Country Captain

The other day at work the third engineer off the M/V Kennecott (an Alaskan Ferry we’re working on) came up to me and told me that Phil Harris had just died. For those of you who don’t know who Phil Harris is he’s the long time captain and owner of the Cornelia Marie and a seminal figure in the Fox docudrama Deadliest Catch.

I can’t say that it was a shock that he’d died, but my first thought wasn’t, as you might expect, tragedy at sea. Had I thought that I would have certainly taken pause because a buddy of mine fishes on the Corn Hole (as the boat is affectionately known). No, I was pretty sure that when the third came to me with this news that the cause of death wasn’t some maritime catastrophe but more like some sort of coronary issue, cardiac arrest or stroke or something more fitting a legendary fisherman like Phil. No disrespect to Mr. Harris but I think it’s interesting that Bering Sea crabbers are more often noted for their fast living than their fishing exploits. It’s true they risk their lives and have interesting and sometimes exciting occupations but more often than not their true mark, their real legend is built on the stool of a bar rather than at the helm of their vessel.

Phil was probably a heck of a guy and a pretty decent fisherman, and I don’t mean to disparage him or his memory just because he was on a crappy television show. I only mean to point out a sobering truth, fishermen are, for the most part, full of shit. Contrary to the picture we get of them on the television screen they are not by and large sage observers of the human condition but drunkards and gluttons, with bad hygiene and missing teeth. Not to say they’re not a lovable bunch, I just wouldn’t take any grooming tips from them. Or for that matter advice on women or health.

I didn’t know Phil Harris. For all I know he was next of kin to the Dalai Lama. The closest I ever got to him was I sat between him and a greenhorn off our boat at the Airport Bar in Dutch Harbor. I remember this kid made us move from our table so we could sit closer to Phil. We were the only ones in the bar and this kid almost creamed his pants when he saw Phil come in with one of his famous deckhands. I didn’t want to move from where we were sitting because first of all I thought it was weird, and second of all I was trying to watch something on TV and they had another channel on at the bar. This kid wouldn’t quit though. He kept going on about how he couldn’t believe it was actually him and that he couldn’t wait to tell all his friends back in Nebraska that he’d actually been in the same bar with this TV big shot. Finally to shut him up I agreed to go up there on the condition that he didn’t bother the guy or say one word to him. He said that that was fine, that he’d probably be too scared to talk even if he could think of something to say. I sat between him and Phil just to be on the safe side. I still felt weird. I didn’t have anything to say to the guy either, but not because I was tongue tied by awe. I just thought of him as some other asshole out there trying to catch our crab. Who the fuck was he anyway? So what if he had a boat and could throw around a few hundred pots? Any idiot can catch crab in the Bering Sea. Believe me, it’s not rocket science.

I do, however, want to dedicate this blog entry to the late Phil Harris, may he rest in peace. Like I said before, I’m sure he was a heck of a guy. My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Country Captain

Country Captain is an old Southern chicken and curry dish that came to the States by way of the British Navy who in turn probably picked it up in India in the early 1800’s. Traditionally the British used to refer to indigenous members of their colonies as “country” people, meaning essentially anyone not from England. With regard to India and its local merchant fleet a country captain was a ship captain of Indian descent. It is only conjecture but it is believed that the dish got its name because it was learned by British mariners from their Indian counterparts. The Brits in turn brought it to the U.S. through ports in South Carolina and an “American Classic” was born. I put that last bit in quotes because for one thing it seems as though there isn’t much about this meal that is particularly American, and for another, I doubt that a lot of you have ever heard of it. It was however quite popular in the 1940’s and 50’s in large part because Franklin D. Roosevelt and George S. Patton were served the dish (on separate or the same occasion I’m not certain) and instantly fell in love with it. In fact it was the President’s favorite food. Mrs. E.H. DeSaussure came out with a recipe in the 1950 book “Charleston Receipts” which was reported to be identical to the one Mr. Roosevelt enjoyed. The recipe came to me by way of Paul Prudhomme who included it in his epic edition “Seasoned America” in 1991. This book has made several journeys with me on the Bering Sea and does not have a bad recipe in it. It doesn’t have an easy recipe in it either which made it challenging to cook from at sea, but it never disappointed (not that starving crabbers are a tough audience). A distinct difference I noticed between DeSaussure’s recipe and Paul’s was that D included bacon and the spice mace. It’s unlike Prudhomme to pass up a chance to use bacon, and while I’m not really all that familiar with mace I’ll have to try this other version someday.

A couple of things that are in both recipes but that I don’t include in mine are raisins and sliced almonds. I leave the raisins out primarily because my wife thinks they are some sort of culinary abomination. She can’t understand why they exist or why anyone would want to turn a perfectly good grape into something shriveled and dry that resembles a black booger. Before we’d ever met though I’d omitted them on the boat because our Chief engineer Billy thought that anyone who ate meat and fruits together was a kind of degenerate he liked to call a “fruity meat lover”. I come from a family that stuck to the traditional pairings of applesauce and pork chops, pineapple and ham, and oranges and waterfowl so personally I don’t share this aversion. Coming from an Irish background and living more than a decade in an industry skewed toward Norwegian influences, an industry that’s meal set was almost entirely meat and potatoes, Billy refused to believe that normal people would eat such reprehensible concoctions. To him these people were following some sort of unnatural path, their inclinations for fruit and meat a sign of other aberrations like body piercings and gay sex. Naturally I steered clear of these associations. The last cook on the boat they’d taken to calling “the Gay Chef,” and hoping to avoid that nickname myself I’d chosen to pare down these fruit and meat groupings.

The only one I didn’t totally abandon was apple sauce and pork chops, but that was only because I’d read somewhere that it was bad luck to serve pork without its apple accompaniment. Not being one to tempt fate, and being in a field who’s participants have a certain respect for superstition I guarded myself against any accusations of fruity meat loving by loudly declaring this fact. This worked for the most part. I think Billy respected that my hands were tied on this particular meal and so couldn’t fault me. The blame obviously had deeper more ancient roots and lacking the willingness to give up pork chops and the intelligence to discover the origin of this superstition he just let the matter rest.

Had I known at the time that Country Captain was one of George S. Patton’s favorite dishes I may have had the courage to serve it in its original form, raisins and all. I don’t think even Billy, as tough as he was, would accuse Patton of being a fruity meat lover, not at least without risking being pistol whipped.

As for the slivered almonds I really don’t have a reason for leaving them out. Maybe it’s because almonds are so expensive (especially in places like Dutch Harbor), or maybe it’s because I don’t like the idea of having slivers of any kind in my food. That just sounds like it might be dangerous. Whatever the reason I’ve never made Country Captain with almonds and therefore view them as merely optional.

RECIPE

SEASONING MIX

2 tbsp curry powder (I use Gram Masala)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried cilantro
½ tsp dry mustard
1 tsp dried sweet basil
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp white pepper
¼ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp ground allspice
2 tsp salt
1 tsp dark brown sugar

It’s best to make this seasoning mix first so you have it on hand. It will play a role in several stages of the recipe

1 whole fryer (about four pounds) cut into six pieces
1/3 cup all purpose flour
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cups chopped green peppers
1 cup long grain rice (uncooked)
4-6 cloves garlic (minced)
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes (or 1 ½ cans whole tomatoes, drained and chopped)
3 cups chicken stock

1. Rub chicken pieces with 2 tbsp of the seasoning mix.

2. Mix the flour with 1 tbsp of the seasoning mix in a shallow bowl.

3. In a large pot or sauce pan (something you can cover and will hold several quarts of liquid) heat the oil over medium high heat. Flour the chicken pieces, reserving the left-over flour. When the oil is hot arrange the chicken in the pan and brown, turning several times. After about eight or ten minutes remove the chicken and set aside.

4. In the same pan add ½ cup of the onions and ½ cup of green peppers and cook for several minutes.

5. Stir the rice and the remaining seasoned flour. Cook for several minutes stirring and scraping the pan occasionally so that the rice doesn’t stick.

