Mushroom Soup for the Solitary Soul

Left to her own devices, caribougrrl looks around at her life and takes stock... duck stock, that is.  And makes the best mushroom soup Fefe Noir never ate.

This mushroom soup has a mixture of sauteed and roasted mushrooms.  It has the classic Hungarian mushroom soup flavours of paprika and dill, but without the cream.  Don't worry though, it's got some duck fat in there to fill you up.

This-Ain't-No-Cream-of Hungarian Mushroom Soup

loosely adapted from Mollie Katzen's The Moosewood Cookbook (with duck fat apologies to Mollie Katzen)

Whenever you roast a duck, hang on to
the rendered fat.  Less waste and
more taste!

3 c. duck broth* (or chicken broth or vegetable broth)
a handful of dried chanterelles (or other dried mushrooms, or none at all)
1-1/2 lbs fresh mushrooms**
5 shallots, very thinly sliced
3 tbsp duck fat* (or chicken fat, or goose fat, or other lovely fat dripped from a roast, or olive oil)
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp smoked hot paprika
a sprig or more of fresh dill, finely chopped
2 c. water (or if you are feeling fancy, 1 cup white wine + 1 cup water)
juice of 1/2 Meyer lemon (or other lemon or a splash of cider vinegar)

*On Boxing Day, we made Jamie Oliver's Citrus Roast Duck, reserving the fat for later. After a meal of roast duck, then a meal of duck tacos and a lunch of duck on leafy salad, Fefe Noir used the remaining carcass to make a big pot of broth.  I found it in the freezer then remembered the duck fat in the fridge, so that's what I used.  Feel free to use chicken broth, but I can't vouch for the results (it will probably be awesome, but not as awesome as duck broth).  If you've been looking for an excuse to roast a duck, duck tacos and mushroom soup are reason enough.

**Any kind of fresh mushroom.  Or a mixture.  White, brown, cremini, portabello, baby bello, etc.

In a small sauce pan, heat the broth to a boil then remove from heat.  Crush up the dried chanterelles or other dried mushroom and add them to the hot broth to rehydrate.  If you aren't using dried mushrooms, which is perfectly acceptable too, then just skip this step.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F.

Fefe is always telling me, when she is taking photos, that everything is
information. Clearly, she is better at seeing the information in-camera than
I am.  So here's the information: the counter is crowded, the espresso machine
is under-utilized, we have a lot of vinegars, the curtains could use a wash...

Clean your mushrooms as needed and slice about half a pound of them.  If you bought them pre-sliced, you are done, move on to the next step.  If you bought your mushrooms whole, then halve or quarter the remaining mushrooms rather than slicing, just for a variety of shapes.  If you do slice these ones though, slice them thickly.

Take the halved and quartered mushrooms (or two-thirds of your pre-sliced mushrooms)  and, using your hands, coat them well in 1 tbsp of the fat.  Spread them over a shallow baking pan and put them in the oven to roast.  Roast until they are shriveled and have lovely browned edges.  This will take 10-20 minutes depending on the mushrooms.  Don't interfere with them until at least 10 minutes are passed, then you can check them, maybe stir them around, and either remove from the oven because they are done, or stick them back in for a bit.

While the mushrooms are roasting, heat the remaining fat in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.  Add shallots and cook, stirring frequently but not constantly, until they are soft and browned.  Add the remaining mushrooms stirring only occasionally until they are soft (3-5 minutes).

Add paprika and dill, stir to coat the shallots and mushrooms.  Cook, stirring, for another 2-3 minutes.

Pour the broth with rehydrated mushrooom bits and the water into the pan.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low.  Add the roasted mushrooms to the pot and simmer, covered, until you are ready to eat.  (Really, it's probably fine right away, but I have this idea that soup should simmer for a while.  So I took the opportunity to wash the kitchen floor and wait for it to dry.  I inadvertently separated myself from a glass of wine on the counter but luckily I found more glasses and more wine in the dining room...)

