Landmark Valley farm serving up home cooking to go

A farm-fresh carry-out dinner service is giving busy families a healthy alternative to traditional fast-food options.

Pyrah’s Pioneer Peak Farm has been a fixture of the Mat-Su agriculture scene for decades. The Butte-area operation, popular for its you-pick format of offering locals fresh produce during the summer months, launched its HomeCookin program in 2024 as a means of extending its operation beyond Alaska’s brief growing season.

Subscribers can choose from weekly or monthly options for pickup twice a week. The service offers four home-cooked meals, with each of the two weekly pickups containing one hot and ready-to-eat meal, and a second one that requires minimal preparation for the following day’s dinner.

Janet Dinwiddie, Pyrah’s owner, said the service was launched after a bunch of requests from locals who experienced the farm’s cooking at catered events and farm-to-table tours. It is designed to reduce stress, save time, and eat better.

“Let us worry about mealtime so you don’t have to,” she said. “Since we had the facilities already and some staff that were willing to stick around for the winter, we decided to give it a go.”

Demand has been steady, if a bit sporadic at times. Dinwiddie said there are a mix of regular customers and a few new ones each week. So the process continues to evolve, as staff is added and the workspace is adjusted.

“We find that there is a lot of fluctuation during typical times such as holidays, but also have found that there are some cycles unique to Alaska that we see a lot of ebb and flow, such as hunting season and typical vacation times,” she said. “Other times, we are honestly not sure why we will have a week with a huge boom in numbers, or lower than normal.”

Regardless of the ups and downs from week to week, Dinwiddie said a typical customer profile does not exist.

“The beauty of what the service offers covers a lot of different individual and family needs,” she said.

It also covers a wide range of cuisines. Menus are fixed each week, but offerings over the course of several weeks are extensive and varied. Dinwiddie and her staff are equally comfortable preparing Asian favorites like orange chicken or beef and broccoli, and Tex-Mex dishes like carnitas or taco salad, as they are putting out comfort food classics like meat loaf and mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie, and beef stew.

The only guiding principle is making things that they would serve their own families.

“The things we like to cook the most are the ones we like to eat,” she said. “We realize there are many tastes and preferences, but we try to cook meals that we have fed our own family and friends and enjoy eating ourselves.”

All meals are balanced. A salad or vegetable is always part of the menu. So are side dishes like rice or potatoes. Dessert is also included.

“It’s been good,” Dinwiddie said. “We still feel like we are in the fledgling phase, even though it has been awhile. Feedback from customers has been very important, since we are constantly trying to adjust the food, our delivery, and our communication. Luckily most people have been pretty patient with our learning curve.”

All that good home cooking surely helps, too. Recent menus have included Dijon crusted chicken, stuffed pork loin, teriyaki chicken, lasagna, and meatball subs. Home-made breads, biscuits, and cornbread often accompany the entrees.

Meals are prepared with as many locally sourced products as possible, Dinwiddie said.

“It is important to us that Alaskans know they can depend on Alaskans for their food,” she said.

That’s an attitude with deep roots on the Pyrah farm, which traces its origin back to the mid-1930s Colony Project that brought Midwest farmers to the area during the Depression. The Pyrah family has been involved with the property since 1979, when Dinwiddie’s parents, Ted and Katie Pyrah, took it over to run it as a charity farm for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In the late ’80s, Pyrah’s began to take its current shape, when the church pulled the plug on the charity farm. Since then, the family has developed it into a Valley landmark.

Pyrah’s HomeCookin family meal plans vary in price from $150 to $600, depending on weekly or monthly options. Pickup days are Monday and Wednesday, and each pickup contains three to four servings.

“We want people to realize that they can eat a healthy, good, home-cooked meal for a reasonable price that is not full of all of the garbage that is out there,” Dinwiddie said. “They don't have to sacrifice their health just because they are busy or don’t have the means or know-how to do it themselves.”

FIND OUT MORE

www.pppfarm.net