Alaskan Seafood Ship to Shore

 If you love the taste of grilled salmon, poached salmon, plank roasted salmon, smoked salmon, salmon mousse and want to try some salmon jerky then you should consider a trip to Alaska. You can fish for salmon, visit salmon hatcheries, see salmon leaping up stream to spawn, watch seals and bears devour salmon, and buy souvenirs shaped like salmon. 

     ALASKA: This state is salmon central.                                                     

Now you're talking! Salmon Leather. Not sure if it's for biting on or for belts.

Told you they sold salmon jerky. And while you're at it......

On a recent cruise through southeastern Alaska’s Inside Passage with stops in the ports of Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan I gained a greater appreciation for the abundance of wild seafood in this state with thirty-three thousand miles of coastline.  

View from the bow of the Holland America Line MS Oosterdam

In Alaska, you can hop on a floatplane and follow a fishing guide to isolated locations ............

Sitka. You'll need one of these to get around Alaska. Oh, and the things in the foreground.

....or you can simply rent a fishing pole to drop a line off a bridge in the middle of town in Ketchikan and pull in a salmon in seconds. 

If he can catch a salmon, you can. And he did. 

If you don't like salmon, Holland America Line's MS Oosterdam's menu offers an Alaska frontier sized menu with lots of other seafood, beef, pork, lamb, chicken and vegetarian as well as gluten free menu choices. 

My mom, Jessie O'Neil, doesn't like salmon but chose to wear the color while enjoying a frozen drink.
Her homage to Alaska's snow and ice.
You're sexy and Juneau it!

A NEW GOLD!!! RUSH TO ENJOY ALASKA'S FRONTIER! 

The Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1800’s may have gotten things going in these parts.....

Gold mining themed souvenirs are easy to find in Ketchikan, gold not so easy anymore.

Looks like my packing list for the 7 day cruise! Minus the frying pan. 

...but today’s tourism treasure is built on sharing the wealth of wilderness beauty, fresh air and plenty of room to roam.  

And plenty of great places to eat on shore.........

Local restaurants greet guests with menu boards boasting Alaska salmon, cod, halibut, King and Dungeness crab.  

I know, it's kind of expensive - but it's fantastic!
Grilled, fried, blackened or made into tacos or chowder seafood is the star attraction.

On Location On Board

Passengers on Holland America Line don’t have to wait until the ship docks to start sampling and learning about Alaskan seafood and locally brewed beers. 

Working up an appetite on an Alaskan cruise.


The cruise line’s new On Location program offers cooking classes in the Culinary Arts Center and the ship’s menu selections feature locally inspired dishes, “We want to depict the area we are sailing in,” says Colin Harding-Jones, executive chef of the MS Oosterdam.  

With Exec Chef Colin Harding-Jones on MS Oosterdam. I am not a real life guard. 

Harding-Jones’s cooking demo shared how to prepare Coho salmon without overcooking and how to spice it up with a ginger cilantro pesto sauce.  ( Dish pictured at top of blog )

All hands on deck with cameras in hand!

Mild temperatures in southeast Alaska and plenty of sunshine helped set the scene for a festive outdoor Salmon Bake on the deck around the swimming pool of the MS Oosterdam.  

Cooks flipped salmon filets on grills, steamed mussels and clams and served apple and berry pies to two thousand passengers hungry to taste more of Alaska’s bounty.

Who wants pie?!

What about Baked Alaska?

 Alaskan desserts included Yukon whiskey laced sourdough bread pudding, Alaskan berry compote and of course, Baked Alaska was served one night (without the open flames for shipboard safety). “We have one guy in the galley with a blow torch dedicated to browning the classic meringue top,” says Harding-Jones.

Here it is! Baked Alaska!

But, guess what, trivia lovers? That iconic dessert was invented in New York City in 1876, nowhere near an iceberg.  Named by chef Charles Ranhofer at Delmonico’s restaurant the dessert made with ice cream, cake and meringue celebrates the U.S. purchase of Alaska’s nearly 600,000 square miles from Russia for 7.2 million dollars.  
But it sure tastes great with a glacier view. 

Yes, that's why they call it Glacier Blue, at Tracy's Arm Alaska Inside Passage.