The similarity between wild Alaska and foodie Yountville may not be readily apparent to all — except to someone like Ad Hoc’s new, bright, young pastry chef who hails from that northernmost state.

Mandy Dixon may have grown up traveling more by plane, snow shoe and canoe than car — and with more bears than winemakers as neighbors — but she arrived at Ad Hoc with as strong a background in fine food as anyone in Yountville’s four-star haven.

Home for Mandy has always been her parents’ Alaska lodges where, in more than 20 years as innkeepers, they have established a reputation for providing wilderness adventures and sojourns for travelers along with cuisine that combines Cordon Blue flair with log-cabin hospitality.

“My mom was a nurse and my dad an audiologist,” Mandy explained during an interview at Ad Hoc as she was preparing the dessert of the day, a spiced pumpkin cake. Her parents met while working in an Alaska hospital. “My dad is also a pilot and so for their first date they went flying,” she said. “And they saw a for sale sign from the air.” They decided to make the magnificent Alaska wilderness their home.

Carl and Kirsten Dixon began their life as innkeepers at Riversong, a sport fishing lodge on the Yentana River. Ten years later, in 1993, Carl flew over a beautiful, small lake in the foothills of the Alaska range. They were able to buy land there, which was the beginnings of the Winterlake Lodge. They also operate Redoubt Lodge, a “grizzly viewing station,” but it’s Winterlake Lodge that Dixon talks of as home.

Winterlake Lodge is the fourth stop on the Iditarod Trail, a 1,000-plus mile trail used for the annual dog sled race. Other than this rugged trail, the lodge is surrounded by wilderness and accessible only by sea plane. The back country lodge can accommodate 12 guests who arrive by floatplane from Anchorage for a wilderness idyll — hiking, canoeing in the summer, and cross country skiing, dog mushing or snow shoeing in the winter. They come to enjoy the scenery, the sports, the solitude — and the food.

“My mother was forced into cooking,” Mandy said with a grin as she talked about learning to cook with her award-winning chef-parent. “They hadn’t been open long when they had guests from France, and they told her ‘You need to learn to cook.’”

Kirsten Dixon went to Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, and over the years has developed a cuisine — and cooking classes for guests — that that have won praise from colleagues and reviewers, among them Bon Appetit, the James Beard House, Food Illustrated and Esquire magazine.

“The food I serve is designed to make our guests feel content in our wilderness setting,” Dixon wrote in “The Winterlake Lodge Cookbook, Culinary Adventures in the Wilderness.” The book, filled with Fred Hirschmann’s color photos of their wilderness paradise and ursine neighbors, is a collection of recipes Kirsten developed combining her background in French cooking with native ingredients — wild berries, Pacific seafood, “especially salmon,” sourdough and game meat as well as produce from the garden she grows in Alaska’s two-month growing season. The book also recounts their lively adventures in the wild. “Although Carl and I live so far away from the world, it seems the world comes to us,” Kirsten noted.

That same spirit of adventure — and hospitality — has clearly been passed on to their two daughters, both of whom were home-schooled. Currently Carly Dixon is working in South Africa. “She likes the front of the house,” Mandy said. Mandy, however, decided to follow her mom’s steps into cooking. She attended the Cordon Blue school in Pasadena and went to work in restaurants. After five years in kitchens, she said, “one day I was watching a pastry chef tempering chocolate and I thought I want to know how to do that.”

She enrolled in the intensive pastry program at the Culinary Institute of American at Greystone in St. Helena and while she was learning to the fine art of making cakes, breads and pies, she also worked at Ad Hoc, Thomas Keller’s prix fixe family style restaurant in Yountville. “Ad Hoc fits in so well with the food I love,” Mandy said. “Clean, simple, good food.”

She went back to work at Winterlake before returning as Ad Hoc’s pastry chef.

“I love Alaska cuisine,” Mandy said, “although a lot of people don’t think of Alaska as having one.” She described it as a savory combination that includes influences from early Russian and Asian settlers. “It’s simple, hearty, good food,” she said. “Particularly when we cooked for the mushers of the Iditarod, it’s hearty — they are hungry.”

Moving to California, Mandy said, “was a big adjustment. Driving on highways — driving in San Francisco is horrific. I worked at Jardiniere (restaurant in San Francisco) and I couldn’t take it. Napa is much better — it reminds me of Alaska somehow. I don’t really know why.

“It’s really cool to go back (to Alaska) and see nothing but forests,” she said. “I know that I will go back, but for now I love the Napa Valley.”

Mandy provided the recipe for her pumpkin spice cake, as well as Gruyere Cheese Puffs, one of her favorite recipes from Winterlake Lodge. We’ve also included recipes from her mother’s cookbook, which is published by Alaska Northwest Books. See page C5.