6. Add the garlic, tomatoes, remaining onion and pepper and remaining seasoning mix and cook for five minutes.

7. Add the stock and scrape the pan in order to get all the crust from frying the chicken off the bottom. I’ve actually burned the chicken a little a couple times but don’t worry if this happens. When the little black bits get released into the rest of the sauce it lends a nice charbroiled aspect to the overall flavor.

8. Return the chicken to the pan resting the pieces on top of the sauce and bring to a boil. Once you’ve reached a boil reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes.

9. Remove from stove and let stand 10 to 15 minutes keeping the lid on.



10. Serve in bowls.

Food for the Vermin

A few days ago my wife and I lay our pet rats Squeaky and Flo to rest. After some weeks of suffering with a massive tumor and dementia, respectively, we had them euthanized at a local veterinarian hospital. My wife prepared their coffin with treats for the afterlife, coins for the boatman, their favorite blanket, some newspaper, and read aloud a eulogy at their tiny gravesite (a flowerbed next to our front door). We lit a candle and sprinkled some food over their grave for the birds and their outdoor cousins to come and enjoy. The candle burnt for two and a half days before finally guttering and melting into the soil.

Yesterday I was shooting the bull with some guys at work (I got a job at the shipyard a few months back) and I happened to mention our recent loss. I guess I should have known what kind of response I’d get. They laughed and joked and imagined inventive ways of dispatching pet rodents. Someone suggested that instead of taking them to the animal hospital we should have taken them to the Lychee Restaurant, a local Chinese Buffet. He argued that instead of paying a vet fifty bucks to euthanize the rats I might have actually made money on the deal. To be completely honest I wasn’t terribly offended by the off-handed way they treated the death of our rats. I realize that if I’d have been reporting the loss of a dog to these same men I would have probably received solemn condolences instead of wisecracks, and maybe that’s unfair. I guess there’s a certain hierarchy in the value we ascribe to certain animals’ lives. As rats, Squeaky and Flo were in the lower end of that hierarchy, but as members of our family their value was placed very high. (Just as an example of how disparate our views are on this matter, a fishing buddy of mine, a Mexican guy we called Cholo, always dreamed aloud of one day leaving the industry to open up an exotic meat store in Sea-Tac. Noting the large population of Asians and Hispanics in the area he thought it would be a great idea to open a butcher shop specializing in dog, cat and horsemeat. I tried explaining to him that first of all, there were laws against selling any of those animals as food, and that second, his store would probably be burnt down inside of a week, but he just didn’t get it. Cholo was convinced by his experiences in Mexico and the testimony of some of his Asian friends at the cannery that his store would be a booming success. As far as I know there is still no dog, cat and horsemeat emporium in Sea-Tac or Tuckwilla.)

I remember resisting the rats inclusion in our household. When Cat first brought them home, unannounced, I wasn’t very happy about it. All I could think of was how they were going to stink up the house and how we would get in trouble with our landlord who had a strict no pet policy. My wife is the kind of gal that would rather beg forgiveness than ask permission, so after hearing her sob story about how Squeaky and Flo were to be euthanized so that their original owners could move abroad I finally gave in and tried to enjoy the critters for what they were, food begging machines. Flo was the most shameless and aggressive offender. She would sit on the gate of her cage leaning out over the edge as far as she could, her front foot pawing at the air, trying to stir up some aroma from the dining room table. Neither of them were very tough critics of my cooking but after a while I began to suspect that they had a greater appreciation for it than my wife did. I never once saw them pick a mushroom or olive or any other ingredient out of something I fed them. They savored everything and ate whatever I put in front of them. And unlike my wife they never balked and complained about any of my dinner proposals. They never said, “Sundried tomatoes are gross,” or “I don’t eat pork,” or “I hate artichoke hearts.” They were excited about everything that crossed the threshold of their cage, so eager to try my new concoctions in fact that they literally snatched them from my fingers, sometimes even trying to sample the fingers themselves. Now that’s a compliment. A little bit scary and cannibalistic, but I can’t think of higher praise for a chef’s abilities than wanting to trace the flavor of the food all the way back to the fingers that created it.

It was around the time when Squeaky’s tumor made it difficult for her to reach her food dish and Flo’s brain trauma (she suffered a fall in December) left her unbalanced and unable to climb the gate or grasp and hold things like she used to that I noticed their appreciation for food deteriorating to a purely instinctual level. They’d always had a sort of competition going to see who could get the fattest but now it seemed as their friendly wager had devolved into something more like a death match. Flo just didn’t know what was going on anymore. She would sit at the seed dish brushing through it with her paw but unable to pick up any of it. Squeaky would drag around her tumor like a sidecar with a square tire in an effort to collect whatever hit the floor of the cage, unable to climb to the second level herself. With her added girth and Flo’s inability to comprehend her surroundings Squeaky began to bully food away from her. Suddenly it was like we were feeding two castaways on a life raft. One was delirious from sunstroke, the other determined to survive no matter what the cost, even if it meant eating her lifelong companion.
It was then we decided to put an end to their lives. Once they’d lost the ability to enjoy food, to sleep peacefully, or play in the wheel we figured that it was probably inhumane of us to wait around until, either one of them croaked, or the stronger of the two did something unforgivable.

I don’t know exactly what life lesson to take from this experience. I guess if I learned anything from Squeaky and Flo it was that you’ve got to enjoy life while you have the faculties to do so. To settle for bland food, to take no pleasure in sleep, or play, or any other carnal pursuit seems to suggest you deserve your lower rung in the hierarchy. Squeaky and Flo were not very sophisticated animals, they often sat in their own poop, and drug food through where they defecated, but compared to some people I know they certainly had broader palates and a much more vibrant appreciation for the things in life that sadly a lot of us take for granted or neglect entirely.

As a small tribute to beggars and vermin everywhere, to people and animals who still know how to enjoy life and to make do with what they have I’ve put together two recipes that I think represent and celebrate their tastes and spirit.

Stone Soup

This has a special place in my heart and culinary history. When I was about six years old I heard of stone soup and was intrigued by the idea. I don’t think I’d heard the folk tale or was read the children’s book (there’s one from 1947 by Marcia Brown, one written by Ann McGovern in 1968 and a much more recent one penned in 2003 and set in China) but essentially the story goes as follows, a stranger or a group of beggars or a soldier returning from the front after WWI passes through a starving town. The townspeople tell them to move on because there is no food but they decide to stay and rest. They take from their wagon a large iron pot and a magic stone (or an ordinary stone, or in some stories a piece of wood, a button, a nail, or an axe) and they announce to everyone that they’re going to make a batch of stone soup (or wood soup, or button soup, etc.). Everyone in the town is pretty hungry so their interest is naturally aroused. They come to see how this stone soup is prepared. The stranger fills his pot with water, builds a fire under it and then ceremoniously puts in his special stone. He sits watching the soup for some time licking his lips in anticipation. Then after a while he says to himself, loud enough for those gathered round to hear, that stone soup is great, but that once he’d had stone soup with cabbage that was fit for a king. Soon enough a villager appears with a small cabbage that he’d been saving in secret for himself. The stranger puts it in the soup and waits. Later he makes another soliloquy about how such and such a stone soup was fantastic but one he’d tried with potatoes was out of this world. On and on he extolls, one variation of stone soup after another, until finally there are carrots, onions, celery, meat and all kinds of herbs and spices complimenting his creation. All he’d started with was a pot and a stone and some water. He’d contributed nothing substantial to the soup but an idea, a kind of promise of a more delicious meal than what each individual could have prepared for themselves. He’d inspired people to pool their resources and in the end was able to “trick” them into feeding him.

I think as a kid what appealed to me most about stone soup wasn’t it’s lesson about community (or trickery) but that it seemed like you could put just about anything in stone soup without it becoming something else. As long as you started with water and a stone you had free range to do whatever you liked. At the time I made my first and only batch of stone soup I’d never cooked anything without my mother’s assistance, and without the aid of a recipe. In fact I think the only thing I’d ever attempted was the fried egg in the street and regular old bisquick pancakes. Stone soup was my first culinary adventure.