Just before serving, squeeze the lemon juice into the soup and give it a good stir. 

Fefe Noir usually takes the photos for this blog.  Here is a shining example of why... I would have left it out entirely except I feel like there has to be a photo of the finished non-cream version of Hungarian mushroom soup.  I swear, it looks better than it looks, and tastes even better than that.

~~~

I've been abandoned.  Left to fend for myself.

For two weeks.

Two eternal weeks.

I have learned a few things about myself.  Primarily that I am spoiled.

Since Fefe Noir left, I have had to do the following things: wash all the dishes (not just the ones that go in the dishwasher), sweep, vacuum and wash floors, carry mugs back to the kitchen from the various bizarre places they materialize (like the window sill in the front hall... who leaves a mug in a place like that?), feed the dogs TWICE during the day including remembering the appropriate medications on the appropriate days, feed the cats, clean the litter boxes, do my own laundry (do my own laundry!), empty garbage cans, take the overflowing compost bucket out to the composter, prep AND cook meals, remember all the stuff I am supposed to remember without being reminded, make the bed, let dogs out to pee, let them back in, take my coat off the back of the chair and hang it up, put the shoes I left in the middle of the hallway away, take my own photos for the blog***... PLUS all the things I usually do (which, admittedly, are not much of anything at all)...

***you may have noticed the general decline in quality in the photos, my apologies, I have no patience

...it's exhausting.

I realize that most people have to do all that stuff all the time, with or without help from anyone else.  Good lord, some of you even have children to sort out in the midst of all of that.  My hat is off.  I don't know how you keep it up.

So I am not looking for sympathy, just trying to say that I get it.  You're tired, I'm tired.  None of us knows what to make for dinner because all of it seems too difficult.

Which brings me to the prepping (usually Fefe does this before I get home) and cooking of meals.  It turns out that left to my own devices with no one but me to impress, mostly I'm lazy.  Since Fefe's been gone, there have been a lot of salads using pre-washed lettuce and cold leftover things.  As in, all of the leftover things that were already in the fridge before I began this solitary life.  Eventually I ran out though.  Then I ran out of canned tuna too.

So I made soup.  Good nutritious comforting stuff, soup is, and even though it takes a bit of work (but not a lot of work) to prepare, you can make it in great big quantities, saving yourself the bother of cooking tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that.  Or you can freeze it, saving yourself the bother of cooking some day in the future.  

Here's the other thing about eating when Fefe is away: I make a point of eating things she doesn't like to eat because, well, here's my chance.  I've made popcorn five times in the last couple of weeks.  I ate tuna fish directly out of the can once.  I made banana muffins and sweetened them with date syrup and did not use one bit of chocolate in them... all the dessert sins in one dish.

Fefe does not like mushroom soup.  I love mushroom soup.  I made a point of buying a lot of mushrooms in order to make the Moosewood Hungarian Mushroom Soup because I wanted to make a mushroom soup that was not creamy.  I wanted broth and big pieces of mushroom swimming around in a rich but thin broth.  I hadn't made that soup for nearly 20 years (see introductory statement of this paragraph).  So I got home and fed the dogs and let them out and unloaded the dishwasher and moved laundry around and opened up the Moosewood Cookbook to discover that my memory of the soup was nearly completely wrong.  The recipe makes a thickened milky sour-creamy soup, which is undoubtedly lovely if that's what you are looking for.  But I had my heart set by now.  So I made the soup I wanted instead.  

(I ate it for dinner and lunch for three days running, brought some into work for a colleague, and froze a lunch portion.  I got a lot of not-cooking out of this one.)

You say tomatillo, I say tomato...

Spiraling quickly toward the end of gardening season, here's a bright late-harvest recipe for before the dutch oven gets dusted off.

Maybe not technically a posole, but a fantastic green tomato fish chowder (garnished with the world's smallest radish).

North Atlantic End-of-Season Posole

adapted from bon appetit October 2015 issue

1-3/4 lbs green tomatoes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, smashed then minced
1 fresh hot peppers, thinly sliced
all the cilantro that survived the first snowfall (or 1 cup)
2 cod loin fillets*
kernels from 2 cobs of sweet corn**
2 cups seafood stock***
garnish for serving: sliced fresh hot pepper, radish, lime

*yeah, okay, cod loins vary in size, but use enough to serve a decent soup-amount to 4 people... a pound to a pound and a half will do

**blanch very fresh sweet corn in boiling water for 4 minutes then plunge in ice-cold water to stop the cooking process; using a sharp knife, cut the kernels off the cob... or use a heaping cup of frozen corn

***made from fish heads and/or shellfish shells (ours was in the freezer made some time ago, likely from shrimp heads and shells, maybe trout heads or lobster scraps too)

True, we had to substitute nearly every ingredient, but that's just the
cost of living on an island in a cold, harsh climate.

Wash and quarter the green tomatoes, removing the stem and any unsightly spots, bruises, frostbite, etc.  Puree in a food processor or blender and set aside.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat oil over medium.  Cook onion, garlic and hot pepper until soft.

Add half of the green tomato puree and cook until the mixture reaches a good steady boil.  Add cod, corn, and seafood stock.  Bring to a simmer and maintain it to poach the cod until it is cooked through, about 8-10 minutes.

While the cod is cooking, roughly chop the cilantro and add to remaining green tomato.  Puree together.

When the cod is cooked, remove soup from heat and stir the green tomato mixture to incorporate, breaking the cod into chunks.  

Ladle into bowls, garnish with hot pepper slices and radish and squeeze a bit of lime juice over top.  

Serves 6 as a first course or 4 as a light meal.

