NY Times: In Alaska’s Far-Flung Villages, Happiness Is a Cake Mix

But no matter where you go, you will always find a cake-mix cake.

Elsewhere, the American appetite for packaged baking mixes is waning, according to the market research firm Mintel, as consumers move away from packaged foods with artificial ingredients and buy more from in-store bakeries and specialty pastry shops. Yet in the small, mostly indigenous communities that dot rural Alaska, box cake is a stalwart staple, the star of every community dessert table and a potent fund-raising tool.

And another thing I've learned from the article is that my "Barrow. Alaska" T-shirt is obsolescent. The town is now called Utqiagvik. That 2009 long day trip to Barrow was a bucket list item and included sticking my hand into the Arctic Ocean (but technically the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas).