Val Monahan
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valymonahan.bsky.social
Val Monahan
@valymonahan.bsky.social
370 followers 65 following 3.9K posts
Northerner. Stuff I like: birds, food, fishing, social equality.
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valymonahan.bsky.social
Dinner: fusilli with crispy prosciutto, sauteed garlic, onion, golden raisins, wilted kale and toasted pine nuts. With a bit of Parmesan. #food 🍜
White ceramic rectangular bowl of fusilli pasta, as described. Nice colour contrast: kale is bright/dark green, ham is pink, raisins are golden.
November 14, 2025 at 3:00 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Made prosciutto, leek, kale strata, for dinner. Served with green pepper sauce. Enough for a breakfast and/or lunch tomorrow, for two. #food 🍜
Slab of strata on a black plate. You can see the cooked egg, bits of pink, fried prosciutto, dark green kale and chunks of toasted rustic bread plus partly melted cheese on top. The wooden handle of a knife is visible, behind the strata.
November 13, 2025 at 3:38 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Beef stew! Remembered I had frozen some fancy pork fat (trimmed from local pork bought a while back), used it to brown the beef. #food 🍜
Ziplock plastic bag of frozen chunks of pork fat. Written on the bag: "fancy pork fat!". Interior view of a dutch oven full of chunks of browned beef cooked in "fancy pork fat!". White square ceramic bowl of beef stew. You can see chunks of meat, carrot, potato and parsnip in a dark brown broth. There is a piece of bread perched on the bowl rim.
November 12, 2025 at 12:56 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
It's Remembrance Day. My maternal grandfather (who I never met) served in WWI. Deemed unfit for overseas service, he trained as a pilot, then trained pilots. Here are his records. My mother adored her father and told us a few stories. Apparently, he carried a blackjack on training flights 1/2
A yellowed recruitment form from October 15th, 1917. A printed/handwritten, messy form documenting the service of a Canadian solder in WWI.
November 11, 2025 at 6:23 PM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Made Moroccan chicken with some of my home-made stock. #food 🍜
Black ceramic plate of Moroccan chicken on cous-cous. The chicken is seared/braised. It's quite yellow from turmeric, in the spice mix. You can see onions, green olives, capers, a bay leaf, a cinnamon stick and bits of dried apricot and chopped dates.
November 10, 2025 at 5:21 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Yeah! Finally a decent snowfall. Hope we keep it. I love walking in the woods when the snow is falling.
View down a snow-covered trail between tall, snow-dusted spruce trees. It's a dark day because the snow is still falling
November 10, 2025 at 12:31 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
First big snow day of the winter, so I made stock from kitchen scraps I didn't want to cook up when it was warmer. #food 🍜
View into a stock pot of veggie and meat scraps in water, about to be made into stock. You can see onion, carrot, mushroom and some thyme twigs.
November 10, 2025 at 12:29 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
It's that time of the year again!
Altered version of beloved children's book: FUCK OFF MOON. Cover is same as original, showing a cozy room with a fireplace, cow-jumped-over-the-moon painting and the moon and stars seen through a window with a giant curtain. Written on the book: "It's too early for your BULLSHIT" and "I'm Not Even Home From Work and It's Already Dark! FML! In the bottom left corner is the credit :by @digitalmeddle & YourChildhoodRuined
November 9, 2025 at 6:10 PM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Pretty lady elk from my recent road trip to Carmacks.
Five cow elk seen from a car, driving a rural highway. The elk are in the ditch and on the shoulder. It’s fall.
November 9, 2025 at 4:56 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Fam band! The Compassion Pills: sound check at Lefty’s Well.
A goth/blues band on stage. Older guy in cap on lap steel; guy on leaf guitar; guy with glasses on drums; young person at front, on keys/vocals; guy with glasses/sideburns on bass guitar. A whisky sour with a big-ass ice cube in it.
November 9, 2025 at 2:48 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Ice fog makes hoar frost. The bigger lakes are starting to freeze.
