Fishy thoughts

When I was in Guatemala and Honduras I found it so cool to be able to eat a meal and know exactly where everything on my plate came from. This evening I had that same experience, only Alaska style.

My friend Thomas took me fishing again today (making it my second time ever). We, well he, caught two silver salmon. Even though we were switching rods back and forth because one had eggs on it and the other had a spinner on it, the fish always seemed to bite under his watch. I did get to reel one in though. We left the banks of the Little Susitna River as the sun was setting (it's once again doing that here) and arrived home around midnight. As I managed to leave the peanut butter sandwiches, intended for lunch, on the kitchen counter, we were both ravagely hungry. Whether inspired by the pangs in my stomach or the thrill of 4 hour old salmon, I had a flash of culinary creativity. I've never cooked fish before, but I had an idea and went with it. I wrapped a filet with some olive oil, onions, garlic and a splash of pepper in aluminum foil and put it on a pan. After 40 minutes on broil, we ate what turned out to be a delicious dinner. The salmon melted on my fork, before even making it into my mouth.

As we sat there savoring the food, I was struck by this very cool thought: The food on our plate came completely from our own efforts! (Well mostly, can't say as I had much to do with growing the onion, garlic, pepper or olives... or, for that matter, processing the olives for oil... but the idea still remains.)