Battle Stations!!

I once caught a fish . . .

In our neck of the city, there are folk who sell salmon by the side of the road every summer.  You never know where they're going to be: a vacant parking lot; a grassy right-of way; in front of an abandoned building.  Keeping a look-out for them is half the fun; like a treasure hunt!  A fishy, slimy treasure hunt.

The Toxic household loves salmon season, though, and the salmon folk love us.  Well, to be honest, they love Bee, because Bee buys salmon in bulk.  And these aren't weenie salmon, mind you: these are Big Momma (and Poppa) salmon, on their way to the spawning grounds.  We're talkin' fifteen pounders, here.

The first year we bought salmon, we bought two huge fish, then went back within a week for two more.  The salmon fishers were so impressed, they allowed Bee to sweet-talk them into giving us a discount.

The second year, Bee bought six fish right away.  He got a discount AND the fishermen's number so he'd have direct access to salmon next year.

Last year, we bought 8 fish, plus got friends to buy four more.  The fishermen were thrilled for all the extra business; we were thrilled to get such a great deal on fish.

This year, we bought 8 fish for ourselves, plus 13 fish for others.  That's right: 21 fish.  The fishermen were ecstatic to have such a large order, so they agreed to deliver the fish right to our home a mere 6 hours after the fish were caught (which, by the way, they're caught in a town four hours away).  Talk about farm-to-table!

I am always in awe of Bee's ability to finagle.  The man has no fear in finding ways to get deals and, more importantly, in actually asking for them (unlike Yours Truly).  Which is how, for several years running, we've been able to buy 120 pounds of salmon for $200, and have had enough fish to last an entire year.  Mmmmm: smoked salmon, grilled salmon, salmon salads, and -- my all-time favorite -- salmon fettuccine. 

Ohhh, yeah; it's nice to open the freezer in the middle of winter and pull out a salmon steak for dinner.

The only problem with our salmon fetish is that, in order to get our great deal, we have to clean the fish ourselves.  Last year, we had a friend come help us.  This year, we did it ourselves.  Which is how I found myself wrist-deep in salmon roe several weeks ago, stringy guts embedded under my fingernails and trying not to slip on the fish slime coating our grass.

Obviously, I don't know what I'm doing.  Neither was Bee.  But we try!  And, really, I don't think we've mangled too many salmon over the years.

The thrill of fish-gutting is made all-the-more exciting by the fact that we never know when the fish will arrive, since the fishermen aren't always in town and -- when they are -- they may not yet have caught enough fish for our 21- (including friends) fish-habit.  So, all we have is a vague idea that the fishermen may be calling this week, and we must be prepared to drop whatever we are doing on they day they call so that we can properly get all those fish gutted, packed, and frozen before they spoil.

So, being called on Fish Day is sort of like being called to battle.  It results in spastic efforts to set up our 'gutting station', hysterics over how to get Mr. C out of the way (thank God for nap time!), and frantic calls to our friends to get off work and pick up their fish ASAP.

We're not really set up to be a fish butchery, but we make do.  We drag an old table into our yard, find a large board, sharpen a few knives, and turn the hose to a drizzle.  We gut the fish in our front yard (on the grass, no less) as they slip around on the ground and hose the now-headless/finless/gutless fish off.  Then we nail the tail to the board on the table, where we attempt to get out the major bones and cut the fish into single-serving steaks.  After another hosing, we vacuum-pack each individual piece, eventually filling a shelf in our stand-alone freezer with our haul.

We've learned a lot about gutting over the years.  Like the nail-in-the-tail trick to hold the fish on the table.  Or to wipe off some of the slime before we try to cut through the slippery skin.  And, most recently, to freeze the steaks a little before vacuum sealing them so the fish-juice doesn't keep the bags from properly sealing.  But we still need to figure out a system for keeping the running hose both from mucking up the yard AND from getting permanently permeated with the juice from our hands.

Three hours after the start of our battle, we stand -- covered in fish juice, shoes soaked with a delightful mix of muddy-grass-and-fish-slime -- exhausted from our efforts . . . yet filled with admiration over our back-woods awesomeness.  We don't even mind the occasional blade of grass we later find in our servings.

That's right: we may be city slickers, but on Fish Day . . . we're Jeremiah Johnson, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, all rolled into one.