I had no idea what I was doing but just the idea of there being a stone in the soup pot made the whole experience sort of magical. I felt like I couldn’t fail, that whatever crap I decided to throw into my soup it would be delicious just on account of the big ass rock I’d started out with. I don’t know how to explain it exactly. But to a kid, a boy six years old, a pot of soup with a stone sitting at the bottom of it is about the coolest thing in the world. It didn’t matter how bad it ended up tasting (and believe me it was pretty horrible) the fact that I’d made the soup with a rock in the bottom of the pot made it some sort of culinary masterpiece. Or at the very least weird enough to be something to brag about. That stone soup was my soup. I invented it. All by myself. I didn’t get to touch the knobs on the stove but everything else I’d done one my own, without supervision.

Obviously I don’t remember what all I put in my stone soup but I can at least leave you with a basic recipe to follow. I figure as adults maybe some of the magic will be gone but maybe not the community part of it. Get together with friends. Have each person bring an ingredient. Mix and match. Break bread. Eat soup. Watch out for the rock in the bottom of the pot though. No amount of cooking is going to make that thing tender.

Stone Soup Recipe

One large stone (about the size of your fist, washed of all dirt and boiled)
1 ½ - 2 gallons water
Salt and pepper to taste
Additional ingredients (optional)

In a large pot combine water, salt and pepper, and stone and bring to a boil. Add desired additional ingredients and simmer for an hour and a half. Serve hot with crackers or fresh bread.


Kleftiko (robber’s lamb)

This is a fantastic dish that both my wife and I really loved. I found it in a Mediterranean Cookbook my Mom gave me for Christmas. I have a lot of cookbooks that seldom get used so I was glad to finally make something from one that really spoke to me. Kleftiko literally translates from the Greek to mean “stolen meat”. The nickname robber’s lamb apparently is derived from a time when sheep rustler’s were a problem in the region. Kleftiko is an enclosed dish, kind of like a pie, but with a shell that holds in all the steam and juices. Traditionally it was cooked in an underground oven, somewhat like the Kalua pig, presumably so that the smoke from the smoldering coals wouldn’t give away the position of the bandits. We cooked ours in a conventional oven. However you decide to prepare this dish I just want to warn you now, this is not going to be any thirty minute show stopper. You’re going to have to work to make this baby, and you’re going to have to put in the time to make it right.

Kleftiko Recipe

4 to 6 lamb leg steaks about 1/2 inch thick (enough to cover the bottom of a 10 inch pie dish, or a ceramic casserole dish)
Juice of one lemon
2-3 tbsp. fresh mint (chopped)
1 tbsp. dried oregano (rubbed gently between fingers or roughed in a mortor)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. black pepper
3 tbsp. Olive Oil
1 large yellow onion (sliced thin)
1 large red onion (sliced thin)
½ cup dry white wine
4 bay leaves

Single 10-inch pie crust

½ cup shortening
1 ⅓ cups all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
3 – 4 tbsp. cold water


1. Combine the lemon juice, mint, oregano, salt, pepper and 1 tbsp. olive oil in a shallow pan. Place lamb steaks in pan and coat both sides. Marinate for several hours, 4 to 6, turning the meat a couple of times.
2. Combine the ingredients for the pie crust and form into a ball. Reserve for later in the fridge.
3. After sufficient time pull meat from marinade and reserve. Preheat the oven to 325° F. Then heat 2 tbsp. oil at medium high heat in a large frying pan. Brown the lamb on both sides, turning once.
4. Remove lamb from pan and place in a single layer at the bottom of pie plate or ceramic dish. Arrange onions and bay leaves over the top of the meat.
5. While pan is still hot pour in the wine and scrape up the crust sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add marinade and cook about 1 to 2 minutes. Pour over lamb and onions.
6. Wet the rim of the pie pan. Roll out dough and cover the pie pan tightly covering any cracks or holes with excess dough.
7. Cook for 2 ½ hours.

Serve with boiled potatoes and roasted or sauted vegetables.

Rest in peace Squeaky and Flo. We enjoyed feeding you our scraps.

Pot Pie vs. Dutch Baby (Kaiju Style)

Have you ever noticed how the insides of a pot pie are like the hottest substance known to man? Seriously, you may think it’s cooled down enough after you’ve blown on your first bite for a few seconds but don’t make that mistake, I beg you. You could melt steel in that pot pie. It’s like molten lava. The earth’s core. I promise you, if you ever want to taste again do not even think of eating that thing until it’s rested at least twenty minutes. Yeah, I know it’s a long time to wait but trust me, you’ll thank me.

Now that I’ve got that public service announcement out of the way we can get down to the real subject of this blog. If a Pot Pie and a Dutch Baby were Japanese Movie Monsters (kaiju) who do you think would win?

The Pot Pie like I’ve said does have a molten core, and it’s crust could, I guess, be compared with armor plating. In a way it looks like the kaiju Gamera, that turtle like creature that flies through the air like a pinwheel, shooting fire from the leg holes in its shell.

The Dutch Baby is not nearly as intimidating. The fact that the word baby appears in its name sort of takes the edge off any potential fearsomeness. Dutch Babies are kind of like a thick pudding. They’re soft and doughy, and they puff up when you cook them. Their real danger I guess lies in the amount of butter floating on their surface. It can get pretty hot and it has the real potential to cause serious health risks. All in all though, with a light sprinkling of powdered sugar, some fresh berries and maple syrup the Dutch Baby can’t really hold a candle to the Pot Pie. Of course it’s a totally different kind of creature.

The Dutch Baby is more on the order of Mothra. Its’ sort of mystical. It’s something worth revering, an object of wonderment and delight.

A Pot Pie is more something a Bulgarian weight lifter would eat before a competition. It’s dense and terrestrial. Solid peasant food made from the scraps of other meals.

When I presented my wife with this question, when I explained how I thought the Pot Pie was like Gamera and the Dutch Baby like Mothra she immediately shot down my metaphor pointing out that both the monsters I’d chosen were in fact good guys and would therefore never fight one another. They were more likely to take turns fighting on the same side. Say the Dutch Baby attacks at dawn and the Pot Pie follows in the second wave at dusk. The tandem would be certain to triumph over any appetite, no matter how large or pissed off.

I guess the obvious question then isn’t who would win in a fight between the two, but how do we employ them both to fight on our side.

Let’s begin with the Dutch Baby since technically it’s a breakfast food from the pancake family. Derived from the German Apfelpfannkuchen the Dutch Baby was developed at the Manca Café in Seattle, Washington during the first half of the last Century. Victor Manca was the proprietor and head chef at the Manca Café and is credited with creating the Dutch Baby. The name was purportedly coined by his young daughter, and the restaurant held a trademark on that menu item for several years during the forties. Sunset Magazine popularized the dish sometime in the fifties when it featured Manca’s recipe in its pages. The recipe I have comes to me by way of my Romanian Grandmother (may she rest in peace) who lived her entire life near Geneva, Ohio, fifty miles East of Cleveland and thirty miles from the Pennsylvania boarder. I’m not sure where she got her hands on it but it has more the ear markings of a pound cake from early Colonial America than a single serving pancake made at a West Coast Café. My Grandmother’s recipe serves twelve and requires a pound of each of its four ingredients.

First you preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Then find your largest metal pot (avoid anything with plastic handles or anything that is not completely oven safe), cast iron or stainless work best, add one cup of butter (yes that is all four sticks) and place the pot in the oven until butter is completely melted and bubbling. Do not brown the butter. It just needs to be really, really hot.

While the butter is melting beat twelve eggs in a large bowl until they are mixed evenly and smooth but not frothy. Gradually add three cups of milk and three cups of flour alternating about a cup of each until blended smooth. Mix in one tsp vanilla.

