In The Alaska from Scratch Cookbook, blogger Maya Wilson celebrates the state’s finest foods and traditions.

I don’t love avocados because they’re trendy to put on toast. I fell in love with avocados as a child when my grandma Susan had a massive avocado tree in her yard in Southern California. From the tree dangled a rope swing where I would sway my days away in the shade. The avocados were so abundant that they would overripen and fall to the ground, their dark cobbled shells bursting open to reveal the bright green inside. I would snack on them often. As I grew up and became a cook, avocados have always been there in my food, a reflection of my roots at the base of that California avocado tree.

Avocados can’t grow in Alaska, so they are a bit of a luxury up here. Perfectly ripe fruit that hasn’t been bruised and damaged by thousands of miles of travel can be hard to come by, and we pay a premium for them. So if I’m going to splurge and put half of an avocado on my toast, I might as well go all out and top it with succulent Alaska king crab: marrying two of my worlds on one beautiful, decadent plate. I season my avocado and crab simply with lemon, salt, and chives to really allow the natural flavors of the avocado and crab to shine.