Aqiimuk's Kitchen

Aqiimuk’s Kitchen by Patricia Paul, Esq. made its debut as a weekly recipe column in the La Conner Weekly News on March 14, 2012.

Home-style cooking using every day ingredients and fresh fruit and produce from the local area and family farms is the focus of food columnist Patricia Paul.

She uses her traditional Inupiat name, Aqiimuk, in the column’s heading and occasionally gives the Inupaiq – northern Alaska Eskimo – names for her recipes.

Patricia draws recipes from her Alaskan Eskimo roots and the kitchen of her late mother, Dorothy Eldred Roberts Witkowski, who baked and made everything from scratch.

Patricia began her cooking career when she was 13 in the family home and in a cooking class, where she was a member of a local 4-H club, baking a pineapple pie. What had been her mother’s recipe with a “pinch of this” and a “pinch of that,” Patricia has translated into exact measurable amounts to assist her readers as they bake and cook in their own kitchens.

Ever mindful of our small community, Patricia spices up her recipes with family history, particularly interests in particular dishes or preparations of meals. Thus, cooking up a history of her family tied in with her recipes.

Aqiimuk's recipes appear each Wednesday in La Conner Weekly News