How Alaska eats: Hi, how you feeling? Do you need a digestive tonic and a turkey soup recipe?

Newsletter #23: The star on the mountain is all lit up

Oh, hello. Bet coffee tastes pretty good this morning. Best case: you are in pajamas, reading this on a couch somewhere (instead of putting dishes away) while the kids watch “The Grinch.”

After you eat pie for breakfast and then swear you will walk a mile every morning for the rest of the year, try my post-Thanksgiving hot tonic to take the edge off while you clean the kitchen. It’s made with birch syrup and turmeric-ginger tea. I like to brew a triple batch, put it in a thermos and drink it for a couple hours. Who knows if there’s anything to it, but it eases my fullness and all that hydration is great.

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And, there’s the leftover turkey in the fridge. Maya Wilson has your soup move all planned out. It’ll be perfect after ice skating. We may have no snow, but the skating is marvelous. (The parking lots are another story. But here’s some Alaska-tested tips on how to avoid falling.)

Oh hey: you can now officially listen to Christmas music without being a crazy Christmas person! It’s holiday party season, too. Sounds like fun, except some of us are so busy, the cooking is already stressing us out. ADN restaurant reviewer Mara Severin went to Costco, tasted appetizers for you, and has the best ones and ideas for how to trick them out with quickness.

So the people who have entered our recipe contest are totally hoping that you won’t enter, because they are hoping for less competition. But maybe you have a great recipe for a wintertime dish that you know will crush it. And you don’t have a KitchenAid mixer, which is the grand prize. Think about entering. The deadline is Sunday, November 25.

We’re working on blueberry curd and baked Alaska in the online test kitchen. Join us! And, if you don’t already, support local cooking and local news and subscribe to the ADN.

Here’s hoping that first bite of turkey sandwich is everything you’d hoped for.

ALASKANA RECIPE: BIRCH SYRUP-TURMERIC TONIC