The Bride Couldn't Cook

By Hklbrries

The Sheldon's pooled their culinary talents to put dinner on the table.

When longtime Alaskans are asked how they came to live in the Far North, they say, 'I just came for a visit!' Such was the case with Elizabeth "Bess" Birkinbine (1885-1960), who journeyed from Philadelphia in 1912 to visit her brother, a railroad surveyor.

H.P.M. Birkinbine was on the Chilkat River when Elizabeth arrived in Skagway, so he asked another surveyor, Steve Sheldon (1885-1960), to meet the steamship. Something clicked when Steve and Bess met, and she soon signed up with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to teach for the coming school year.

Birkinbine had bragged to Sheldon about his sister's delicious chafing-dish Welsh rarebit and her fudge. But when Bess and Steve married in the spring of 1913, Steve soon found that these were the only dishes she had mastered.

Bess's repertory 'did not exactly make a great foundation for home-cooked meals,' laughs their daughter, Elisabeth 'Lib' Sheldon Hakkinen. Steve's cooking was equally limited. "The baking powder biscuits he had learned to make in a kerosene-can reflector oven earned him the nickname 'Baking Powder Steve,'" Hakkinen says, and these were usually accompanied by "the terrible coffee he brewed."

Hakkinen's parents had been reared in well-to-do homes in the East and were accustomed to maids and cooks handling the heavy household duties. "They were not really prepared for living in a very small house," she says, "where water and wood must both be carried in, and slop and ashes carried out, and all cooking done on a small wood-burning stove, which also heated the place."

Fortunately, Bess's neighbors shared many tips, Hakkinen says. "Her rule of thumb about meat became: If it's large and thick, roast it; if it's thin, fry it; if it's in little pieces, grind it into hamburger, and make it into meat loaf or timbales."

Bess's advice to her daughters was to master pie-making, "because if you made a bad pie, you would end up with nothing but a bad pie, but if you made a cake that was too heavy, or one that fell, you could always make some chocolate sauce, serve it over the fallen cake, and call it 'cottage pudding.'" Hakkinen recalls that the family had cottage pudding fairly often in the early times.

"But Mother learned," she says, "and eventually became well-known in these parts for her cinnamon rolls and her angel food cakes, as well as her ability to make practically any meal stretch to feed an almost unlimited number of people." The Boston Cooking School Cookbook she received as a wedding gift served her daily for her whole life.

Recipe in collection associated with this article: Steamed Blueberry Pudding.

Ingredients

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Preparation

Step 1

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