Dick Stories

I have a few uncles who are not uncle by blood or marriage but by circumstance. My uncle Neil is one of those uncles. He has been a friend of one of my other uncles, Jerry, and my dads “since before I was a twinkle in my old pop’s eye,” as they might say. The four of us are all crazy about fishing.

My first, and only so far, deep sea fishing trip was with these two uncles and my dad. We went fishing for marlin of the coast near Cabo San Lucas. In the weeks leading up to the trip there were many emails arranging plans, generating excitement and such. In a lot of these emails a man named Dick, a good friend of Uncle Neil’s, is cc’d. Dick is often cc’d in emails regarding fishing trips that circulate among us, and we are often cc’d in emails from and to Dick. Some of the most entertaining bits of reading I have enjoyed are the outrageous fishing stories/bantering between “Dearest Dick” as my uncles so dearly call him and good ol’Uncle Neil. We’ve come to call them “Dick stories.”

Neither myself nor my dad have ever met Dick face-to-face, but we have a sort of connection and a healthy fisherman’s rival going between the five of us that has grown through the Dick stories. Well six of us now. My uncle Jerry just took my aunt Donna, my dad’s big sister, fishing for marlin last month in Cabo. So she is now also in on the rivalry.

Since 2010 there have six trips, between us all, to Cabo for the soul purpose of catching at least one humongous marlin. At this point any of us would be happy with a marlin fry. Neil is the only one of us who has ever actually seen one of these beasts alive and on the end of a hook, let alone in a boat and claimed. Here is one of the most recent Dick stories that was a response to a picture of an uncomfortable spear fishing mishap that was sent around to the rivalry. (A spear through the cheek, and not the cheek on a face if you know what I mean…)

Dearest Dick: No, it's not me. I can't imagine a spear penetrating my chiseled ass. But I do know who the shooter may have been. Dawn and Jerry are in Cabo right now and given Jerry's angling prowess I can believe he's down there trying to shoot one. Can you imagine if Dawn is to catch a marlin or practically anything for that matter, she will surpass Jerry's success rate to date. And if we hear he has caught something I can only imagine Dawn's just allowing him to claim it in order to save face around the rest of us fisherman, Ken, Jenn and I that is. Unless you caught some tommycots or carp in the canal by your house this winter, I believe your "fisherman" card has been revoked by now. Maybe this year you'll have a chance to get out so we can show you how it's done, just for old times sake. I hope you get home safely and that your furniture made its way from the ice fishing shanty back into your house. The ice is looking dicey. Let me know when you're home. P.S. I've been on overtime sleeptime 3 nights now 14 hours each and there's at least 2 more coming. Yes, you can thank me for keeping the power getting to your house. 

Our first trip all-together (minus Dick), with Neil, Jerry, Dad and myself, we had high hopes. We were certain that we would come back with our coolers full of marlin and perhaps even have to buy another cooler or two to bring all of our spoils home. We didn’t catch a single marlin. I caught a rooster-fish and my dad caught a mako shark. We let the rooster-fish go but the shark… well they are not so easy to catch and release – He was delicious.

Near the end of our week there we decided to stay close to shore and try for sierra. Neil stayed back but Dad, Jerry and I caught our limits in these tasty white-fish and had most of it smoked to bring home. 

That smoked sierra was probably the only reason my mom let Dad go back to Mexico with Neil to try again for marlin. He had to promise to bring her more smoked sierra though. This was the first email I got from them on my dad’s second trip.

