If you’re looking for a gift for the fisherman/woman in your life, the newly published The Little Alaskan Salmon Cookbook and The Little Alaskan Halibut Cookbook, by commercial salmon fisherwoman Ladonna Gundersen, may be worth checking out. The cookbooks are a collaboration between Gundersen and her husband Ole, whose marine photography can be found interspersed between recipes and colorful photos of the dishes. The Gundersens, based out of Ketchikan, Alaska, created the cookbooks as a tribute to the wonderful and wild cuisine Alaskan fishing provides.
One design component that makes these books ideally suited for a galley is their compact size; each book measures about five by eight inches, with a width of a quarter inch, compact enough to be stowed easily in even the smallest of bookshelves, or to be slipped into an apron pocket. This reader’s one critique of the design would be that the books do not fall to hand very easily, so if you find yourself returning to the recipes over and over you might consider getting the pages spiral bound.
The salmon cookbook has 33 recipes, and the halibut one contains 36. Each book’s recipes include everything from appetizers (called ‘nibbles’) to desserts—the latter of which thankfully do not include any fish! The recipes are intended to be fairly easy to assemble so even a beginner chef can feel confident enough to prepare them.
You can learn more about Ladonna Gundersen at ladonnarose.com, or follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Both cookbooks are currently available for $9.95 on Amazon.