~~~

Whenever we buy a gourmet cooking magazine, we excitedly scan the pages.  Ooooohing and ahhhhing.  Imagining a dinner party.  Looking up ingredients that are probably readily available in major cities but impossible to find on this island in the North Atlantic. Or at least impossible to find all at the same time.  (We fantasize constantly about grocery stores that you can walk into with a list and walk out of with everything ticked off.) 

It's possible there is some sort of psychotic disorder that makes us buy these magazines over and over again.  Taunting ourselves with them.  Salivating over meals we'll never eat.

Then this miraculous thing happened.  Flipping through the October issue of bon appetit, I came across a recipe for green posole with cod and cilantro.  Brilliant, I thought, I can make this.  "Did you see this?" I called out excitedly, "We have cod! We can make this!"

"We don't have tomatillos," Fefe Noir, all sensible-kill-joy about her says, "and where will you find hominy?  What is hominy?"

Pffffffttt... details...

This year's garlic harvest chez The Moose
Curry Experience, curing in Fefe Noir's office.

This is a great recipe for November on Newfoundland's Avalon peninsula, as we are spiraling quickly toward the end of gardening season.  The garlic has been harvested and cured, the cilantro is still hanging on.  Peppers are finally ripe, or ripe-enough at least.  The first snow means we have had to give up on the vague hope that the tomatoes are going to ripen outside, so they have been brought in, green, to be hung to ripen, or stored in dark boxes, or made into jam and salsa and chutney.

I know, green tomatoes are not tomatillos, but they are bright with lemony-acidity which is a great base for a fish soup.  And sure, shallot season is over and I hadn't thought far enough ahead to buy some for storage but red onions are strong and juicy right now... and okay, the cilantro that is hanging on has gone to seed but the feathery green on the flower stalk tastes as much (maybe even more) of cilantro herb as the broad flat mid-summer leaf.  In the end I couldn't find hominy, but we had blanched and frozen a bit of local sweet corn.  Clam juice, too, is clearly for fancy people with fantasy grocery stores, but seafood stock is simple to make.

In the end, I'm pretty sure this is no longer a posole, but it is definitely a really good soup.  

Berries to Crow About

In which Fefe Noir and caribougrrl confront the terrible summer weather by walking right into it.