 Hola Jenn: We went with Simpson (Ramone) and Fidel on Gricelda today. The tuna fishing has been real bad the last few days but we told them we were prepared to run the 20 or 30 miles to find them. It started slow as the dolphins we fished had no tuna with them. We ran out further and found another school at around 15 miles. We got our first action and hooked 4 yellowfin immediatly. By the end of the day we had 10 fat tasty tuna but it wasnt without casualty. Your father forgot to bring his his elbow brace and as he was too stubborn to admit to defeat he reeled in his share of the catch. With his elbow aching, his glowing base tan, his foot chaffed raw from his sandals added on to the tossing of the boat in the light gale force winds it turned out to be a tough day. Once again it became painfully aware this is no pastime for the ordinary man. When we got to the dock we tooka piece of tuna to Solomons where we will go later for sashimi and sushi. We made it bact to our hotel and as soon as we had cracked a beer your Dad layed down to rest his beaten body. Two things happened at that point. First, he immediatly fell asleep. More importantly, the whimpering ceased. I hope Im able to coax him out of bed later when its time for tuna. At least your uncle isnt here as Im sure hed be in even worse condition. We head out again tomorrow morning providing of course your Dad can move his arm and walk to the boat. I have a feeling there may be but one big tuna wheeled up the dock after our trip. Take care Jenn. Over and out from Cabo.


Neil

There were no marlin to be had on that trip either. Their guide suggested they try for some tuna. I’ll let Neil tell this one, addressed to Dearest Dick but, as usual, sent to all members of the rival:

Dearest Dick: I have no reason to disbelieve your claim to catching a 300 lb catfish, however a picture would be an assuring accompanyment. I also cannot send any reassuring photos but I can describe the one that got away. Visualize....Ken and I in the back of the boat on Wednesday morning, the sun and wind on our bronzed hardened bodys as we are surrounded by leaping frenzied dolphins and yellowfin tuna. The rods bend over and start to sing. We pounce like cats and shout our instructions to the bewildered crew as we bring them one by one to the gaff. But Ken has tied in to a leviathan that goes deep and stays down for the next hour plus. 30 lb line and rod are tested to their limit and whenever Ken gets some line back the fish is quick to regain it and then some. Finally it starts to come up and after much battling back and forth its 30 feet off the side the boat. We estimate him at 70 pounds but the scars and broken gaff hooks in his side show he is no ordinary tuna. Just when we are convinced its in the bag the line goes limp for no reason and he gives us one last snear before swimming off to freedom. It could have been worse. Had Jerry been on the rod he´d be lying on the floor in the fetal position, whimpering from the pain of the fight and defeat. 
 We have had several feeds of fish and I for one have a new appreciation for tuna, especially sashimi and the way they blacken it while being raw in the middle. Fantastic. 
 Must go now as Ken needs to eat as he´s not quite recovered from his beating. Adios amigos. Dearest Senor Dick. We would love to send you pictures from our fishing ventures but you must comprendo this is but a poor fishing village and does not have the technology to do such a thing. As you know I would never embellish a fishing story and you can take my word as fact. We only got 3 tuna yesterday but they were the grandest of the trip and quite frankly there was no more room in the boat with them on the deck so we came in early. We are finished fishing now which is good as Ken keeps slipping in and out of consious as catching tuna of that size is phisically demanding even for men like ourselves. Hope the snows not too deep in Brownsville and your canals not froze over. Senor Neeeeeil.

Leading up to my Aunt Donna’s trip there was much “piss-taking” towards my dad about his sister catching a marlin before him.

Hola Amigo: I was fishing yesterday on Dr. Fish, a panga that was arranged by Grace. As Francisco was booked she told me it was a good boat. I young guy named Himee met me and led me to the boat. His padre who is the Captain was waiting there. Himee was the mate and as they were junior and senior..........his father´s name was Himee. (You remember from Get Smart?) Anyway they told me there were no dorado around as the waters gotten colder but there may be tuna as they prefer the cooler water, which I was not aware of. We first went out from Los Arcos to 250 feet of water to try for Yellowtail, not to be confused with yellowfin. A wise old fisherman (okay, Dick) once told me how he was taught by an old indian how to catch lake trout when they´ve gone deep. I originally just thought this was just another "Dick Story" but found out it actually had some truth behind it. Get your lure to the bottom then crank like hell to retrieve your lure as fast as you can half way to the surface then put it back down and try again. I hooked up right away on my first retrieve and caught a 20 pounder. Himee senior hooked one a few minutes later and changed rods with me but half way up a sea lion grabbed it and spent the next 15 minutes ripping it to shreds 200 yards from the boat. We finally got the hook back from the motherf........magnificent creature and got back to fishing somewhere else. We fished 2 pods of dolphins until we finally found tuna about 6 miles offshore. I got 3 with the largest going on 20 pounds or so. I invited a young guy from Germany and an old guy from B.C. to join me for dinner last night at The Tiki Bar. We had tuna sashimi and sushi 3 ways along with some seared. Washed down with 2 buckets of cerveca (10 beer) the bill was $32. It was awesome. Do you have a small alarm clock you can bring down with you? I borrowed one here but we might not get one at Siesta Suites. Francisco or Gricelda become available on the 24th I´ll take it and cancel for the 25th. If you really want to go on the tuesday we can likely book with Himee. I´ll keep posted on what´s happening and play it by ear. Please talk to you sister as I feel she may have trouble when she comes down here fishing. The yellowtail fishing is not easy work. Neither is the yellowfin as you constantly jig the rod for action. After a days fishing I can´t imagine her packing Jerry back to the hotel by herself. This type of fishing as you know is not for the ordinary man or woman, and Jerry would be a quivering mass after 8 hours on the water. She may need a backup plan. See you at Siesta Suites on Monday. Senior Neeeeil.

