The Ignorant Angler

It's a big job. Spread over a couple of days. Boil potatoes. Peel 'em. Rice 'em. Let them dry out. Next day make the dough. Pit a bunch of plums.  Roll out the dough, put a plum or half in each, with or without a sugar cube.  This is where a second person comes in handy.  Jo did the rolling, I did the cooking. Drop into a pot of boiling water.  When they float to the top, cook 'em for a while longer. Remove and put into a skillet with some bread crumbs that have been browned in a little butter.  Coat 'em real good.
Now the fun part.  Eating!!
Put a few on a plate (as if that's enough).  Sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar.  Poke 'em with a fork.  They make this indescribable sound as plum juice squirts out.  Oh yeah! 
Eat.   Savor.  Let your eyes roll back in your head. Man is that good.
This is a Hungarian delicacy.  Mom would slave away in the kitchen, one girl crew that she was, making a huge batch of dumplings. Dad would hock them down like there wa…

Our kitchen and hallway are now filled with the wonderful aroma of ripe apples.  I picked them weeks ago.  Not by choice, but out of necessity.  They weren't quite ripe, but I figured that if I wanted any for our own eating, that I'd better pick some. Danged birds just couldn't leave them alone.  Why is it that they have to peck each and every piece of fruit just as soon as it shows the slightest tinge of color? No matter, they're still great eating.  They make great applesauce, bake well too.  Apple cobbler is cooling on the stovetop as I write this.  Soon it will be graced with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

The tree is a Mantet apple purchased locally from Cashman Nursery.  Fragrant and flavorful, it ripens early, which was one of the reasons for its purchase.  Now ten years old, the tree produces well.  It's just a battle beating the birds to the fruit.  It would be nice if we could leave the fruit on the tree just a little longer so that it could ripen fully.…

This falls under the category of "Blast from the past".  Not fishing or outdoors related.

We drove out to Willow Creek last evening for dinner at the Willow Creek Cafe and Saloon.  It was the belated celebration of a life (Pop passed away before Christmas).  We polished off orders of what we concluded were the best baby back ribs that we've had, followed by a decadent dessert that we didn't need. We discussed roots, family, health and healthy habits, among other topics.  This, while eating ourselves into a stupor.  I think that we ensured the financial security of the local cardiology group.

The discussion eventually turned to the topic of music.  Bands, favorites.  Our limited consensus for greatest album of all time….Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.

Favorite group?  For my brother Andy…. The Moody Blues.  For Jo, the Eagles.  Me, no clue, I'm still thinking about it.  Aerosmith, Queen, Creedence.

I remarked that the first rock concert that I attended was a …

There was a time when he liked to fish.  Avidly perhaps.  No purist by any stretch.  He told stories of fishing in Hungary.  Fishing tackle?  Cane poles and hand lines.  This was long before the days of the Z-Axis and throwing tight loops.  Match the hatch?  Sure.  Just grab a blob of dough, roll it into a ball, put it onto a hook, and toss it into the slough.  That was the carp rig.  For pike the rigging was more sophisticated.  Matching the hatch for these toothy critters meant using baby carp.  He and his buddies would go out and seine a bunch.  He said that they made for the best bait.  They were lively and tough and lived for a long time.  Any extras were kept in a wooden barrel, ever ready for the next fishing trip.







Transportation in those days was simple.  Just grab a bike and go.  Cane pole in one hand, bucket of baby carp in the other. Throw in some booze and kielbasa and it was party time.  If a person wanted to find out what the fishing was like, he just had to pick up and …

Before the days of instant gratification, the internet, cable tv and the like, there was this thing called paper.  As a kid I remember leafing through Orvis catalogs and admiring bamboo fly rods.  There were Dan Bailey catalogs from a mythical place called Montana, a place that would later become my home.  Of course, these came in the mail, and it took awhile.  Getting a response necessitated scrawling out a letter on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of notebook paper, stuffing it into an envelope, and blowing a nickel on a postage stamp.  Weeks later, if the addressee didn't figure out that the letter came from a kid, they responded.  Getting a letter was a big deal.

On weekends I looked forward to shows like Walt Disney and Wild Kingdom.  We had network TV, there was no cable.   Outdoor programming was limited.  There was a show called the Flying Fisherman, hosted by an elderly gentleman(Gadabout Gaddis), who flew around the country and bought us fishing on TV.  I was thrilled.  Imagin…