The cold wet summer we've been experiencing in Newfoundland seems to have been good for black crowberry (Empetrum nigrum); they are unusually abundant this year.

This summer in Newfoundland has been record-breakingingly-non-existent.  In previous years we have experienced Jun-uary and Fog-ust, but neither of these events could prepare us for the horror of Jul-ember.   

The garden is almost a bust.  I have replanted three times.  It has just been too bloody cold for anything to grow.  I don’t blame those bean plants for not wanting to poke their heads out of the soil and into the freezing wind.  Who living in Newfoundland for the month of July did not want to stay lying in bed until this hell ends?

The last few days of July (it had to be warm by then right?), caribougrrl took some time off so we could get some work done on the house.  It was too wet to paint and too windy to be up a ladder.  The weather did not improve.  As the cool temperatures were perfect for a good walk we bravely packed a picnic, grabbed our sweaters and headed out.  “I’ll take the camera just in case,” I said.  I wished later I had also brought mittens.

Moose are a fairly regular road hazard in Newfoundland, but having a camera
handy is a much less common occurrence.

On the drive to New Melbourne we came upon two very lovely moose.  (And NO we did not turn them into sausages.)  Miracle of miracles I actually had the camera in the back of the car and with some impressive gymnastic moves grabbed it from the back seat and got the shot. 

For a landmass largely made up of ponds, bogs, and fens, frogs are a strangely
uncommon occurrence in Newfoundland. 

We headed to one of our favourite trails and stopped to check out the frog pond.  (And NO we did not gather frog legs either.)  I have never seen so many frogs.  They must like the cool weather.  Maybe all their predators were so affected by SAD they couldn’t face placing their paws and beaks and snouts into the freezing water. 

As we continued down the trail admiring the truly awesome view of sea and sky and pointing out the occasional whale flip- flop out in the water, caribougrrl bent down and offered me what I presumed was a juniper berry.  “No thanks,” I said.  And then she put one in her mouth and made her this-is-bitter-face and I thought, what did you expect?

Then she asked if I had any bags in my camera case.  What am I going to do with a pound of juniper? How much gravlax does she think we can eat? Why does she keep eating the berries?  I distracted her by pointing out a whale, okay maybe it was a rock, but we didn’t have to spend the next two hours collecting berries.  

Or so I thought.

It wasn’t until we were selecting where to sit on for our picnic and I pointed out some blue poop on a rock and asked, “What do you think that was eating?” that I realized it was not juniper that I had been offered earlier but one of the zillions of black crowberry that were growing all over the place.  I’d been too busy looking for whales to notice these shining jewels literally at our feet. 

Someone else has clearly been eating the black crowberry.

“Are you sure they are edible?”  I asked as caribougrrl proffered me another one.

And it turns out they are.

Someone, somewhere described black crowberry as having an “uninteresting” flavour.  And this caught on: just about any internet site about black crowberry will repeat this description.  The poor maligned crowberry, growing where and when no other berry will go, is consistently called uninteresting.  And yet it is one of the precious garnishes people are willing to pay big bucks for at NOMA.   This berry needs some rethinking and a new reputation.

The black crowberry is interesting, but if you were expecting sweet think again.  This berry is juicy and complex and once cooked it is tasty.  (Not to mention free, local and growing in abundance… food security, my friends!)  So let us praise the black crowberry; it is not uninteresting it is just misunderstood.

How to Find and Identify Black Crowberry (Empetrum nigrum)

Black crowberry is a northern berry, which means if you live in the south you are out of luck unless you are vacationing in the north or you happen across them at high elevations.  It is primarily found in open habitats like coastlines, bogs, heaths, barrens and rocky outcrops.

Black crowberry is a low-growing shrub, characteristically a creeping groundcover.  Crowberry tends to form mats and thus, under foot, it feels springy (for information purposes, that springy-ness is a bit deceptive as it's prickly on any exposed skin if you sit on it for very long).  Stems are densely covered in short, pointy needles that are arranged alternately and whorled on the stalk.  (If that means nothing to you, don't worry... it's the one that hugs the ground but isn't juniper.  Rely on the pictures.)