Really though, I think we are all in love with the tuna now. So here is one of my favorite tuna recipes.

Tuna Titaki

Mix in a large bowl:

3-4 tbls spoons soya sauce
2-3 cloves crushed or finely chopped garlic
1 small thumb of grated or finely chopped ginger (equivalent to about 2 tsps)
1 tbs olive (or your favorite) oil
2 tsp brown sugar
2-3 tbls balsamic vinegar
½ of a mandarin or very small sweet orange peeled and diced
juice from half a lime (1tbs)
3-4 chopped green onion
1/2 small red onion thinly sliced a handful of cilantro chopped

Sear the tuna about ¼ inch through all the way around. Slick about ¼ inch thick and toss into dressing. Serve with avocado and/or with salad greens and sprouts.

Veggi-mites

Disclaimer: This story and the recipes have nothing to do with the Australian toast spread. But I would like to say that that stuff is awesome!

I was a vegetarian for about three years in my late teens. Well oval-lactive whatever-tarian. I still ate milk products and fish sometimes. I had a few reasons. Heath was one. There were a few studies my mom had read that implicated that eliminating meats, especially red meats, would prevent the development of kidney stones and inflammatory disorders. My mom has a hereditary kidney disorder and my dad and my sister and I have an arthritis called ankylosing spodalitis. I had not shown symptoms yet or been diagnosed so I thought this was a good preventative measure.

My sister and our two best friends had also become vegetarians. Many teenage girls in the late 1990s were making the switch. Vegan didn’t become big until the early 2000s.

Amber my sister was the first of our little clan to make the switch. She also hung in the longest as vegetarian for almost five years. When our mom was pregnant with her she couldn’t stand the smell or taste of meat, raw, cooked or cooking. She made herself eat some fish but pretty much lived of meat alternatives. When Amber was little she wasn’t the biggest meat fan either. Mom always had to make sure she had yogart, which she sometimes made from scratch, beans, cheese and other proteins to balance Ambers diet.

When she made the decision to go full out vegetarian Amber’s diet was not the best at first. My parents found and created new recipes with beans and other non-meat proteins but she often preferred ramen noodles and dill-pickle chips, which she can still scarf back without much consequence.

Our dad created an amazing mixed bean stew that is still one of my favorites today. Actually, that bean stew was what made me finally decide that I could do the vegetarian thing. My sister had inspired our family to try new meatless foods that tasted amazing and I decided to take the plunge.

At first the vegetarian thing was fun and I stuck to the limitations of my diet well. I put mushrooms in the place of chicken and the introduction of Yves Veggie Cuisine to the Peace River IGA made the transition even easier. I could make tacos with mock-beef that were just as awesome as real beef tacos. I often wonder what my family and I would have come up with for recipes then if we had access to all the great ingredients we have now.

It was moving from Peace River to Edmonton that broke me, specifically the Arby’s in the Kingsway mall. I would go for a poke around to my favorite stores and the food court would be calling me the entire time. Sometimes, not every time at first, I would go get a roast beef sandwich off the value menu. It wasn’t long before I was making excuses to the mall and upgrading to regular roast beef sandwiches.

