Friday the 13th

Henry and Oliver at the Italian restaurant.

April 13 was Ann’s birthday, and I wanted to make it a good one for her, mostly because she deserves it, and also because she had put so much into my birthday. Being on a Friday, it seemed like a perfect time for a road trip. Why not make it a road trip that would help us on our quest to make every recipe in Cooking Wild? My target: Walleye.

This required some advance planning. The first step was retrieving the boat from my parent’s farm and getting it sea-worthy. The boat was fine, but the trailer lights needed some work. By some work I mean fidgeting with them for an hour or two, for a few nights in a row. Finally, they were all aglow.

Another step was further educating myself on Walleye. I got some books from the library and read several websites. I determined that Stockton Lake would be our best bet in Missouri.

Next, book accommodations for Stockton. This was harder than I anticipated, not because it was hard to find a place, but because there were too many options. I finally settled on Cabins at Stockton Lake, www.cabinsatstocktonlake.com. I picked the smallest cabin, but it still had a full kitchen, and the boys didn’t even have to share a bed. And being April, it is still the off-season, so rates were $20 per night cheaper.

Now that we were beginning to get the hang of trout fishing, we would be trying a totally different kind of fishing in which everything we had learned was of no value to us whatsoever. In addition to my books and websites, I sought advice at the Bass Pro. The first three people I talked to in the fishing department just shrugged, and said they had never fished for Walleye. They referred me to the fourth.

“Sure, I’ve been Walleye fishing twice,” he said. “I never caught one, though.” But his uncle had caught Walleye, at least one, at least once. He shared his uncle’s tips with me, which were consistent with the books and online references I’d read.

The next challenge was finding a restaurant for Ann’s birthday dinner. Ann’s such a good cook that it kind of hard for her to eat out, because the food usually isn’t nearly up to the standard that she cooks  for us at home. To get from Columbia to Stockton, you can either take 65 through Sedalia or 54 by Lake of the Ozarks. I opted for the Lake route, figuring it would offer more options. It had plenty of options alright… about 100 bars, all of which had similar bar and grill menus. Not the best choice for a birthday dinner, so I started searching upscale. There were several of these, too, but most were steakhouses. I get my steak from the farm, and I’m confident no restaurant will match it in quality. Plus, these fancy-schmancy places were getting $40 for a dinner. Not from us they weren’t.

Finally I found Biggy’s (www.biggysatthelake.com) Although the name was suspect, it is an Italian restaurant that makes all their own pasta, sauces and bread. And it had prices that seemed more appropriate for a mid-Missouri restaurant.

Ann likes surprises, so I kept her in the dark about all the plans, although she may have suspected something when I just happened to stay up until midnight two nights in a row to work on the boat trailer lights. By the time Friday morning came around I was too beat to muster a special birthday breakfast on my own, so I buzzed over to Uprise (www.facebook.com/uprise-bakery) and brought home croissants, muffins and a Latte.

In previous years I’ve put a priority on making a birthday cake from scratch. My track record has been hit and miss, so this time I opted for a mix. But I still wanted something a little different, so I found a Tres Leches cake mix. I knocked it out that afternoon, squeezed the cake caddy into the cooler, and we were off.

Biggies didn’t disappoint. Ann had lasagna and I had ravioli, and both were great. We drove through a hard thunderstorm shortly before getting to Stockton, and it was still pouring when we arrived.

The cabin was very comfortable, and spotlessly clean. It’s always interesting to check out the kitchen in a rental cabin and see what you have to work with. In this case there were about three varieties of salt and a five-pound container of cinnamon. The cookware was everything you would expect, and some things that you wouldn’t, like a large non-stick wok.

The table service was also ample. This is somewhat ironic, as there was no table. The cabin could sleep up to seven people, but did not have a kitchen or dining room table. There were two stools at the bar. Ann noticed this immediately, I wouldn’t have noticed until meal time. I’m pretty sure the cabins were designed and furnished by men, who probably thought people would rather eat on the couch why watching television. My other clue about the masculine influences in the decor: two magazines on the coffee table, one on cage fighting and the other on welding.

Henry and Oliver work on their short game.

The next morning it was still raining hard, so we opted not to get an early start. We went to the lodge, and Henry and Oliver had a go at the putting green, which was flooded, while we talked to the manager. He said the walleye were hard to predict, due to the crazy warm early spring, followed by a more seasonal cool-off.    