The berries (technically drupes) are small, black and are semi-glossy but not shiny, each with a prominent dimple on the opposite end from the stem.  Although they can appear clustered, berries are individually attached  to the stem.  Since the berries are dark not wildly charismatic, they can easily go unnoticed if you aren't actually looking for them.

Ripe black crowberry can be picked any time from when they turn black through the next spring.  It seems that quite a lot of people prefer them after a frost because they get sweeter, and some won't even pick them until late winter or early spring.  Frost and the freeze-thaw of winter, however, can make them soft and texturally unappealing, so the summer berries have the advantage of firmness.

The black crowberry (Empetrum nigrum) fruits are very distinctive: small and polished-black with prominent dimples.  The foliage resembles heather but creeps much tighter to the ground.

If you poke around the miracle of internet looking for information on the black crowberry taste, you will find most sites say they are uninteresting raw but improve with cooking... this really needs to be corrected.  The raw berries are extremely interesting to taste (in the summer, at least): startlingly tart and grippy from tannin.  It might be a bit of an acquired taste, but it is certainly not boring.  After cooking, the flavour is less punchy; the taste loses the acidic edge to become sweeter and the tannin mellows but retains a depth.  These berries do not taste like anything else we've eaten anywhere.  Do not put one in your mouth anticipating a blueberry-like flavour, you will end up feeling confused.

The tannin makes them particularly suitable for wine-making.  Extra special bonus points to you if you make the effort to collect enough of these for wine making.  We will applaud while we sit on our front porch sipping the black crowberry wine produced by Auk Island Winery and wonder how the wine can be sold for such a low price considering the labour that goes into collecting the tiny berries...

A Recipe For Black Crowberry Clafoutis

(heavily borrowed from Julia Child's cherry clafoutis recipe)

There is nothing that tastes quite the same as black crowberry.  Cooking sweetens the berries and mellows bitterness, but the tannins retain a depth and complexity of flavour; the clafoutis custard provides a perfect silky support.

Clafoutis a seriously fantastic way to use black crowberry.  Sophisticated enough for dinner party dessert, but with enough eggs, milk and fruit to justify eating it for breakfast.  Full of win.

1-1/4 c. milk (2% or fattier)
2/3 c. raw cane sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp orange blossom water*
pinch of sea salt
1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
3 c. black crowberries, cleaned**
icing sugar for dusting

* orange blossom water is very pleasantly perfumey, a nice foil for the tannin... but if you don't have any, feel free to use the 1 tbsp of vanilla extract which Julia Child puts in her cherry clafoutis

** rid of any insect stowaways from your berry bucket, picked free of debris, rinsed, and dried by very gently rolling up in a tea towel

Clockwise from top left: Use a food processor or blender to ensure
a perfectly smooth clafoutis batter.  Bake a thin layer of custard until a skin
forms and sprinkle the berries gently on top to keep them from sinking.
The clafoutis baking dish can be filled the brim.  When cooked, the clafoutis
will be puffed up, browned and firm to the touch in the center.

Pre-heat oven to 350F.  Grease a deep pie dish or tart/flan dish (or any baking dish that can hold about 7 cups) with butter.

Put all ingredients except for the berries and icing sugar into a a food processor*** or blender. Mix until fully blended and smooth.

***did I say food processor? Why yes, I did.  We finally bought one.

Pour a thin layer of batter (about 1/3 cup of the mixture, more or less depending on the shape of your pan) into the bottom of the baking dish and bake for about 8 minutes or until a skin forms.  Remove from oven and distribute the berries lightly on top of the batter layer.

Pour the remaining batter over the berries.  Return to oven and bake an additional 50-60 minutes. It's done when it's puffed up, well browned, and the batter has set through (like custard or quiche).