I would find a table in the darkest most secluded corner of the food court and savor every last nibble of juicy delicious roast beef. The sesame or onion bun was nice too but I could have done without it.

It went on like this for almost a year. Sneaky rendezvous with Arbys roast beef and eventually the odd mama burger at A & W. I would go home afterwards and cook up a veggie friendly meal to conceal my deceit.

I didn’t come to terms with my problem until the spring of 2002. I had a friend who was on a secret mission to break me, I’m sure. Every time he invited me to do something it involved steaks on the barbeque or ribs stewing in a pot.

I struggled for the first few weeks then began just having a bite of his steak here and there. It wasn’t long after that that I had to admit to myself that I was not a vegetarian. Not anymore… That first steak, the first one that was just for me, cooked medium rare and right off the barbeque was amazing. Each bite tasted like freedom melting into juicy pools in my mouth and warming my tummy.

That summer my sister Amber fell victim to my moms famous barbeque ribs on a houseboat trip. It was over. The vegetarians in our family were no more. Our two best friends had succumb to their own meaty encounters as well.

Many great things came out of our veggies though. The greatest of which are the recipes. The Chickpea Salad is an old favorite and the Quinoa is new from about two years ago. I think if we had had quinoa when we were veggi-mites we may have survived a wee bit longer, but just a wee bit.




White Balsamic Chickpea Salad

In a large bowl mix

1 can of chickpeas drained (540ml/19oz)
½ cup diced red onion
½-1 full red, yellow or orange sweet pepper diced
a handful of chopped cilantro
2-3 cloves of finely chopped garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Try: Adding diced cucumber, shredded carrot, other beans fresh and canned
If you don’t like cilantro use parsley or basil
Adding 1/4cup Feta or baby mozzarella
Adding 1/4cup fresh chives chopped about ½ cm

Dressing:

Mix separately (or not if you’re lazy like me)

Juice from half a lemon (2-4) tbls
1 tbls white balsamic vinegar (the Italian market is the best place to pick this up)
3-4 tbls olive oil

Try: Adding Feta or baby mozzarella
Adding shaved almonds or bits of your favorite nuts
Adding raisins or diced apricots




Cucumber Quinoa Salad


This is a great summer salad and also great for lunches as it keeps well. I like to make extra quinoa when I use if for a side dish then make salad with the extra the next day.


Toss together the following ingredients in a large bowl:

¾ - 1 cup of quinoa rinsed then cooked. (Cook Quinoa just like rice, 1part grain 2 parts water. Bring to a boil then turn to simmer until it has little bubble holes in it then set aside for 5-10minutes.) Stir it up with a fork and set aside to cool.

1 mini cucumber diced (or about 5inches of a long English)
1/3 cup diced red onion
4-6 large leaves of fresh basil

Dressing:

2-3 tbs lemon juice (juice from half a lemon)
2tbs honey
1tbs balsamic vinagar

Mix together then slowly stir into the salad. Serve chilled or room temperature.

Acquired Taste

Shaw is coming to, hopefully, fix my internet in the morning. Anyone know of other providers for the Spruce Grove area that are not Shaw or Telus?

Acquired Taste

Cilantro and Muscles are two things that I tried very hard to like for a very long time before finally getting my taste buds to cooperate. It turns out that cilantro is tough for a lot of people, and my primitive exposure to muscles was the problem there.

I had tried cold muscles on brunch and seafood buffets at the various hotels my family frequented for swim meets and boxing and martial arts tournaments. The Ramada near the down-town airport always had cold muscles on their Sunday brunch buffet. I would put a few on my plate every time. One of my parents would sweetly remind me that I didn’t like them and I would protest that I heard somewhere that they were an “acquired taste.” Which I knew to mean that if you kept trying them you would learn to like them. I recall my mom trying to tell me various house chores, as well as things like algebra, were also “acquired tastes.” I am proud to say I never bought that BS. (I love you Mom)