We finally took to the water later that morning. It had cleared off, so from the little I knew of walleye, our mid-day chances might be slim. We gave it a go for a couple of hours without luck, so we took a break back at the cabin. We had an earlier dinner at the cabin (Stockton has an excellent grocery store), and then took back out to the water.

In case you’re considering going for Walleye yourself, here’s a summary of the advice I read and tried:

• Fish the windswept points: Check.
• Fish the shoreline around downed trees, rocks and debris: Check
• Fish the shelf, where it drops off deep: Check
• Use a jig: Check. Try a nightcrawler on a jig: Check. Ditto for a spoon: Check. Ditto for a spinner: Check.
• Use a natural looking minnow is bright light: Check
• Use a brightly colored minnow when skies are overcast: Check.

I could go on, but you get the picture. All of the efforts resulted in one fish, a perch that Ann caught on the new birthday fishing rod that Oliver had given her the night before. It could have been a keeper, but with only one we decided to let it go.

I got in a little fishing early Sunday morning, but we needed to get back for Henry’s lacrosse game, and another storm came in when we were getting ready to leave anyway.

It was a fun weekend. Stockton is a very nice small town, strikingly well maintained and clean. It has recovered well from the tornado that hit it a few years back.  Tell me another town in rural Missouri with a population of under 2,000 where you can get whole-bean coffee, or a cappuccino (thanks to Hammons Nut Emporium, www.hammonsproducts.com).

We all would have loved to have caught at least one walleye, but my expectations weren’t that high going in. Maybe later this summer. I hear you can catch them at Long Branch.

The Eagle Has Landed

Some folks giveth mushrooms, some folks taketh away

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me! This Friday was my birthday and guess you gave me my first gift of the day? A complete stranger! What do I mean by this? Well read on to find out.

Apparently, a friendly, generous and excellent morel hunting fellow from St. Louis is reading our post (hello, out there, by the way) and decided enough was enough. He emailed Fred on Friday offering to mail us some morels he has dehydrated. Can you believe that?! That he happened to contact us on my birthday is just one of those lovely, happy coincidences in life.

So, now I'm checking our mailbox with a spring in my step. Ever gotten a package of morels in the mail before? I certainly haven't. How exciting. I looked over the morel recipes today to see what we have to look forward to. Morels with pheasant, morels in a cream and marsala sauce over noodles, morel and pea shoot salad (those will have to be fresh ones). Yee ha!

Some folks giveth mushrooms, some folks taketh away. Thank you for giveth-ing. Its much funner that being taken away from!

Micheal's Nappa cabbage slaw with green apples, page 105

Time is squeezed right now. Lacrosse practice twice a week, dog obedience classes, weekend trips, etc. I did fit in this slaw recipe, which is suggested as an alternative to salad with the I-can't-wait-to-make-these crab cakes made from trout.

This has been our last two weeks: Sunday-adopt dog (has yet to be determined if this was a rash, idiotic choice or a stroke of genius). Monday 2 hours of Lacrosse, Wednesday 2 hours of Lacrosse, Thursday dog obedience school orientation and setting up for a garage sale that Fred's sister had at our house, Friday garage sale and parents and sister and family come in from out of town for the weekend. Saturday family at house, Sunday Easter with 18 and new dog plus guest dog at our house. Monday Lacrosse, Tuesday dog obedience school, Wednesday Lacrosse, OMG. I'm tired of running. We had chicken pot pie tonight using left overs from Easter. It felt so good to calm the heck down and have a normal evening.

I know I have those trout in the freezer and they are calling to me to cook, but the darn things are too precious to throw at a meal when things are so hectic. BLTs and burgers work well for 'I know it's only 4:30 but if we don't eat now, I'll have to serve you dinner in bed' nights.

Fred and I have been looking for morels still some, to no avail. My sister and I decided we'd just buy them at the farmer's market. There was a fellow selling them and a line of folks to take the morels off his hands. But, DUDE, he wanted $50 bucks per pound. Ouch. I'm stuck because I'll in no way pay that much for them, but then again can't find them and certainly wouldn't even know what I'd charge for them if I did find some, but it would be over $50.

