Monday, July 23, 2012

Fishing De-Brief

So when you wake up Saturday morning and the rain is pouring down, the first thing you think is: let's totally drive 3 hrs into no where in a packed car to catch some fishies. No? Oh, that's what we think! After a long wet drive we arrived at the mouth of the Kasilof River, on the Kenai Peninsula in South Central Alaska. I'm telling you all this so i sound like a way bigger badass than i am.

As you can see, we weren't the only ones. 

I had a near panic attack about the car getting stuck in the sand---i got one stuck in Israel once, well Mace did, but i helped, and it resulted in 50 people 2 hrs of work and one nearly run over Ryan L@sh to free it. So i was not interested in repeating the disaster on a beach in AK.

Anyways, we sent Adam out in all his pretty gear (click on pictures to make them bigger) and the next thing you know: Yup, he was hauling in his first dipnetting salmon catch!!! GO BABY GO.

We stayed at this spot for about an hour and a bit and then we followed the guy just to the left of adam's hat (who was HILARIOUS) over to the money spot right at the mouth. Where people were literally running in and out of the water non-stop pulling in fish. I don't know how to explain it other than there were CONSTANT fish. We learned some valuable lessons. 1. You MUST bonk the fish with a bat, otherwise the little monsters don't die.  2. they still twitch minutes later (making gut extraction tricky). 3. A system is needed for efficient hauling/bonking/extricating from net. 
This was our catch! 13. Adam swears there were 14 and that I hid one. right. where an i going to hide a slimy fat fish?? He did technically catch 14, but we thought one might have been a king salmon (currently protected) and threw it back. We are headed back next weekend to fish on Saturday again and try to limit out at our 35 for the year.  I want to point out that they each weighed like 10lbs when we got them out of the water. And they are SLIMY. These 13 yielded 20lbs of edible meat--in part because this was our first time filleting . Essentially $200 + of fish--depending on how much a fillet is selling for. 

The other thing this picture doesn't tell you is that i, martha teresa big girl, am the one who chopped off their heads and extracted all the guts.  

So, we set up stations in the kitchen: and got to work. technique is everything and the truth is we butchered the first fish with our learning curve, but by the 13th fish, we were all money. 

Neah supervised.
And in the end: 

Friday, July 20, 2012

fishing



So, it is that time....fishing time in alaska. the king salmon run here this year was really weak---no one knows why, but the reds are running. So, we are off to try and catch our family limit of 35 of these bad boys and 10 flounders. In anticipation of the plentiful harvest, we bought our first smoker!

Our friend Shannon's family has a cabin on the river that she says we can camp at--which sounds like fun. Mostly, i am just hoping the sun holds out so i can tan myself while the boys stand in the cold water with the dipnets. God only knows what Neah will think of the fishies.

This is the Kasilof: 




Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The last week: A LIST


  • Adam adventured in Seattle, in the sun, on a boat. Here in Anchorage, it rained and rained and rained.
  • I went to Feast and everyone died of shock that i had appeared. sad.
  • after the shock was over I saw Kathy Meija---who i knew from Israel back in the day and her ADORABLE kiddos--was there. awesome. 
  • I woke up one morning and hated my bathroom. Thus, i spent the rest of the day changing its color.Devin kept us up till 4 am. Just kidding, we wouldn't let him leave because i was so thankful to have a friend to hang out with.Lesson learned however. 3 hrs of sleep only worked in my 20s. 
  • We watched Devin's grandma pack away more food at the Golden Corral than i thought was humanly possible---she ate at Adam's pace but doubled his intake.
We are really looking forward to next month's travel, weddings, and family time!!

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Single lady weekend?!

my olive oil, herb infused ice cubes for cooking.
adam is running away to Seattle tomorrow for a Bachelor party. I'm not sure what that means for Neah and I other than we are going to have a single ladies weekend---which means, oh honestly, i don't know what it means.

the high here is in the low sixties. this high in seattle is low 80s. adam has already started whining about how hot it is in anticipation.

i'm contemplating painting the upstairs bathroom.

Any other suggestions? Neah doesn't do well on trails, so hiking is kinda out of the question. i already looked at plane ticket prices, which are exorbitant.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

zombie apocalypse food, or why is my cupboard full of top ramen??

in the kitchen, i have a can stash--you know, for snowed in, lack of creativity/fresh veggies days. it is one layer of the lazy susan thing. up for debate in this post is not my can stash (kidney beans, refritos, and condensed things made by campbells only come one way people). what is up for discussion are the invaders in my beautiful can layer: the top ramen.

Why oh why is she dedicating an entire post to top ramen? i can hear you asking from here people. the reason is because i feel a strong need to explain that my husband is convinced a zombie apocalypse is upon us following the cannibal things in miami and china. because the zombies are OBVIOUSLY about to eat everyone on planet earth's brains, we--for some reason i can't quite figure out--MUST keep the the top ramen guarded closely. it cannot live in the garage, nor can it be given away even though no one has touched it since it left the pre-zombie Apocalypse emergency food stash in SEATTLE.

For the record, there are lots of sites that tell you what the best foods are. For example:
1. Yahoo http://voices.yahoo.com/how-survive-zombie-apocalypse-food-guide-6353698.html
2. Metafilter: http://ask.metafilter.com/189433/How-much-food-to-survive-the-Zombie-Apocalypse
3. Some site in NY: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2012/06/the_gourmets_zo.php

You know what they have in common??

Damn right--not a single one has top ramen on them. (hands on hips, mhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm).

So, help a girl out people...what are acceptable ZA foods that are NOT RAMEN NOODLES.