Let rest to cool slightly (it will fall, that's what happens).  Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Rhubarb Catch-Up

Summer has been so slow to get going, it seems the only thing growing out in the back yard is rhubarb.  Strangely, it's doing so well we can hardly use it all.  So to catch up, we made ketchup.

Rhubarb ketchup is a thing of great beauty.  It looks good, it tastes good, and it's a great way to use the big old fibrous stalks that you left too long to reasonably use in a pie...

Hot and Sour Rhubarb Ketchup

loosely adapted from Marguerite Patten's ketchup recipes

1-1/2 lb chopped rhubarb stalks
2 sweet white onions, diced
2 c water
1/2 c raw cane sugar + more to taste
3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 thai chili peppers, stemmed and split
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 c spiced vinegar (see below)

Combine the rhubarb, onion, water, sugar, garlic and hot peppers in a large sauce pan.  Bring to a boil.  Stir well to make sure all the sugar is dissolved, then turn down and simmer until the rhubarb and onions are soft.   

Puree the mixture with an immersion blender (or in batches in a regular blender, or run it through a food mill) and return to the stove.  Simmer until reduced to thick sauce.  

Stir in the fish sauce and spiced vinegar.  Taste it; add more sugar if needed or otherwise adjust your seasoning.  Simmer until desired ketchup-thickness.

Transfer to a clean jar or bottle and store in the refrigerator.   Alternatively, you can fill sterile jars with hot ketchup and heat process for 10 minutes, saving the fridge space.

Don't have cheesecloth around to tie those spices up in? Don't
worry.  Infuse the vinegar then strain them out.

Spiced Vinegar

2 c white vinegar (5% acetic acid)
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp broken-up star anise
1 cinnamon stick

Put everything in a saucepan with a lid.  Heat over medium until it comes to a boil then remove from heat.  Leave, covered, for at least 2 hours to infuse the vinegar.  Strain through a sieve when you are ready to use.

~~~

Marguerite Patten died recently, at the age of 99.  I can't help but figure she had something right about cooking and eating to have made that far.  

I didn't know anything about Patten before I met Fefe Noir and her ever-increasing collection of old British cookbooks.  What we have of Patten's (handed down from her mother and carefully protected in resealable bags so that the loose pages don't get lost) only scratches the surface of her bibliography, but they are well used -- as much for technique and inspiration as for actual recipes.  If nothing else, I owe her a great debt of gratitude for giving me permission to make ketchup out of things that aren't tomatoes.*

*I grew up in Heinz country.  Literally in the midst of tomato fields that fed the local factory which produced ketchup from 1910 until it closed in 2014.  I was reared on Heinz ketchup** so the idea that ketchup is made, always, from tomatoes was just woven into me.

**Well, okay, if we bought ketchup, it was Heinz, but mom did make her own ketchup.  From tomatoes.

This is what I love about Marguerite Patten: she is full of solutions.  I tore the kitchen apart looking for cheesecloth to tie all my spices in a bundle for simmering with the rhubarb.  As I was puzzling how I was going to get my spice mix infused through the ketchup I happen to notice that some of Patten's recipes used spiced vinegar, not a spice sachet.  Whoa-ho, then!  What a fantastic solution.  Infuse the vinegar and stir it in later.  Brilliant.

There is no recipe in her book for rhubarb ketchup, and certainly no recipe with thai chilies and star anise.  But she is very reliable about the proportions of fruit to sugar to vinegar.  So when we found ourselves with a glut of rhubarb (the opposite problem to what we faced a couple years ago), the obvious plan of attack was to pull the 500 Recipes: Jams, Pickles, Chutneys off the shelf.

~~~

Hot and sour rhubarb ketchup is fancy, but it's not snobby.  Served here with  grilled cheese made with sprouted grain sourdough bread from Rocket Bakery and smoked cheddar cheese from Five Brothers Artisan Cheese purchased at Admiral's Market.  Er, okay, maybe a little bit snobby...