Dark wintery day: foreground trees are covered with hoarfrost. a still silvery blue lake has sheets of pale ice forming around its edges. The far shore has dark trees under a cloudy/blue sky. A dark wintery day. Behind the tops of two hoarfrost-covered bushes, a silvery blue lake has a thin skin of ice along the near shore. On the far shore, a low terrace has frost-covered deciduous treese and dark spruces. Behind them, a line of dark hills under a grey, cloudy sky.
November 6, 2025 at 10:26 PM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Even the Canadian government (notoriously heritage cheapskate) gets this!
Construction crane in front of the House of Commons, Ottawa.
November 5, 2025 at 7:50 PM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Dinner: "Asian-style" pork chop. Love this recipe from Woks of Life with lemon/herb roasted, local root veggies: potatoes, carrots and parsnips. #food 🍜 Hard to explain how delicious our locally grown root veggies are! Insanely good.
Black ceramic plate with a big, bone-in/fatty pork chop, marinaded with soya sauce, sesame oil, white pepper, five-spice and cooking sherry, then seared/rested; rest of the plate: halved baby Yukon gold potatoes, carrots and parsnips roasted with olive oil, rosemary/thyme and lemon juice.
November 4, 2025 at 3:23 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Made a version of ribollita (bread soup) for dinner. So good! #food 🍜
Square white bowl of soup. You can see bits of carrot, onion and parsnip, along with white beans (cannelini) in a bright red, tomato-rich broth. Dark pieces of fried bread are on top, underneath some grated Parmesan. There are pieces of unfried bread at the bottom of the bowl, too.
November 3, 2025 at 1:22 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
It's little things that remind you your town is alright.
Photo of the side of an apartment building. In the fore-ground, a small sign on a metal pole. Sign has been modified with tape, recently. It says, in red and black letters "NO KING UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES WILL BE TOWED AT OWNER'S EXPENSE".
November 2, 2025 at 12:58 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Found where the trumpeter swans went, after Marwell: Yukon River near the Wolf Creek trails. #birds #Canadabird
View from a height over the Yukon River: bright blue and aqua water. Two big soruce trees on the near shore; far shote more trees, brown ruver edge, a beaver lodge and two small groups of white and grey swans on the water. Similar to previous pic: same view, but the swans got spooked and are now further from shore and closer together. View from a height across a forested landscape with spruce trees, in the foreground and covering a nearby hill. A low mountain, on the left, further away, has new snow on top. Few clouds, in the bright blue sky along with five (?) flying white swans.
November 1, 2025 at 10:51 PM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Feel you! I painted this, in encaustic. Happy with it, but, like the original evening/my photo reference of it, the painting looks fake.
Fall sunset over a pothole lake, in the Yukon. Sky bright blue, down to white along the horizon. Far mountain/ridge bathed in copper light. Near shore/trees are black shadows. Everything mirrored in the lake surface. Looks pretty fake, even though view like this are fairly common.
October 29, 2025 at 4:05 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
What a difference a week makes! There are seven trumpeter swans in that picture (with duck entourage). Two adults; five cygnets of the year. Wonder if the pair have let a/couple lost/orphaned cygnets hang out since it is time to build bigger flocks for migration. #birds #Canadabird
View of the Yukon River at dawn. It is icy and misty. Near shore has mud that is icing over and bare shrub branches. Large channel is calm, reflecting pale yellow/lavender sunrise sky. There are ducks near the mud. Further out, swans and ducks are standing/swimming in shallows in front of heavily frosted grass and bushes on an island. The channel behind is under mist. The far shore has dark trees and light exposed bluffs, but everything is soft-coloured from the low light and yellow-pink tones of sunrise.
October 27, 2025 at 11:36 PM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Dinner: seared/braised chicken thighs with roasted veggies. #food 🍜
Black ceramic plate with two chicken thighs covered with their braising sauce: onion/garlic, tomato, dijon, fresh kale and chunks of roasted new Yukon gold potatoes and carrot browned, and dressed with fresh lemon juice.