I finally found some muscles that I exciting discovered I loved at The Cheese Cake Factory. On a brave whim, ordered Louisiana Muscles with Frococcia. I remember my boyfriend at the time saying “are you sure?” I likely replied in my usual muscle defence, “they are and acquired taste.” They came to the table in a large shallow bowl swimming in a decadent red sauce that smelt like heaven probably does. The frococcia bread that was teetering on the side of the bowl looked like a sponge from outer space. I was accustom to regular North American style breads and this was just weird. (I know make a kick-ass forcia bread that I will share will you guys soon.) But the muscles, that is what we starting talking about, were amazing. The just spicy enough Louisiana sauce had a creamy, buttery edge. I ordered it every time we went, which was often because every time anyone wanted to meet for dinner I jumped on suggesting The Cheese Cake Factory.

My lovey affair with Louisiana Muscles ended when The Cheese Cake Factory, the only one in Edmonton, burnt down. I was crushed. I tried other muscles at other restaurants (I wasn’t brave enough to make them myself then) but they just didn’t compare. I wasn’t until I was in Chile that I found muscles that I could love with the same mouthwatering craziness.

Before I had even left for South America I had decided that I was going to eat as much seafood as I could down there. I had to. It would be fresh and fabulous, cooked in ways that I would not have considered at home.

I discovered my first my first treasure of a Chilean restaurant with some of my fellow Spanish students in Santiago where we were all studying together. Someone told someone about a little place down town and away we went. Everything we ordered was amazing, especially the muscles. I can’t remember exactly the seasoning but I do remember that there was cilantro. Cilantro seemed to very often be the little thing that went along way in most of the food that I tried and loved in South America.

I don’t remember trying cilantro for the first time. I do remember when I decided that I hated it. The girl living upstairs from me in basement suite I had in Edmonton loved the stuff. It was springtime and we were planning a few things in our tiny backyard. I tried a little leaf of her cilantro. “It tastes like soap!” I protested. I avoided it cilantro until my first trip out of Canada to the Dominican Republic. Some of the food was seasoned partially with cilantro down there and I decided that maybe the stuff wasn’t so bad.

I didn’t try cooking with muscles or cilantro until a couple years ago. Board and avoiding homework I wandered to Safeway to find something inspiring to cook up. I had been lusting over memories of my traveling time and was craving muscles. Poking around in the meat isle I found live muscles. I hadn’t noticed them before. Although I knew I wanted to put something with cilantro on them I wasn’t sure what else to do. Safeway has a little tower of recipe cards. One of them had a recipe for muscles with roma tomatoes, cilantro, lemons and onions. I grabbed a card, all of those ingredients and then hit the check out.

At home I followed the recipe fairly close. I did add some red pepper flakes and garlic. I don’t remember if the recipe card called for white wine or not but defiantly use white wine. Pick a dry white, NOT a riesling, gewürztraminer or chardonnay. Use something not-so-sweet like a sauvignon blanc or pinot gris. You’ll need about 1/3 of a bottle for each pound of muscles. So buy according as you must have some for sipping as well.

Rinse you muscles, removing any beards. I like to make sure they are all closed before I cook them. I do this by putting them in the sink with running water (room temperature) and stirring them around. If they close all the way, of even a little, that movement tells me that they are alive and safe to eat. I have a friend who “smell tests” her open ones and if they don’t smell yucky she cooks them. I have not gotten sick from her muscles or mine. You decide what you want to do. Whatever you do, if any do not open after being cooked, don’t eat those ones. If there are more than a few that don’t open. Talk to the place you bought them.

For each pound of muscles:

Dice 1 cup each of red onion and roma tomatos (1/2 a large red onion 3 roma tomatoes)

Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic


Toss the above ingredients and the clean muscles into a large pot. Pour in at least a cup of white wine for each pound. Add 1-2 tsp of red pepper flakes or grind some in if you have them in a grinder, then add salt and pepper to taste. Stir the muscles up again and set aside.

Put your element on high, when it is red-hot place the pot on the element. Once the liquid is simmering stir the muscles every minute until they have all open. Usually about 3-5 minutes, more if you have a very full pot.

Quarter a lemon and set on the side to squeeze the juice on each serving.