Blue Gill Tacos on the Patio

After you eat your taco or burrito w/ blackened bluegill, brown or wild rice w/ lime juice and cilantro, black beans, sauteed onions and peppers, avocado and salsa, sour cream, all rolled up in a corn or flour shell, you should sip your after supper brandy on the patio with ice and fresh mint leaves from your herb garden.

 Then take a walk to the mail box with your young brown lab( mostly, tho' he howls instead of barks and he also jumps in a full rotation of joy - a mixed breed for sure w/ diverse responses to various stimuli). He chases, points, bays,catches, flushes.

On your way back from the mail box, peruse the field for the first of the early wild strawberries. Eat those tiny succulent berries and rejoice in the early harvest - 2 or 3 wks early this year. You do not get enough but that makes it even better. Sweetness, a burst of flavor, hope, the promise in blooms and nubbins, of more. I can't wait, but I will because I have no choice.

It is a pleasure to deal with food in this way because I spent so many years making it happen and serving "false foods" from the food purveyors -  the national foodservice distribution companies - while I was in the high volume restaurant business.

The fish bite when they bite, the raspberries are ripe when they are ripe.

 

It is fishing opener and everyone is fishing for walleye but I am fishing for and catching bluegill on a flyrod. They came into the shallows today and the big ones, all males, are biting like crazy. Largemouth bass, too.This is fun. This is great. I caught so many I stopped, feeling guilty.

Fileted and panfried in olive oil, plated,  finished off with white wine, reduced by half, added parsley and tarragon and 3 or 4 pats of cold butter, swirled, poured on filets. Exquisite. 

Fishing Opener's Eve

This is what you want to eat on the night before fishing openers. Jalapeno cheddar brats( from Thielen's in Pierz, Mn,) onions, sweet bell peppers, mushrooms( any kind) and potatoes braised in olive oil and seasoned with salt, black pepper, garlic and sage.Add olive oil to cover bottom of your pan, add all ingredients at once so they all touch the bottom of the pan.

Get your pan and food sizzling hot on the stovetop and finish in the oven . I use a black cast iron pan. A half hour cooking time at 400 degrees will get everything done simultaneously. You can add some beer or white wine to the pan for the final few minutes. Turn the broiler on to brown if necessary. It should be browned and golden and looking good. Wine or beer - not too much ( 1/2 cup) should be reduced to a glaze. You are doing this for an added richness and depth of flavor.

Food has to look good before it tastes good. Strew all with parsley. Put that earnest, masculine repast on the table and serve family style with rustic bread and butter and mustard .

A simple one pan meal which will not take time from equally important considerations - rigging up for tomorrow's opener, plans, strategy, as well as the remembrance and resultant discourse on a lifetime of fishing openers. Don't stay up too late, or do. You only get this day once a year.

Good food, good fishing, family, close friends, a shared history. It doesn't get any better than that.