By this time the butter ought to be about right. Pull the pot from the oven and pour in the batter. Return to oven and cook about twenty minutes or until the Dutch Baby has risen substantially and browned around the edges. Remove from oven and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar. At this point you’re on your own. A lot of people like syrup with their Dutch Baby. Some like fruit or berries and if your feeling really decadent you can whip up some cream and dab it on top. I prefer mine with raspberries or blackberries and a little maple or agave syrup. I also serve this with some kind of side meat, either sausage or bacon. Its pretty dense though so you won’t need much else.

If you aren’t trying to feed an army (I once made a Dutch Baby for a crew of nine that consisted of 18 eggs, a cup and a half of butter and four cups each of milk and flour) then you can easily adjust the recipe down to your needs. Most of the time I third the recipe for my wife and I.

Dutch Baby for Two to Four

1 stick butter plus 2 tbsp.
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/3 tsp vanilla

You’ll likely still have leftovers but a Dutch Baby keeps pretty well unrefrigerated so if you’re spending a lazy Sunday afternoon at home it can be picked at throughout the day.

Dutch Babies are awesome. Delicious, filling and with the word Baby in the title kind of sinister sounding. They easily rank amongst my favorite foods and are a dish that will impress any guest or relative. Try it out sometime. When somebody asks what you’re having for breakfast tell them a Dutch Baby and see what kind of reaction you get.

Pot Pies don’t exactly have the same wow factor of a Dutch Baby but I think that’s primarily because when you tell someone you’re eating pot pie they naturally think of some crappy freezer burned Swanson abomination. Pot pies have gotten a bad rap over the years because they tend to resemble cardboard both in appearance and taste and have really been neglected by scratch cooks and homemakers because they assume they’re too hard and time consuming to make. It’s really too bad because there’s nothing quite as satisfying and delightful as a homemade pot pie. And one of the best features of pot pie is that it is a great dumping ground for leftover meat and vegetables from other meals. On this particular occasion I started with fresh ingredients but you really can incorporate a lot of things that you find hanging around in your fridge. We do a lot of veggie sautés and if we don’t end up eating them all they can find themselves in the garbage a week later. It’s best when possible not to cook too much of something that is no good cold or reheated, but mistakes happen and when you find yourself with a pile of stuff that no one is going to eat you can always throw it in a soup or a pot pie.

Chicken Pot Pie from Scratch

Two Crust 10-inch Pie Shell (refer back to T-minus Two for recipe and instructions)

Spice blend

1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
1 ½ tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp dried sage

Filling

2 cooked chicken breasts (chopped or shredded)
1 large onion (chopped small)
2 medium carrots (cubed ½” X ½”)
3 medium potatoes (cubed ¾” X ¾”)
4-5 cloves garlic (minced)
Family Size can of Cream of Mushroom condensed soup
7-8 oz. Canned Young Sweet Peas (about half a can drained and rinsed)
¼ cup chicken broth (or ¼ cup retained pea juice)

Blend spices in a small bowl. As an alternative to the sage, thyme, basil and white pepper you can use about two tablespoons of poultry seasoning. It won’t be exactly the same but it’ll still be pretty good. Don’t skimp on the spices. They’re expensive but they really make the meal. If anything I’ve low balled some of these measurements so the only thing you need to watch is that you don’t get too heavy handed with the salt or the pepper.

For my pie I used the leftovers from a whole fryer we ate a day or two before. I carved off a leg and thigh, both wings and one breast picking the rest of the bird clean of usable meat. Skin and gristle should probably be discarded unless you’re into that sort of thing.

In a large bowl mix together the Spices, the Raw Veggies, the Cooked Chicken and the can of Mushroom Soup. Add enough of the Chicken Stock (or pea juice - it sounds gross but I kind of like the juice from canned veggies, it’s salty like urine) to make the mixture smooth but not soupy. Don’t be alarmed if the mixture smells a little bit like wet cat food, this is normal. If you’ve ever worked with Mushroom soup before you’ll know what I’m talking about. Once you’ve found your desired consistency gently fold in the peas so as not to mush them.

Pour mixture into the pie shell, add a little salt and pepper on top and close up with the second shell.

Place in oven on center rack and cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and cook approximately one more hour. The smaller you cut your veggies the sooner they will be tender. If you like bigger pieces allow for a longer cook time. Watch for over browning of the crust edges. These may burn. You can avoid this by making a foil ring and placing it gently around the edges of the pie. They sell a metal ring specifically for crusts and they’re only a couple bucks but they aren’t necessary (disclaimer: I have two of them).

Once you feel the pie is sufficiently done pull it out of the oven and let it rest on a wire rack or on one of the burners on the range. You should give it about twenty minutes to a half hour to cool before you cut into it. It’ll be kind of soupy so be prepared to spoon it out.

With this meal I don’t really serve anything else. You’ve pretty much got all the basic food groups covered but if you feel like your plate is kind of naked I guess a salad with a little tomato, onion, green pepper and a favorite dressing would suffice.

Enjoy. And for godsakes have patience. Don’t go burning your mouth. Remember the Pot Pie and Dutch Baby are here to help you. They are our friends.

Fuck Christmas, Fuck it in the Face

This may seem like a brash and downright vulgar thing to say about the holiday on which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was born, but I feel that it is the only way to truly express how much I love Christmas. I would totally fuck it in the face. I know that Christmas doesn’t really have a face, and that if it did it probably would look a lot like Santa but I’m willing to overlook these facts. Honestly I’d fuck Christmas in whatever orifice was open to me. Mistletoe or not Christmas is gonna get so royally fucked this year it’s not even funny.

My wife agrees and is totally down. We are going to run a holiday train on Christmas and totally fuck its junk up. When you see Christmas in the morning and it’s kinda walking weird, maybe looking a little sore, that was me and my wife. We were the ones who fucked Christmas so hard.

I love you Christmas, you dirty little whore. I know you only come once a year so I’m gonna make you come like you’ve never come before. You can be as loud as you want, you can scratch, you can claw, you can even pull my hair I don’t care. This year it’s all about you Christmas. We can try anything you want. You don’t even have to come down the chimney like you usually do.

All right, seriously though, I do really love Christmas. And I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone’s sensibilities with all this x-rated Christmas talk. I guess in a way I’m trying to make a point. Christmas seems to have gone so far off the tracks that you very well might find it starring in some seedy face fucking porno. I mean, am I wrong? Hasn’t Christmas just become some sort of orgy of consumerism? Hasn’t the whole point of the holiday become some kind of macro-economic guilt trip aimed at herding us into the stores so that we can “rescue” our economy? Buy, buy, buy. Save, save, save. Now, now, now. You know you want it! Yeah, that’s right, give it to me, ew baby, ew baby, yeah, like that, with the charge card, yeah, I can feel it getting bigger, max it out, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Disgusting isn’t it? Well, I for one am just tired of it. It doesn’t get me off anymore. The catalogue porn, the window shopping, the mall, all the plastic Christmas cheer, it’s all a big turn off. I mean if I’m going to be forced into fucking Christmas I’m sure as hell not gonna do it in public. I’m not about humiliating the holiday. I’d want to go some place quiet, put on some mood music, maybe a little jingle bells or noel, maybe Chris G.’s album This Christmas Let’s Get Messed Up, turn down the lights and take things at a slower pace. I’d want it to be tender and meaningful. None of this impersonal wham, bam, thank you ma’am shit that the cheer mongers seem to be pushing. Just another one night stand. Get drunk and fuck something, anything, it doesn’t matter, you won’t remember it in the morning anyway. That’s just not how I roll. I don’t want to regret having sex with Christmas. I don’t want Christmas to regret it either. I want to wake up in the morning and be proud that I invited it over. Hell, I want to make it breakfast. I want to call it again.

But how do we get back to this kind of relationship with Christmas? How do we repair years of abuse and neglect, how do we make Christmas feel special again, pure and virginal? Well for starters we can stop using Christmas as an excuse to slake our perverted little desires to own more shit. Stop buying so much stuff people! I know they say that if we put away our credit cards we’ll wreck the economy. That we have to buy stuff because it’s part of our genetic make-up. And that if we don’t get people presents we’ll look like a cheapskate and a humbug. Well I say fuck what people say. Buying stuff is not the answer to a quality Christmas holiday.