More trout time

For those of you keeping score at home, we did get in one more trout fishing trip we haven’t posted about yet. The day before youth turkey season Ann and I took off and reclaimed Henry and Oliver from her parents, who kept them all of spring break. It had been a busy week for the boys. Upon arriving at the grandparents house, they had assessed its defense and found it to be vulnerable, so they had to construct this hasty fighting position. Once it was complete they were more secure.

Neither of the boys were any too anxious to get up early and leave the grandparents to go trout fishing, but we made them do it anyway. This time Ann and I decided to try to get them in on the fast-action of the few minutes following the opening bell. It worked, and both boys caught a fish. Actually, Oliver caught two, but one was a small perch. We had breakfast and then tried it some more for the rest of the morning, but it was pretty slow and we just ended up leaving with three fish.

We now have enough trout on hand to tackle several of the recipes in the book. The next priorities are morels, turkey, spoonbill and walleye.

Youth Season

I was hopeful going into youth turkey season. I was as prepared as I’d been for any turkey season. I was ready to go on the turkey calling contest circuit, but I could mimic the guys on the CD reasonably well on most of their calls. I had full camo, even if it didn’t all match.

And Henry had overcome his fears of the shotgun. He shot it with me several times, and would kill a turkey if he hit it as well as he was hitting the paper.

We went to farm, and I returned to woods where I’ve encountered turkeys before, although I hadn’t done any preseason scouting. Henry got up with me well before sunrise without a complaint, even though he was up early trout fishing the morning before. We could still see stars in the sky as we made our way into the woods. We set up a decoy that I dug out of a closet, settled into a good hiding spot and waited.

I had hoped to hear some turkeys fly down from the roost, but all was quiet. I hoped to hear one gobbling somewhere. Nada. I tried calling, and hoped one might come to us even if he didn’t call back in reply. But we were all alone.

I don’t know how long a professional turkey hunter would say is the appropriate amount of time to wait, but it doesn’t take a lot of silence and solitude to get discouraged. With no pre-season confirmed sightings, I started wondering if I was within three miles of a turkey. It’s kind of like mushroom hunting by going to a place where you’ve gotten a mushroom before, and sitting down and staring at the soil, waiting for another one to pop up. Possible, but not likely.

We tried other locations that morning. And the next morning we tried other locations on the opposite end of the farm, with the same result.

Henry has hunted with me before several times, but always as an observer. This was the first time that the gun was in his hands on the hunt. Even though our youth-season hunts lacked the hunter to turkey dialogue that I remember from seasons past, Henry was happy as we came out of the woods. “Thank you so much for taking me turkey hunting,” he told me with a broad smile. Turkey or not, that was the best thing I could have hoped for.  And we still have regular season in a few weeks to try again.

Bass, you beautiful fish

So, after dragging the kids up at way before the crack of dawn to go trout fishing with usagain, I was about fed up with the process. It seems like I aught to be getting better by now. Maybe all this hunting and fishing stuff is just not for me.

While Fred took Henry turkey hunting this weekend at his parent's farm, I decided to give pond fishing a try with Oliver. There is a pretty nice pond/lake close to the barns. Fred had an old overturned jon boat that he keeps at the water's edge, mostly for snake and mouse and other creppy crawly's habitat it seems. It's been several years since we've turned the boat over. But, we found an oar or two around the farm, flipped the boat over and gave her a try.

Fishing from a boat is so nice in a farm pond because you can get away from the algae that's growing around the edge and from all the briars and sprouts that snag your lines. I thought Oliver would be good for about 45 minutes tops in the boat before he got distracted. But then I got a nice sized bass. And, then he got a nice sized bass, then two, then a sunfish. It was great. I'm not sure who was happier. Oliver for getting the fish, or me for getting up the gumption to take my son fishing without a father or husband figure to take care of all the fishing details-like getting stuck lines loose, taking the hooks out of the fish's mouths,  etc.

The next morning I got up when Fred and Henry left for their turkey hunt and gave fishing another try, this time by myself. It was so quiet and peaceful. I caught a stringer full (ok, it only holds four, but who'se counting) before breakfast. Now that's satisfying.

As much as I want to like trout fishing, and I do, it surely was a good experience pond fishing. No fees. No pre-dawn drives to the trout park. No strangers shoulder to shoulder. And, several fish.


And, to my friend who asked if I would help shovel mulch for a beer this weekend, sorry that I didn't reply to that oh, so tempting offer but now you can see that I was . . . gone fishin'.