Butte legacy farm serving up ready-to-eat meals

What’s left to do on the farm after the harvest is in for the year? If you’re Pyrah’s Pioneer Peak Farm, you find new ways to feed people.

The Colony-era farm has been in operation in the Butte area since 1935. The Pyrah family took it over in 1979 to run it as a welfare farm for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Nine years later, when the church decided to discontinue the welfare farm program in Alaska, the Pyrahs took out an option to lease the 277-acre parcel.

Already established as a u-pick business, where customers could pick their own vegetables, Pyrah’s decided to expand the offerings further. Decades later, the farm remains in the family and a destination for fresh produce-conscious locals and tourists, alike. It also remains a place for the family to continue the traditions established there, said Janet Dinwiddie, current owner of the farm she runs with her husband.

“People have no idea how fragile our food system is,” she said. “Our job is to feed Alaskans, and to educate them, too, about the importance of food supply.”

To that end, Pyrah’s launched their “Home Cookin” program last fall, after several inquiries about ways for the farm to supply food all winter. As the name suggests, Home Cookin provides convenient and nutritious home-cooked meals to hungry locals who may not have time to cook. There are individual and family plans, available by subscription, at Pyrah’s website, www.pppfarm.net.

“It seemed like a natural progression for us,” Dinwiddie said. “The reality is people need a source of local food.”

Subscribers to the service can pick up their meals at the farm, or take delivery from one of Pyrah’s sites in Palmer, Wasilla, or Eagle River. The service is twice weekly, with two meals delivered each time – one hot and ready to eat, and a second that requires minimal preparation for the next night. Home Cookin gets underway in earnest again this week, after a month hiatus for the fall harvest and some kitchen upgrades. Ingredients are locally sourced, healthy, and home-cooked.

From comfort-food classics like chicken pot pie or stuffed meatloaf with garlic mashed potatoes and honey-glazed carrots, to classic Tex-Mex fare like white chicken chili or taco bowls, Pyrah’s kitchen does not disappoint. “We use our own vegetables,” Dinwiddie said. “People know what’s going into their meals.” People also appreciate variety, she said, adding that Pyrah’s menu currently has three months worth of different entrees.

Dinwiddie said deciding on what to serve was not as easy it might seem.

“We like good food, but my tastes are not someone else’s tastes,” she said. “Maybe they’re not going to love everything. I had to become OK with that.” So alongside more standard fare, Pyrah’s occasionally challenges subscribers to the service with something unexpected.

“We’ve tried to keep it not super outside the box,” Dinwiddie said. “But sometimes we throw something crazy in there.”

A year into the endeavor, Dinwiddie is already thinking about growing the Home Cookin operation.

“We’re still in the middle of juggling it and fitting it into our main focus – the farm,” she said. “But I’d love to see it expand.”