I don’t really know what the answer is. I’m not a Christmas guru, an oracle, a trend setter or anything else, but what I do know is what works for me. This is how I make sweet love to Christmas. First of all I try not to kill too much shit getting my holiday nut. For example my wife and I went to this tree farm in the county and bought this live tree.

I know what you’re thinking, but despite the fact that it looks straight out of the Peanuts’ Christmas Special this tree is gonna be around a lot longer than any of us. We figure it will live in the house till spring, so as not to screw up its equilibrium with a sudden temperature change, and then we’ll keep it on the deck until next year when we’ll have it for our tree again. Cat has named it and everything. She calls it Frosty, but I think it should be called Sharpie, or Prickly, or something like that because this is the pokiest damn tree I’ve ever come across. Maybe it’s because it’s so young that its needles are so sharp, kind of like kittens and puppies, but twice now Frosty has drawn blood.

Honestly we don’t know too much about keeping a Sitka Spruce as an indoor pet but we did a little interweb investigation and it doesn’t seem too hard. It’s not recommended that you keep a tree like this one inside for more than a few days, but we’re going to go against that rule as long as Frosty doesn’t seem to be suffering. I’ve placed his pot inside a bucket that’s got a little water in the bottom so that he can drink what he needs. And I’ve chosen not to put any lights on him because the added warmth would be bad for his needles and his overall well being.

Instead I’ve painstakingly threaded a bunch of popcorn together to make a garland to drape over his branches. I used about three or four tablespoons vegetable oil, about a half a cup of popcorn, and popped it all on the stove top in an eight quart pot with a lid. If you’re going to use popcorn for decorative purposes don’t put any butter or salt on it. I let the popcorn cool for several hours then took this old sewing kit I got from some hotel and went to work. I never really noticed before how much individual popcorn kernels resemble octopus but it’s pretty uncanny. Here’s a random gift idea. If you have any Filipino friends or relatives get them a fresh octopus. They’ll be your friend forever I promise.

For gifts this year I’m giving homemade blackberry jam, homebrew, spicy pickled green tomatoes and a few little bottles of booze and some lottery tickets.

Cat spent three days putting together this massive batch of green curry for her gifts, grinding all the ingredients in a mortar. She’s going to get some “real” presents from me too, mostly functional and sensible things, but for the most part my family is just getting food. I don’t know if that makes me seem cheap or if it makes me seem thrifty and thoughtful. I don’t really care. If they don’t want the stuff then I’ll be glad to take it back. In fact I had real difficulty saving these jars of jam (I picked the blackberries after I returned from the Bay), and I’m having trouble parting with them now. No matter how I feel about this stuff I already know what kind of response I’ll get. It’ll be sort of like all the canned salmon and smoked salmon I’ve been giving my parents and brothers all these years. The jars will end up in their cupboard collecting dust, or in my Mom’s case in the back of the fridge with all those tiny forgotten bottles of horseradish sauce. My Mom is paranoid about botulism so she would never store something I’d canned myself in the cupboard where it belongs. She’d rather put it in her refrigerator where it looks like a bomb went off. I’ve cleaned out her fridge on a number of occasions and found food so old that it had grown its own personality. I’ve given up trying to rectify the matter though. I’ve tried to tell her that she should look in the fridge before she goes to the store but that’s a concept she just can’t understand. As a consequence there’s a lot of redundancy, a lot of spoilage and a lot of MIA’s. When Cat and I visit, my Mom goes shopping like she’s going to be feeding the fifth battalion for a month. We’re bombarded by snacking suggestions. Flanked by cookies and surrounded by dips and cheeses. Our meals are like a military parade. One dish after another hits the table in its own fancy bowl or plate, until an assembly the size the Red Army is lying there just challenging you to concur it. I don’t really know who wins these battles but there isn’t any quarter given because there isn’t anywhere in the fridge to put the leftovers.

I’m kind of off track here but it’s been that kind of day. My older brother is sitting across from me now holding forth on how global warming is bullshit, my Dad is tinkering with his new flatscreen tv, Cat is knitting her Christmas stocking. My little brother is trying to drink all the Wild Turkey before any of us get any, and my Mom is slaving away in the kitchen nowhere near emancipation. My older brother suggested that I wrap this up by quoting the last paragraph of It’s a Wonderful Life, but I think Cat’s suggestion is much better. She wanted me to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and remind everyone that every time a bell rings an Angel gets fucked in the face.

Merry Christmas everyone. When I sober up I’ll try and add some recipes for the jam and spicy green tomatoes. I’ll also explain how I think my sauerkraut when horribly, horribly wrong.

Now for the booze.

That's Not How My Mom Does It

We were fortunate this Thanksgiving to have several of our friends and family travel great distances to be with us for the holiday. One particular couple, Sarah and James, travelled from Northern California to visit our home and join us for the repast. I have known these two for as long as I’ve known my wife, and in fact have to give Sarah a lot of credit for getting us together. Well, I guess Evan Williams deserves recognition too, but the lion’s share definitely has to go to Sarah for her skillful application of his spirits.

Sarah and my wife have been friends for a long time. They lived together in Santa Cruz, California, both enjoying a carefree life of breathing fire, skinny dipping and all around hell raising. They have both walked the entire Appalachian Trail, Sarah doing the trip with James, and Cat, my wife, doing the journey solo a year later. I’m not sure how they decided on fishing together in Alaska but somehow by the grace of god they showed up one night on the beaches of Humpy Pointe to be part of a set netting crew that I’d been working on for ten years.


It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Going into that season I had been under the impression that I was ending a chapter in my life. My tenure as a salmon fisherman was coming to an end. I’d just started crabbing in the Bering Sea and my services were required for tendering in the Bay. Somehow I’d weaseled out of that summer’s detail to fulfill a commitment I’d made to my old boss and a desire I’d had to end my career there at an even decade. I had no idea what was about to hit me, no frame of reference that could have prepared me for the kind of female force that was about to descend on our tiny beach community. I got an inkling the morning after Sarah and Cat arrived, when I heard rumors that after reaching camp late that night they’d immediately stripped naked and ran into the Inlet. Naturally my first question was, why the fuck didn’t anyone wake me up? But then a more sober feeling came over me. As the foreman of the crew I was going to have to deal with these women. I had to be professional. I was their boss.

It really is funny how things work out sometimes. For one glorious summer I was the one giving orders. Now I’m the one receiving them. Honestly I don’t know if my wife ever took me too seriously as her boss. I know Sarah didn’t. She was the cook on the site and immediately took the position that she didn’t have to answer to anyone but the head honcho. I don’t know where she got that idea but it turned out to be right. Apparently ten seconds as the cook outweighs ten years as a fish choking grunt! I’d been the cook on several boats by that time too but had never started any assignment with that kind of presumption. I preferred to slowly work my way into a feeling a haughty contempt for the other fishermen. I liked to feel that I was on solid ground, that I could keep up with them on deck and cook the food that sustained them. Only then did I feel I could be as big of a dictator as I wanted. The same went for working in a restaurant. I felt out the place first. I didn’t just jump right in and start abusing the servers without first finding out who wrote legible tickets and who was capable of turning in their appetizer and dinner orders in a timely fashion.

I don’t know, maybe it was something about Sarah’s nature. She’d never cooked professionally before but she certainly had the aura of a tyrannical chef. She drew lines in the galley across which no one was allowed to cross, she scolded people for overtaxing the cookie jar and for wasting food, she stomped her feet and hollered directions like she was commanding a pack of dogs. I was thankful in a way for her strong management of the galley even though I was a little bitter about being treated like a three year old in what amounted to my own home. I tolerated it mostly because I didn’t know how to handle it otherwise and it was just one less aspect of the day to day operation that I didn’t have to personally oversea. Besides that she turned out to be a tremendous cook and a very funny and kind person provided you stayed out of her way.

