About The Salmon Sisters: Harvest & Heritage: Seasonal Recipes and Traditions that Celebrate the Alaskan Spirit
Via Amazon
Follow the Salmon Sisters as they celebrate the seasons through the food, traditions, and rituals of their Alaskan home. Lush photography, charming illustrations, 60 comforting recipes, and 35 traditions showcase and honor the untamed spirit, natural bounty, and seasonal rhythms of land and sea.
Open up the rich pages of Harvest & Heritage and step into another world. A landscape dotted with berries, wildflowers, and moose, an ocean rich with salmon, seafood, and kelp. A place of resilience and cherished traditions. While the landscape is vast, the community is tight-knit. This is the world of the Salmon Sisters and they are inviting you to join them through a year of changing seasons and comforting rituals. And yes, deeply satisfying food.
The cookbook is organized by season. In each section, readers will find:
- Recipes ideal for the home cook
- Illustrated rituals and traditions
- Stories from Alaskan women on living and eating well
- A Solstice or Equinox menu to celebrate the seasonal harvest
- Expansive and intimate photography
The recipes and projects are delicious and satisfying. For example, forage spruce tips and make Spruce Tip Ice Cream. Jig for a halibut and then make Halibut Burgers with Wild Chimichurri.
Emma Teal Laukitis and Claire Neaton, aka the Salmon Sisters, grew up on a homestead in Alaska’s remote Aleutian Islands, and they make their livelihood harvesting wild seafood from the pristine, bountiful waters around them. This luxe hardcover reflects their values and vision, with delicious recipes and lovely traditions that is seasonal eating and living at its best.
Release Date: August 22, 2023
Publisher: Sasquatch Books
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Spring
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Rhubarb-Cream-Filled Doughnuts | Spring Equinox Feast | Wild Salmon Noodle Soup |
Summer
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Celebrate the First Fish | Tinned Octopus, Avocado, and Tomato Salad with Lime-Cilantro Dressing | Pick Wild Berries |
Fall
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Black Cod with Wild Mushrooms and Kale over Creamy Grits | Make Your Own Herbal Tea | Crab Omelet with Wild Mushrooms, Caramelized Onion, and Brie |
Winter
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Make Winter Bird Garlands | Smoked Salmon Strata with Goat Cheese and Dill | Oyster Stew |
My Review
4/5 stars.
This book is an excellent West Coast foil to Jenny Shea Rawn’s wonderful cookbook Coastal Kitchen: Nourishing Seafood Recipes for Everyday Cooking!
My Pacific Northwest-native self oohed and aahed appropriately over a good chunk of this, simply out of appreciation for and familiarity with the coastlines, food, and traditions so similar to my own.
I chuckled recalling my family’s Alaska cruise in 2012, where we found the food underwhelming: aside from the mass-production nature of the beast that eating on a cruise ship is, we found that we can and do get fresher seafood from our local stores–which makes prepping and eating it that much more delightful. Another memory: a cousin-in-law ordering fresh Sockeye salmon from a Reno grocery’s meat counter–that is how to win brownie points with me!
So reading this book made me appreciate where a good chunk of my seafood enjoyment truly gets its start–Alaska. The stories of how women make the most of each season were inspiring, and the recipes look delish (especially a sourdough cinnamon roll–squee!).
While I may not jump to try kelp- or nettle-based recipes, there were plenty of others I’d be happy to try, and look forward to comparing and contrasting West and East Coast seafood and cooking styles in the near future.
(Side note, you’ll also find land acknowledgements of Indigenous Peoples throughout the read, along with frank talk of honoring the land, seasonal and natural cycles, etc.)
I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
About the Authors
Via Amazon
Emma Teal Laukitis and Claire Neaton grew up on a homestead called Stonewall Place on the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. They have worked on their family’s commercial fishing boats in the Bering Sea since they were young. Born from summers fishing with their family, Emma and Claire’s appreciation for their unique upbringing and for the sustainable fisheries became central to many of their pursuits. Emma studied art and English at Williams College and earned a master’s degree in design at the University of Washington, and Claire studied business and nutrition at the University of Vermont.
She Reads Wherever She Goes 