Oh and by the way, you really want to make this ketchup.  Working on the recipe I knew we hit it when, tasting a batch, I immediately thought, "this would go really well with cava!".  Which means it would go really well with champagne... and there's your excuse to have champagne with your french fries.  The good news is that although you can serve it to your snobby friends, it's not really a snobby ketchup: also goes well with burgers and beer.   

Why They Call it Fishing...

In which caribougrrl remembers how to cast a line, practices her birding skills, and is reminded why it's called fishing (not called catching).

It looks like a good spot to fish, right?  Or does it not? 

5:00 AM: I finally relent to the pacing and whining dogs and get up to feed them.  Every morning, starting at about 4:15, the dogs start to worry that I will forget to give them breakfast. This is a completely normal start to my day, every day.  But today is fishing day.  And it is pouring with rain.  POURING.  I know, technically, that you can go fishing in the rain.  I think, perhaps, it might even be the best weather for fishing.  Did I mention POURING with rain?  I feed the dogs, double check all my gear.  Wonder if I have enough snacks.  

5:20 AM: It is still pouring with rain, so I go back to bed.

6:15 AM: Fefe Noir wakes me up to tell me it stopped raining.  I admit this news feels a little disappointing.

A re-enactment of the thoughtful gesture of leaving coffee
in a thermos so it will still be hot when Fefe Noir finally
wakes up.  The cats do not take artistic direction well and
refused to participate in the staging.  Sam showed slightly
more compliance but insisted on ennui rather than
blissful sleep.

6:35 AM: Standing in the hallway in my rubber boots, I realize that in the event I actually catch a fish, I want something to stun it with before bleeding it.  I rifle through the toolbox.  I realize that in the event I actually catch a fish, I might also want grippy gloves to hold on to it.

6:45 AM: At the local gas station, I buy a couple of cheap pairs of rubberized gloves.  I resolve my snack issue by buying a chocolate bar: dark, with nuts, so I can imagine it counts as a healthy breakfast.

7:05 AM:  I am back at the house because I discover I left without making coffee.  What?

7:15 AM: I leave a thermos of coffee and a mug on the bedside table next to a snoring Fefe Noir.  One of the dogs and at least one cat have stolen the warm spot I left.

7:20 AM: While I drive, I consider the options in my tackle box and make a plan.  I remind myself about the things I tend to forget when casting, like pinning the line down before releasing the spool.  Um, like releasing the spool, at that.  I am in good mental form, visualizing the entire process. 

7:25 AM:  I turn down Fisherman’s Road and think this is a sign.  Then I think it is in fact, literally, a sign.  I no longer know what to make of it.

When caribougrrl turns the car onto Fisherman's Road, she takes it as a sign.

7:45 AM:  As I approach my selected fishing spot, I review in my mind all the advice I have gotten: stay away from beaver ponds, find a beaver pond, work the pools in a river, trout go after the egg-like lures in the spring, worms are best, minnows are best.  Suddenly I stop in my tracks and think, “Where is my fishing rod?”

8:05 AM: I do not find the fishing rod in the car.

8:15 AM: I find the fishing rod leaning against the wall by the front door, right where I left it so that I wouldn’t forget it.  Not a creature is stirring.  Not one.  No one seems to notice I have left the house and come back.  All I can hear is snoring.

caribougrrl decided to try her luck in the streams because
even though it's June, it's so early in the season, the alder
catkins are still out and the leaves are only starting to unfurl.

8:25 AM:  Heading from the car with fishing rod in-hand and a strong sense of deja-vu, I pick out the Oh Canada song of a white throated sparrow.  On the way to the fishing hole, I am amazed by the deafening level of bird song. 

(I am more amazed that no matter how many birders I’ve spent time with and how many hundreds of collective hours they’ve spent trying to teach me stuff, I am terrible at bird identification.  White throated sparrow and black capped chickadee are the only ones I feel confident about by ear.  And I’m not convinced I would know the sparrow by sight.)