Often times, while I had Cat, James and the other crew members out slaving away mending nets I would amble into the cook shack to look in on what was for dinner. I have always had a lot of ideas on how things ought to be done and so despite my better judgment I would offer Sarah unsolicited advice on how certain dishes should be prepared. I was never really aware that I was doing it until it was too late. Sarah would turn this hawkish look on me and squint her eyes like she was trying to figure out how best to rip out my throat if I said another word. It was at those moments that I realized just how limited my prerogative as foreman really was. It was much later that I discovered that my unwelcome advice had become kind of a joke between Sarah and Cat. As it turns out I was using the phrase, “that’s not how my Mom does it,” maybe a little more frequently than a grown man ought to.

At the risk of impugning my own manhood I have to confess that I am sort of a mama’s boy. My Mom was a stay-at-home-mom so I found myself under her governance most of the time. Far from doting on my Mother or being at her beck and call I spent my childhood in loving fear of her temper and in quiet awe of her energy and varied skills. I was genuinely interested in some of the things she taught me, like how to cook and sew, but was marshaled in a lot of other tasks, like weeding in the garden and vacuuming the house, that left me wishing she’d be hit by a bus.

Like most boys I had mixed feelings about my Mother’s influence over me. She never tried to force my brothers and I to play with dolls or anything but I did have an Easy Bake Oven growing up and I was encouraged to participate in the kitchen. I don’t know exactly how I got interested in cooking. The Easy Bake Oven was a big part of it I guess, the kind of science-like mixing of ingredients, the application of fire (what turned out to be a 60 watt light bulb) and of course the tasty baked goods that resulted. But even that came after a much more organic experiment I had undertaken in the street one hot summer day in July when I was about five.

My older brother and I were both in a pyrotechnic phase of our development, demonstrating our primordial powers over nature and trying perhaps to discover some distance from our Mother’s apron strings. We’d been disciplined a couple of times already for playing with matches so we’d sought other ways of harnessing fire by following our Father’s suggestions that it could be caused by rubbing two sticks together or by focusing sunlight through a magnifying glass. My older brother was always pretty analytical and also very bossy so I didn’t get too much pleasure from these attempts. We came close to causing fire several times but somehow I was always to blame for it not working out. I wasn’t rubbing the sticks together vigorously enough, or I’d stood in his light at a critical point in combustion. I’d just about lost all excitement for these experiments when on that hot summer day I’d overheard my Dad comparing the weather to when he was a boy, saying that “It got so hot when I was a kid that we actually fried an egg on the street.”

For the next hour I begged my Mom for an egg so that I could see for myself if it really worked. I’d never cooked anything before but I’d watched my Mom cook eggs on several occasions and I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of how it was done. First I would need a spatula and something to butter the street with. Then I would need salt and pepper and a plate to put the egg on once it was done. I can’t say my Mom wasn’t impressed by my knowledge of egg preparation but she wasn’t about to surrender any of these things to me just so that I could “make a mess in the street.” I promised on all things holy, crossed my heart and hoped to die that I wouldn't make a mess. I told her that I had every intention of eating my egg once it was done. I had big plans for that egg. I was going to put it between two pieces of white bread with mayonnaise and have it for lunch. This last part I think was what convinced her that I was serious. Not only was I going to cook something but I was going to combine it with other ingredients in a kind of rudimentary recipe, one, in fact, that she’d prepared for me before. I was showing real initiative, and, with my final suggestion that I might add some of that red stuff, like on the deviled eggs, signs of a natural flare for cooking.

When I reached the street and announced to the neighbor kids that I was about to make cooking history some sneered in disbelief and others gathered around with great enthusiasm. With an egg in one hand and a daring idea I had separated myself from the rest of the children on my block. For a brief moment I had become a minor celebrity. I was both exhilarated by the attention, and terrified by it. Suddenly I realized that I had to perform. I had an egg and an idea but no practical skills. I’d never cracked an egg before. I’d never deposited it on a surface without breaking the yolk. And that’s when it hit me; through all the jeering and yelling I could see a clear image of my Mom performing this task. Her motions were deliberate but effortless, a reflex from years of cracking eggs, a flawless, elegant transaction between a hard surface and a delicate object.

Cracking that egg and laying it on the street with such perfection was my first great triumph as a cook. Watching it sit there, raw and unresponsive, as the children lost interest and moved on to other games was my first great defeat. I don’t remember what happened to that egg once I realized it was never going to cook. Maybe a dog ate it, or maybe I’d cleaned it up like I’d promised. What I do know is that from that experience I can sort of trace my development as a cook. I know now how much I’ve relied on my Mother’s techniques over the years. They are the foundation for my confidence as a chef. And even though we no longer cook similarly (she is a disciple of recipes and I’m a scratch cook) I still have a tendency to relate certain foods to her masterful preparation of them. I know that it is sort of ridiculous to maintain that my Mom makes the best Caesar Salad on the planet, or the best Cheesecake, but I will never eat these foods again without comparing them to her achievements.

I suppose it is natural for a man to have a strong connection to the food his mother prepares. It is, besides gestation, birth and nursing, the most physical relationship and bond he’ll have with her for the rest of his life. This is perhaps why comfort food is so important. It is a reminder of our ancestry, and a genuine connection to our origin. It might also explain why a man might complain if a dish is not prepared like his mother made it.

Food is part of our individual identity, and Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, is an expression of that identity. Personally I’m not totally married to the old traditions. Mine and my wife’s first Thanksgiving together consisted of Rib-eye steak and King crab legs. But when it came to this year’s giant gathering I tried to please all of our guest’s sensibilities. Turkey for the traditionalists. Oyster dressing for my Dad. Cranberry Sauce with Orange Zest, compliments of my Mother-in-law, and apples in the stuffing for my wife’s side of the family. Crab cakes and King Salmon because we’re fishermen and because seafood has always defined mine and my wife’s relationship. And our friends Craig and Kari (Craig is also a Humpy Pointe alum) brought a delicious Green bean casserole to round out the feast.

It was an added treat to have Sarah there to try some of my Mom’s and our family’s traditional offerings. It was also nice because when the question of gravy came up Sarah was able to step in and spell my Mother, who’s been suffering from a fractured tibia. I have to confess, Sarah does make gravy just like my Mom. That was certainly one thing I never griped about back on the beach.

I want to thank everyone for coming to our house this Fall and for all the wine and treats you brought us. We’ll do it again some time. I want to thank Sarah and James for the beautiful Hubbard Squash they left us (it’s about 15-20 pounds). I almost feel like it’s part of the family. It’s gonna be hard to carve it up some day but I plan on eventually featuring it in this blog.

I want to leave you all with a recipe compliments of my Mom.

Snow Pea Salad (part of our traditional Thanksgiving fare)

1 bag of frozen petit peas (12 to 16oz.)
Equal amount snow peas, raw and julienned
1 can sliced water chestnuts, slivered
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 small bottle Kraft Coleslaw dressing
4 -6 slices maple flavored bacon, crisped and crumbled
1 small package hazelnuts or filberts, roasted and crushed

Set oven to bake at 300° F, place nuts on baking pan and bake 20 minutes.
Cook bacon over medium heat until it is browned on both sides, place on paper towel or used grocery bag to drain grease.
In a small microwave safe bowl microwave frozen peas for 5 minutes on medium to high heat depending on the power of your microwave. If you don’t have a microwave set the peas out a couple hours ahead of time to thaw.
Julienne the snow peas, sliver the water chestnuts, and chop the green onions widthwise.
In a large bowl mix the petit peas, snow peas, green onions, water chestnuts and desired amount of Coleslaw dressing (my Mom uses about 2/3 cup).
Over the top crumble the bacon and the crushed hazelnuts.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Balls

After ten days of company, fourteen guests for thanksgiving, numerous cases of beer, bottles of wine, of booze, and three different illnesses I have to say without the least bit of irony that I’d rather be sorting Opies.

I know that probably won’t mean much to those of you who have never had the pleasure but let me just say for the record that there is nothing, I mean nothing, in my experience that is more painful, more hopeless, more soul crushing, mind numbing, melancholy and self hateful than sorting Opies.