October 18, 2025 at 2:23 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
We went for a hike! Big pile o bear poo at the trail head, so lots of deeply dumb convo, while we walked. Nobody likes surprises.
A Tlingit tree carving, marking the trail: a section of bark has been removed from one side of the trunk of a living lodgepole pine, a few feet above the ground. The removed bark area has a relief carving of a human face/mask. Sap has run down it, making it bright yellow against the grey bark. You can see the tree roots, some fall-turned ground cover and dead grass. View of a high mountain, on an island, in the middle of lake, from a high point on shore. The mountain has ten peaks, with fresh snow on all. There is a huge avalanche chute with a scree slope below visible as a light-coloured area, despite the distance. The near slope is dark with spruce and poplar trees. The lake is grey, with one spot lit up. The sky above the mountain is several colours of grey, with some blue. View down a lake, between snowcovered mountain peaks, on either side. The viewer is up on a trail, looking down at the water. The foreground is completely dark. Between the mountains, the lake at the far side is lit up by beams of sunlight and a narrow passage between the mountains is also lit up, like a silver river. There are dark clouds pierced by the sun beams. Above them, the sky is dark with some blue.
October 17, 2025 at 12:58 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Dinner: marinaded/seared pork and veggie fried rice. #food 🍜
White ceramic plate of pork pieces that were marinaded with onion, garlic, fish sauce and oil, then fried. Pork pieces have some char marks and are glossy from their marinade. Rest of the plate is covered with light brown fried rice with chunks of carrot and dark green kale. There is a fork and a slice of fresh lime on the edge of the plate.
October 16, 2025 at 3:51 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Moody!
View of a dark mountain with three peaks across a dark lake. The sky is overcast/hazy. The sun is sinking toward the horizon appearing as a golden/yellow oblong just above the middle mountain peak. There are low islands in the lake, before the far island (with the mountain peaks). The near islands look black and have the outline of trees. The mountain island has old snow in little streaks down avalanche chutes from two of the peaks. The sky is a bunch of different greys, but also warm with yellow afternoon light.
October 16, 2025 at 12:37 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Fishcakes, for dinner! Baked two Arctic grayling in foil on Sunday and left them in the foil, in the fridge. Cakes: picked fish mashed with boiled potatoes, minced garlic and onion, sesame oil, lime juice, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, soya sauce, fish sauce, cayenne. #food 🍜
Two arctic grayling, baked in foil, on the foil, after two days in the fridge. One fish has the top side skin removed, part of the meat picked off the bones. Fish are surrounded with congealed fat, which looks orange/brown. Fish eyes are white/opaque. A big cast iron skillet with five fish cakes sitting on the hot, oiled surface. Behind them, a cookie sheet, lined with foil has more fish cakes. They have been sitting in the freezer prior to frying. They are coarsely mashed. You can see bits of potato in between the mashed fish. Black ceramic plate with six soft-looking fish cakes. They have a pattern of brown on the top, from frying, a few cracks and dollops of green pepper sauce.
October 15, 2025 at 2:55 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Yesterday's catch: four arctic grayling. Kept super cold, after cleaning. Still smell "herbal"! Will fillet the two biggest ones for turmeric/dill fried fish tonight and bake the smaller two to make fishcakes on Tuesday. #food 🍜
Metal sink full-o-fish: four grayling, cleaned, heads/tails on. They looks very silvery, with hints of yellow along their sides/in their eyes. Their tails are dark and deeply forked.
October 13, 2025 at 12:45 AM
valymonahan.bsky.social
Starting to ice up around Tsi Chua "Red Ochre Creek", aka Wolf Creek.
View of a winding creek surrounded by tall black spruce with yellow-leafed willows/alders along the shore, which is starting to ice up. There are downed trees and piles of old wood in/across the water. There is a light dusting of fresh snow, on the ground. The sunlight is bright, but coming through the trees at a sharp angle, creating shadows. There is a black and white sign with a picture of a red fish, out of focus, but telling visitors that the creek is critical salmon habitat.
October 12, 2025 at 10:24 PM