Unfortunately our first trip out was a series of unfortunate events:
- The Seattle Parks dept didn't open the parking lot until well after 4am (their posted time)so one of our group had to park a distance away.
- On our way out the crab pot lines got tangled. In cold rainy weather it took what seemed like hours to untangle them
- A down rigger ball (10 lb lead weight coated in rubber) got thrown overboard (they cost $45)
- The kicker motor BROKE
- We got a bite, but the line snapped so there's a Chinook with a lure in his mouth trailing a flasher (lure, flasher, ball bearing swivels and whammadyne hook = $25). So we were down to one down rigger trolling on the main motor
- We got another bite, but lost the fish in the fight
- On the way back, we stopped to pull the pots and found that mine had been dragged to sea (crab pot, bait box, buoy and line = $45) - we caught 4 keeper crabs, but J threw one overboard because we said "it's a rocky, not a dungeness." He took that to mean it's not a keeper. We were merely stating the species. 5" or better male OR female rock crabs are keepers, so we tossed a keeper back into the drink.
I must've looked pretty shady driving the back streets of north Seattle at 3:20am on my way to Shilshole because I was stopped by one of Seattle's finest. The officer approached the car with his hand on his gun and asked if I was indeed Michael Harris. I told him I in fact was . He asked for my ID, went back to his patrol car and came back a few minutes later. He said, "You are free to go, you are not the Michael Harris we are looking for." Fishy...
Meanwhile: Back to Urban Farming...
This weekend should be our first veggie stand weekend in our driveway. We're planning on doing it on Saturday, midmorningish. Everyone is welcome to come on buy (pun intended). We're very excited about the growth in the yard. I think if we get 5-10 interested veggie purchasers we'll have sold out of our harvest for the week. Yesterday I gave two garden tours to passers by and scheduled another one. It seems the spectacle of 8 foot tall sugar snap peas and literally GOBS of veggies being grown int he front yard equals an invitation to stop by and ask to see everything while I'm watering the lawn and drinking a beer. I'm more than happy to oblige. I love to show off the garden. I sent a family off last night with some free samples and their promise to stop by tomorrow and buy us out of all the lettuce.
Trisa and I are loving growing our own food and buying local. We've been on this adventure for 5 weeks and with the exception of purchasing food for road trip snacks and our contribution to a pot luck, we've managed to not buy any food except from farmers markets. To date our rank of markets is as follows:
- Mercer Island - tops for actual food variety and amount
- Ballard Sunday Market - they have a meat pie maker
- Snohomish - overall a great market well worth the trip out, plus there's a bakery in Snohomish that sells the awesomest pies in all the land
Mike's Meat Pie Review (hopefully I can get my hands on all sorts of meat pies and review them - maybe once per month) - Mike's meat pie review really rolls off the tongue quite nicely so I'd like to make it a regular tidbit in the blog...
My first meat pie (and only so far) was from Deborah's Pies in the Ballard Sunday Market. We bought the Peasant's pie, which would normally not have been something I'd have chosen due to there being sun dried tomatoes in it. But the allure of feta compelled me to bite the bullet and try it out.
The pie was excellent. It looked good, smelled good and the taste was a sensation in my mouth. I paired it with a uber chilled Pinot Gris from Columbia Valley AVA. The pair was perfect. the sun dried tomatoes were not over powering and only added to the balance and complexity of the affair. My only complaint is that the directions on the box did not cook the pie to it's tip top potential. Several more minutes were needed to bring the center to a wonderful warmth and the bottom crust was slightly mushy, most likely caused by the frozen water melting and not heating fast enough. I'd recommend flipping the pie at least once when it is half cooked, bake it at about 15 more degrees and for about 10 minutes longer than the directions state. OR... use convection if your oven has it. Otherwise I give that meat pie 4.5 Pi out of 5 Pi.
That's all for now.
Word,
Mike
We've also been to Pike Place Market and the Mukilteo Market. Pike Place is awesome, as everyone should know-- except they no longer have a meat market. The Mukilteo Market is hardly worth commenting on- way too small. I wrote about it in another blog.
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