For the last couple of days I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to shake loose some way of describing exactly what that experience is like but have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to render in a concise enough form to appear on this blog. To accurately describe its horrors would take an effort like Dante’s Inferno, or Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night. I unfortunately am not in command of those types of literary powers. I’m a fisherman and a cook. A man of simple expressions simply expressed. I mean, I may know how it feels to get kicked in the balls, all guys do right, but I’m not the guy who’s going to be able to finally communicate to a woman what that sensation is really like. And that’s sort of the position I’m in here with this sorting Opies reference. I don’t know how to communicate how bad it really is to somebody who’s never had the experience themselves. I mean, I could say that being at the sorting table is like being Sisyphus, that every time you think you’ve got the table cleared of one mountain of crab another nightmarish peak takes its place and the climb begins again. Or I might want to compare the experience to having back surgery without anesthesia. Or due to the table guy’s proximity to the shit shoot (a hole that opens to the sea where we eject all the small crab and rotten bait) it might be likened to being water boarded with vomit and tiny throwing stars. Whatever comparison I make it will undoubtedly sound like an exaggeration to those who have never been there. Kind of like when my wife has “play” kicked me in the nuts while we’re horsing around and just stands there laughing in disbelief as I writhe on the ground. “Oh come on honey, it can’t hurt that bad, I barely touched you.”

It does hurt that bad, and that’s why it always kind of surprised me that during Opilio season, during these grueling marathons of self-abuse, we would always joke that there was nothing in the world we’d rather be doing than sorting Opies. I don’t know if this was some strange brand of reverse psychology or just another aspect of the masochism that led us all inexorably to this particular profession, but the objects most often targeted in these lampoons were the best, most cherished thoughts of our lives on land. It seems that somehow by pretending to favor sorting Opies over, say, having sex with our wives or girlfriends gave us a kind of criminal pleasure, made us forget for a moment how miserable and inhuman we’d become. We knew it was wrong, that this subversion was like saying you’d rather be out stabbing kittens or mutilating yourself with a ball peen hammer, but we couldn’t help it. That was the sort of thing that passed as humor when you’d crossed over into the dark side of Opilio season. It was best just to embrace it. You could always rid yourself of these notions once you returned to civilization. After all they were ridiculous, weren’t they? How could any sane person favor sorting Opies over sex, or booze, or a turkey dinner?

With my prospects of ever embarking on another Opie season fading from view I guess I never imagined I’d hear myself uttering such an absurdity again. But after this last week, this long terrifying week of thanksgiving and its aftermath I have realized that there are some things worse than sorting Opies. Not far worse, but worse enough. Worse enough to make me nostalgic for the Bering Sea in February. Worse enough that I actually kind of miss those fucking little sea spiders we know as Snow Crab.

I guess things wouldn’t have been all that bad if I hadn’t started out the whole ordeal with a severe cold. I missed the god damn Marine Expo because of that cold and then bam, before I even had a chance to convalesce my in-laws were on top of me and then more company, and then more. I felt dog piled. I mean, each of these folks separately and in small doses would have probably had a medicinal effect on me, but all at once it was like poison. My mind and body were overwhelmed. I had this huge meal to cook, all these arrangements to attend to, socializing, schmoozing, boozing and all without losing the one thing I am most apt to lose while in the kitchen, my temper.


My wife was a real trooper. She knew I was being a prick but graciously gave me space and let me rush around the kitchen like I was saving pictures from a house fire. She and several other guests kept offering to help but as I was undertaking a well thought out plan I kept not-so-gently rebuffing them. My wife has always had a problem with my domineering nature in the kitchen. My mouth has never worked all that well while I’m in the middle of something time sensitive and complicated. It used to drive her up the wall when we worked together on a skiff set-netting for Salmon and something would go wrong and there was only a few seconds to fix the problem before things got irreparably worse and I’d just snatch whatever it was out of her hands and take over. She accused me of being a bad teacher because I hadn’t explained to her what to do while it was happening. I’ve never learned verbally, and as a consequence I don’t think I should be expected to teach that way. Watch what I do. Do what I do. Then you’ll be able to do it yourself. Until then, stay the fuck out of my way!

Anyhow, that’s neither here nor there. So I pissed my wife off this Thanksgiving. I’m sorry honey but it was necessary. Despite the bad blood between us the meal came off fantastically. The bird was beautiful. The fish was cooked just right. The crab cakes, though they seemed burnt at first, were crisp and delicious, and all the sides, the hors d’oeuvres, the relish, and gravy (which I will admit I stepped aside on because I have never had the aptitude) were all well timed and perfect.

Once the cooking was done and I announced to our guests that they could proceed to the kitchen to serve themselves buffet style I sank down on our velvet couch and felt like weeping. My Mom happened to be sitting close by and she looked back at me and said with a laugh in her voice, “It’s not as easy as it looks, huh?” I have to admit I felt a tremendous connection to my Mother at that moment, I was choked up, I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss her hand, to praise her for all those countless times she’d pulled together that exact feat. It’s not that easy, not that easy at all. Finally I’d been kicked in my Thanksgiving balls like she’d been kicked for all those years.

I know that prior to the meal a Thanksgiving toast was raised in my honor and that I in turn gave a toast to our guests, but the real dedication I think should have gone to my Mother, and to all Mothers for their tireless service and sacrifice during the holiday seasons. I’m happy to know that even though my Mom brought two hors d’oeuvres, a pea salad and dozens of cranberry muffins, she finally got to sit during a Thanksgiving gathering and actually enjoy the company. I guess that’s what I’m most thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Next on my list would have to be the fact that no one but me ate any of the left over Oyster dressing on Friday.

I knew going into this that it was only a matter of time before the cruel irony of naming myself The Deadliest Chef came back to haunt me, and that really, as a fishermen, it was foolish of me to tempt fate by slapping it so cavalierly in the face. I’m just glad that of all the nightmares I’ve been having about the consequences of this action the one least destructive to those around me was the one that actually struck. And I guess the fact that it was shellfish was a suiting punishment. But why dear god did it have to be on Friday? Wasn’t the crippling hang-over enough. Hadn’t I suffered bravely through my illness and in-laws? Now to smite me with such cruel disproportion! I just don’t know what to say.

All personal suffering aside I guess I should at least give you a word of warning. If you ever make oyster dressing (it’s the one in the blue ceramic dish) for god sakes refrigerate it immediately after it’s served. Don’t let it sit out half the afternoon and then the whole evening while you pick at the other leftovers. Don’t put it off so you can retire to the deck to smoke cigars, drink wine and scotch whiskey. Don’t ignore this smorgasbord of bacteria while you go gallivanting off to the store for more booze and smokes and lottery tickets. And for god sakes don’t break out the tequila and open some champagne before, as an afterthought, stoned out of your mind, you start cobbling together Tupperware to put away these crusty remains. If you’re going to do all that you need to just say fuck everything with fish or raw egg in it. Believe me you can’t trust your wife, who doesn’t even eat shellfish, when she says it’ll all be fine, that germs make you stronger. Remember she’s as drunk as you are and that even though she holds a Washington State food handlers card that does not make her a fucking Health inspector.

On the other hand, if you’re one of those people who harbors a great deal of gorger’s remorse after a huge feast you might just want to puke and shit yourself silly for two days following the holiday. I guarantee that on the Red Tide Diet Plan you will lose all those unwanted pounds. You won’t even want to eat solid food for several days afterwards. You’ll go back to work looking trim and pale, the envy of the office. While you’re co-workers are boring new holes in the end of their belts you’ll be delirious, floating out of your chair, your spirit lifting you as it tries to escape your body. It may not be the safest way to lose weight, but if it doesn’t kill you it certainly is effective.

On a closing note I have to say that despite e. coli, and in-laws, and lingering guests I have not thrown in the towel. In fact, given enough distance from the actual event I’ll probably tell people that it was fun. We fishermen are sick like that. No matter what misery we may face or how bad we piss and moan about it, we’re more than likely going to say we enjoyed the experience and would do it again once it’s over. I can’t figure it. And maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should just be glad that come November next year I’ll be sending out those invitations all over again, ready and willing to face another massacre.

