Been Fishin’…
With Friar’s Mom, after work.
First time in a canoe together, since her bicycle accident last year. . .
We got some, too.
Tags: fishing, northern pike, walleye
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.With Friar’s Mom, after work.
First time in a canoe together, since her bicycle accident last year. . .
We got some, too.
Tags: fishing, northern pike, walleye
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
May 19, 2010 at 1:48 am
DEAD FISH POST! Woo hoo!
*makes devil horns with fingers*
May 19, 2010 at 2:04 am
The one on the left looks longer… but the one on the right looks like it has more meat!
What type of fish are they?
May 19, 2010 at 6:45 am
@KarenJL
Yeah, it’s been a while since I posted Dead Fish.
This oughta get me in trouble with some of my readers! (Namely, the vegetarians and Eyeteaguy)!
@Viking Thunder
The one on the left is a Northern Pike. It was 21 inches. The one on the right is a walleye. 20 inches. And yes….he was consirably fatter!
May 19, 2010 at 7:56 am
Yay! He’s back. And here I went and did a Friaresque post today because I figured the blogosphere needed one and you were on sabbatical! I eat fish, so I won’t give you hell for that, but Brett will probably give you hell for the Crispex cereal on the counter because they contain evil carbohydrates.
May 19, 2010 at 9:53 am
@XUP
That was quite a respectable post you wrote. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were channeling me.
The fish was fantastic. Friar’s Mom never had fresh-caught pickerel before.
And the Crispix stays. Paleo-diet be damned.
May 19, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Oh, I would never tell anyone what to eat, I don’t even do that at home.
I just sit back and smile. I will eat a nice breakfast of bacon or sausage with eggs and tomatoes, and then two hours later when everyone else is saying, “I’m hungry” because the cereal with milk and banana has run out of gas, I smile and say, “Sorry kids, lunch isn’t for another two hours, here’s a glass of water…”
(Guess what? Everyone now looks forward to daddy’s breakfast on the weekend.)
I made a “meatza” a couple of weeks ago. As in, the crust was made of a very thin layer of extra lean ground beef (will try lamb next time maybe). Baked that first at 450 for 10 minutes, then out of the oven, drained off the juice, layered on homemade sauce, cheese, veggies, more meat (yeah!), then under the broiler for 2-3 minutes.
You know how when you eat pizza, 1 or 2 pieces may not be enough?
Well, with meatza, you’re full, and you feel like you can bend steel bars. Plus you don’t feel like you need to eat the other half two hours later.
Now, if you don’t eat meat, I can’t help you. But be careful, I might eat you
May 19, 2010 at 12:37 pm
@Brett
Meat Pizza? Oh, be still, my beating heart! That sounds like MY kind of meal!
You should definitely try the “Meat Lovers” pizza then, at the neighboring town. It’s one inch thick and there’s hardly any crust.
You would have approved of last night’s dinner. Fresh caught fish fried in oil and butter. (Living off the LAND!) And even some Veggies.
I didn’t have any of the fries. (Not so much because I was so disciplilned, but because they were freezer burnt and shitty!)
You should definitely try the “Meat Lover’s Pizza” next time you’re in the neigbourh
May 19, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Brett- You know, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this paleo-diet of yours and I’m wondering if you’re considering the fact that the paleo people’s lifestyle was very different from ours as, I imagine, were their digestive systems. In the same way as people in the arctic can eat globs of saturated fats and be perfectly healthy – in fact NEED such a diet — while people in more temperate climates would not be able to process such a diet healthily
May 19, 2010 at 6:30 pm
@XUP,
I have considered it, and I do not believe from my own research that there is any logical reason why we eat what “we” consider as normal, other than that’s what our ancestors ate because it was what they could find.
The “Western” diet you might eat seems to have evolved from a people who worked very hard outside, farming etc. – do you do that? Likely not, and I seriously doubt that your diet is much different from your ancestors 200 years ago, who no doubt did much more physical things than you do today.
It doesn’t necessarily “fit” with what we “should” be eating according to our lifestyle.
Moreover, we live in a temperate climate here, as did some of the First Nations people in Western North America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Salish#Diet
Have a look at what they ate – other than the fact that my lean protein comes mostly from land critters (supplemented with healthy oils) vs. them getting their lean protein and oils combined from seafood, it seems that we are eating much in the same way – and I only have to look at the results.