8:45 AM:  I debate between a float and a sinker to go with my hook and fake egg.  On the one hand, the egg is supposed to float.  On the other hand, I am worrying about whether the float has enough weight to allow me to cast.  I decide on a small sinker but two glo-eggs.  The stupid squishy looking fake fish eggs are really difficult to jam on the hook and they smell weirdly like diesel fuel.  I cannot imagine how this might be attractive, but then again, I am not a trout.  In the end, I only put one on because I can’t face doing it twice.

8:55 AM:  I struggle to dredge up the muscle memory I need for casting.  Every few attempts, nothing happens, the line doesn’t leave.  In between the times I forget to release the spool, I spend a lot of time untangling.  Eventually I find my rhythm.

9:25 AM: I become aware of the black flies lined up under the rim of my hat and along my collar.  I decide the eggs aren’t doing it.  I inspect the tackle box and consider the big white grubs but switch to a wiggly thing with glitter on it.

caribougrrl brought a sampling of tackle with her; since she doesn't really
know what she is doing, she just brought the bright and shiny things... 

9:50 AM:  As much as I am enjoying casting and reeling, casting and reeling, casting and reeling, I have not actually seen any fish.  I have not even seen any signs of fish.  No jumping, no unexplained ripples on the surface of the pool… other than an ancient faded empty Vienna Sausage tin, I have not even seen any signs that anyone else has maybe ever stood here trying to catch fish. 

9:55 AM:  I am itchy where a black fly dug a hole in my finger, right on a knuckle.  The swelling is making it difficult to bend the finger.  I curse at the cloud of black flies surrounding my head even though I know this particular bite is from a couple days ago.

9:57 AM: I decide that probably the trout are already out of the streams and back in the ponds.  I know this decision, though it feels full of authority, is based on nothing but unjustified conviction.  I have no idea what I’m doing.

Or maybe the leafing out of the alder means the trout -- clearly
not in this stream -- are already in the ponds?  Maybe?

10:00 AM: As I am packing up my gear, I stick my apple into my pocket so it is handy for the walk.  I decide to head to the far side of the beaked hazel grove.  If I remember correctly, there’s a pond there that looks like a spot where people go to fish.  I recognize the only reason I think people fish there is that the trail leading to it is an ATV track.

10:05 AM: I dig the chocolate out of my pack and eat it.

10:20 AM: As I’m walking I see that the ferns in this area are still young enough to pick as fiddleheads.  We don’t have fiddleheads proper here in Newfoundland but Peter Scott assures us that these other not-quite-fiddlehead ferns are edible.  I know from experience, however, that by edible he does not mean palatable.  I keep walking.  I suddenly hear a racket… no, a volley of noise.  Tattatatatatatatatat tattattattat.  Like gun shots, but not quite… maybe a nail gun? Or a toy gun?  It’s relentless and getting louder.  I find myself surrounded by yellow warblers, darting around madly with no apparent purpose. 

(Let’s be honest. These might well not have been actual yellow warblers… they could have been any one of the “Confusing Yellow Warblers” in the Peterson guide.  Or maybe even some other sort of small yellow woodsy bird.  Not even a woodsy bird necessarily, it’s more like scrub land.  The only thing I am certain of is that these were not american goldfinch.)

10:25 AM:  Standing where I expect to find the trail that winds itself down to the pond, I am surprised to find a construction trailer.  And a leveled-out bit of land.  When did that happen?  I worry about the beaked hazel but I can’t tell for sure if it’s in or out of the construction footprint. Not really keen on the idea of meandering blindly toward an unseen pond, hoping to cross the trail somewhere past the development, I decide the trout are probably still in the river.  I mean, it’s been a slow spring, and still pretty cold out.

There used to be a trail here, one that wound it's way down the hill toward
a lovely pond.  Probably brimming with trout.

10:35 AM: Working my way back to the car, I stop and flick my line out into a few more river pools.  Nothing.  Well, I snag a couple of rocks and thus have a couple of milliseconds of mild excitement, but no fish.

10:50 AM:  I have not needed my gloves.  I suppose I have not needed my rod either, but there’s no way of knowing without it.