Bring on those Opies. I’m ready.

T minus 2

I've finally got a minute to myself so I'm going to try and get a blog off before I'm surrounded by distractions again. This is gonna be quick and dirty so pay attention. With two days left before touchdown we've got to seriously start thinking about prep work. Believe me, your thanksgiving will be a lot more enjoyable if you don't have to get up at 4 am to cook pies, or make the cranberry sauce, or god help you, thaw out the turkey.

My first suggestion to you is to make a menu and from that menu generate a grocery list. You probably should have done that already, like on Sunday when I made mine, but if you haven't it's not too late, it's just going to mean shopping with a bunch of crazy, annoying shitheads that are going to want all the same things that you're at the store to get. Oh well, next year you'll know better.

I know going to the store super early may present some storage problems but if you're not at a latitude below 38 degrees you should be able to keep a lot of things unrefrigerated for a few days in your garage or basement. Be sure that you don't have a pest problem first though because nothing destroys a Thanksgiving meal quite like rats.

As you can see here I've got some of my produce and a few cheeses (parm, cream cheese and goat cheese) chilling in this box on top of our beverage fridge. We don't usually have this fridge plugged in but now seemed like a good time so it could handle any jello or cranberry set-up or keep the beer extra cold. My garage is about 52 degrees Fahrenheit so it's plenty cold to keep veggies, cheese and eggs. And the beer stays tolerably cold too.

Next thing you're going to want to do is start thawing out your meats. Thawing should be done slowly so I recommend pulling that bird out of the freezer and setting it up somewhere in the garage for a day. If it's being stubborn after that, or if you're like me and freak out about things not being ready when you are then you can bring it into the house to thaw on Wednesday.

I've got a lot of things on my plate. We're having this massive King that my wife caught in Bristol Bay this summer, a 14 pound turkey and I'm going to turn those crab legs into Maryland style crab cakes.

Funny story about the fish. While my wife was bleeding this one, she shoves her hand down their throats and rips out the gill plate, it came back to life and latched on to her wrist ripping her glove and puncturing the skin. Naturally she screamed and half jokingly started yelling "It's got me, it's got me!" This in turn spooked the skipper and caused him to throw the boat in reverse and run clean over their own net. With a shackle and a half of gear still in the water and no way to get the line out of the prop they had to round-haul the rest of the net. It was choppy that day and they were over a mud flat or sand bar or some damn thing and the whole works started twisting up like a great big cork, line, mesh and fish sausage. Justified or not the entire fiasco and ensuing misery of disentangling the giant pile of shit, not to mention having to go dry in order to cut the line out of the wheel was blamed on my wife and her altercation with this King. Call it revenge, call it just desserts but we are going to eat that son of a bitch this Thanksgiving.

So far this is about as far as I've gotten on my preparations. Apart from organizing the menu and cutting bread cubes for the stuffing several days ago I've also made a short list of things to get done today and tomorrow, checking each of them off my master list as I go. I've actually moved the crab upstairs so that it'll thaw by tonight and I can pick it this evening. I'm also planning to make a couple of my hors doeuvres today, stuffed mushrooms and stuffed cherry tomatoes. I'll roast some garlic and make a cayenne aioli for the oyster shooters, and I'll cure some jello for our Cowboy and Indian jello center pieces, and I'll make dinner for six. Unfortunately I'm not going to have time to blog this in real time but I'm planning a retrospective for after the holiday.

One thing I am ahead of the curve on that I'll just go through quickly here are my pies. These can be a real pain in the ass the day of or the day before so I went ahead last week and made my shells for the pumpkin pies and made my blackberry pie.

There's not much to a pie shell but there seems to be a lot of equipment necessary for making one. To mix the dough you don't need one of these fancy pastry cutters but can use two butter knives or a fork. The rolling pin is kind of essential but the scraper you can do without (it's more for clean up than anything). The spatula is totally unnecessary, in fact I don't even know why it's there, I put it away without even even using it.

For our purposes I'm just going to give you the recipe for a two-crust ten inch pie shell. I made this recipe twice, once for the blackberry pie and once for the three nine inch shells I made for the pumpkin pies. I try and stay away from doubling this sort of thing because shit can go horribly wrong with pie pastry and let me just tell you once you've messed it up there's hardly any chance you're going to correct it. Remember what I said about recipes being a guideline, well when it comes to baking the reverse is true. Stick to the recipe. Cooking is an art. Baking is a science.

Two Crust 10-inch Pie Shell

1 cup shortening

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

6 to 7 tablespoons cold water

In a large mixing bowl place shortening, flour and salt. Cut together with knives, fork or whatever. When it gets sort of crumbly start adding the water. Continue cutting until about the fourth tablespoon of water. Once you've reached this point you can just use your hand. It may be a little sticky so put you hand in flour before you begin. Kneed until consistent but not smooth. Separate dough into desired number of pieces.

Taking each section separately ball them up in your hand until fairly smooth. The dough shouldn't be sticking to your hands when you're through so if it is put more flour on you hands and work it a little more. I don't recommend trying to back peddle by adding more flour and mixing it up again. This doesn't seem to work and things just tend to get more fucked up. Just try to deal with the dough the way it is. Use more flour on the counter or on you board, keep flouring your rolling pin and hands.

Take the balls and flatten them on a well floured surface. You can do some shaping with your hands at this point but don't get carried away that's what the rolling pin is for. Roll the dough out flat making smooth and even motions from the center out toward the edges. Pause occasionally to re-flour your pin. If it sticks to the rolling pin in mid-stroke you'll end up with a tear and you don't want that. Once you've got the desired shape, check against the size of the pie plate, flour the flattened dough evenly and begin to roll it up. It took me a while to learn this trick. I used to try and lift the whole thing off the surface and place it on the tin. Usually you'd end up with a torn pastry. This is much easier and less of a headache.
Once it's rolled up just lift it up, place it on the edge of the pie plate and roll it into place. Total Baby Shit (in other words, a piece of cake).

For the pie filling you can do just about anything. Personally for pumpkin pies I like to use the canned stuff and the recipe on the side. I've found that rendering your own pumpkins down to pies isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It's time consuming and to me just doesn't taste right. Maybe it's how I was raised. My Mom, her Mom, and probably her Mom's Mom have all used Libby brand canned pumpkin. Even the recipes they've handed down from generation to generation are just the ones off the side of the can. Is it brand loyalty, or is it just good shit, I don't know. Whatever it is you gotta go with what you're comfortable with. That's what Thanksgiving is all about, comfort food.

The blackberry pie was a little different. We actually picked these back in late August and stuck them in the freezer. That's kind of another tradition. I've been picking blackberries for as long as I can remember so it would be anathema to me to use some store bought brand. It sounds like a contradiction, but again, that's just how i was raised.

After thawing the berries I drained them in a sieve. There is a lot of juice and the berries are pretty soggy so you might want to hold back a couple cups frozen to put on the bottom of the shell. This helps absorb some of the shock of having all those wet berries soaking through the bottom of the pastry. I also put a generous amount of tapioca on the bottom of the shell to suck up the juice that comes out during baking. You can skip this step if tapioca grosses you out, but you're pie shell won't likely be as crispy when you're done cooking it. Along with the tapioca I put in some sugar. These are late berries so you shouldn't need too much. Earlier berries are tarter so you might want to up the sugar but it's all up to your personal taste. Once I've got the base down I put in the berries, sprinkle on a little more tapioca and sugar and then close up the pie. Use your thumb and forefinger to pinch together the edges. Take a fork and poke some holes in the top crust so steam can escape during baking. Wrap in cellophane and store in freezer. I'll be taking my blackberry pie out to thaw tomorrow. It doesn't have to be entirely thawed before baking but it helps to be close. The pumpkin pies I'll be baking tomorrow night. The blackberry probably the day of after the turkey comes out of the oven.

All right, that's all I got. Now I gotta get to work. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Always remember the seven P's, Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

I know what you're thinking but nobody ever said that fishermen were math wizards.