I have more energy, and my body has become very lean and strong.
I used to eat the way that “normal” people eat in our society and I was very heavy.
Now, you might say, “but Brett, you watch what you eat now” – I do, for nutrition, but I eat A LOT. I now know that I wasn’t getting enough protein for my lean body mass by following Canada’s Food Guide, for instance.
In addition…
“Normal” people in our society eat peanut butter.
But some people cannot.
Has anyone ever thought that maybe, just maybe, people who respond well to a Paleo diet are NOT able to properly process a “normal” Western diet? Maybe some of us are more sensitive to grains and refined sugars than others.
I know now that I am.
In any case, I am happy with the results. If you want to keep eating grains and breads because you like to eat them, go for it, I’m not stopping you.
But I’m not going to eat something just because the government tells me it is “good for me”.
I tried that for 40 years – didn’t work.
May 19, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Yeah, but didn’t I catch some pretty good fish, though?
May 19, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Yes, you certainly did. You’d make a great Coast Salish (and given your love for BC, you should become an honorary member!)
I figure if you could survive eating nothing but fish and a few other things you found living out there, you probably would…
May 19, 2010 at 9:11 pm
@Brett
There’s something gratifying about feeding yourself with something you caught.
It satisfies the Great Hunter/Bushman within me.
Ugh. Friar Catch fish. Then eat. GOOOOOD.
May 19, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Friar didn’t mention about the large pike that got away. He caught a monstrous fish which was at least 30 inches, if not longer. It was ugly as hell. Friar’s net wasn’t large enough to haul the critter out of the water. The pike put up a fight then swam under the canoe and hooked itself up in the chain which held our dinner. It thrashed around and eventually got free and swam away.
May 20, 2010 at 6:39 am
Put another way (after having offered up some sausage and eggs to my wife for breakfast)…
I’ve heard from more than a few people this:
“How can you eat such heavy food first thing in the morning? All I can stomach is cereal!”
Hmm.
When did we become genetically predisposed to consuming what is a sort of “ground up grass”, bathed in the refrigerated breast milk of an alien species?
Now *that’s fucking weird*, if you think about it.
But “we” think it is “normal”.
May 20, 2010 at 7:55 am
Those definitely look like some might fine fish, Friar. Adn Brett, I actually can’t stomach cereal or anything sweet first thing in the morning either and I do make sure to have plenty of protein in my diet and very few, if any, simple carbohydrates. And I think you’re right that not every body responds the same way to every food. And you’re definitely right that Canada’s Food Guide is just odd (although the latest version has made some interesting improvements). I’m just not convinced that the majority of our diet should be animal proteins and fats. But hey, if it’s working for you inside and out, then who am I to argue.
May 20, 2010 at 8:05 am
@Brett
Especially, when that “ground up grass” takes months to grow, all that tending to and weeding. Plus a huge ammount of labor to harvest and grind into a fine, edible powder. And futher needs a bacteria culture to generate CO2 bubbles to make it spongy enough to eat.
That’s a lot of effort, verus hunting/gatething.
@XUP
I can’t stomach ANYTHING first thing in the morning. I know I’m supposed to eat a big breakfast, but I can’t.
You should see how Brett’s slimmed down, though. I’m tempted to try his diet himself.
May 20, 2010 at 9:10 am
I guess we all have our own points of view, which is a good thing.
Maybe this is another way of looking at it, as my sister and her husband are vegetarian, so they must get their protein from other sources – mostly tofu, beans, lentils and so on as they don’t eat eggs either (for humane reasons) – basically, they’d have a tough time surviving on truly natural sources of food in this part of the world if not for modern technology, in my opinion.
They seem more tied to technological conveniences than someone who gets protein from animal sources.
Think about it – civilization collapses, and you’re not a meat eater? What are you going to do for protein while you’re waiting for your bean crop to mature?
I know what I’ll be doing
As much as it seems unnatural to you to eat the way I do, so I see a vegetarian diet as alien – a choice we are free to make because of our wealthy society.
(Now, in case I sounded like an ass there – if I lived in a place where it was hard to obtain meat, obviously I wouldn’t be eating as much of it as I do – I realize how fortunate I am to be able to go to a butcher shop and buy it. That being said, if I suddenly had to obtain all of my protein and fat and so on myself, I sure as hell wouldn’t start growing bean curd – I’d go deer hunting, and fishing.)
May 20, 2010 at 11:13 am
Yes Brett, if ‘civilization collapsed’ we probably *would* all have to become meat eaters.
But we wouldn’t be hunting animals (what little would be left)…we’d be eating each other. It’s easier.
May 20, 2010 at 11:53 am
@Karen
I wonder what would be tastier?
Sedentary humans, who sit at cubicles all day? They’d probably be soft and tender?
Or healthy athletic ones (though I suspect their meat would be tough and stringy!)
Or
May 20, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Well, the soft cubicle workers would probably be easier to catch.
They’re already contained too. Like fish in a barrel.
May 20, 2010 at 12:33 pm
@Karen JL,
You know I was thinking that, right? I just didn’t want to offend anyone…
Plus, once my neighbours are all gone (*BELCH!*) I’d still need to hunt
May 20, 2010 at 12:34 pm
@Karen
Kinda like they’re kept penned in. Like veal.
May 20, 2010 at 12:43 pm
@ Friar – Well, the equivalent of veal would be daycare centers and orphanages.
…Where the kids are chained down.
It’s the cruelest meat, but YUM!
May 20, 2010 at 12:49 pm
@Karen
I dunno…I prefer my children free-range.
May 20, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Brett- How collapsed is this so-called collapsing civilization going to be? Because there’s a lot of stuff to eat out there that just grows wild that you don’t necessarily have to cultivate and wait for. I’m sure even Paleo man supplemented his diet with grasses and roots and nuts and berries. Many of the biggest, strongest mammals in the world are almost exclusively vegetarian — horses, elephants, giraffes, cows (and pretty much all the animals humans eat). So I wouldn’t agree that a vegetarian diet is “unnatural”.
May 20, 2010 at 2:52 pm
@XUP
Yes, but those strongest mammals have big molars and specially-developped digestive tracts designed to process all that grass and plant material.
May 20, 2010 at 4:30 pm
@ Friar – And *real* carnivores don’t have to cook their meat.
May 20, 2010 at 5:57 pm
@Karen
Kid Tartare…. <—- Yum!
May 20, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Paleo woman
did eat roots and nuts and berries, and “grasses” e.g. leaves. As do I, and lots of it.
What I’m railing against are *grains*.
And I didn’t exactly say I thought a vegetarian diet was unnatural – I said it was alien – let me explain.
I tend to think of humans as omnivores – and we are.
We can eat just about anything. And I think we should eat all kinds of different things – but things that are not too far removed from their natural state.
A carrot. An apple. A potato. A big piece of ass from a recently clobbered buffalo. A nice fish. An egg. Some berries.
So this is why I think a vegetarian diet is kind of “alien”. Unless you had an allergy, I don’t think you’d choose to not eat meat were it available if you were Paleo woman.
To be fair, I guess Paleo man would eat a bowl of cereal if he found it – but it is *not a natural food*.
That is not the natural state of the food. To get it into an easily edible state requires a lot of processing. Maybe Cheerios is like “oat hot dogs”.
I believe that a lot of the grain-based stuff we have available to us today is sort of “dangerous” if people are not careful.
It is too refined. High-test. Like crack cocaine.
Waaaay too much energy in it, if you’re not careful.
That part is unnatural, in my opinion at least.
(In a similar vein, if someone ever makes a “distilled meat”, you know, kind of like 80 proof meat vs. normal meat, I don’t think we should eat it!)
May 20, 2010 at 6:54 pm
OK, Brett. I can agree with that. Like salami or hot dogs? I don’t suppose you eat those.
May 20, 2010 at 7:15 pm
XUP – no, I don’t. I used to, but not any more.
If the food is packaged and has an ingredients list, if it has more than four ingredients, I won’t eat it.
Also, I’m a chemical engineer, so I know what most of the stuff in there is.
Now. If you took locally sourced pork, ground it up and put it in a *real* sausage casing (Yum! Intestines!), with a few spices and no preservatives, I’d eat that. Homemade sausage is probably okay. