe, although people
with relatives on the mainland are also able to import blackberries.

Mix together: Berries, sugar, water, a little bit of seal or Wesson oil,
and reindeer fat.

(Chef's note: for an added burst of flavor, add in a can of strawberry or cherry pie filling at the end.)

after Anchorage Daily News
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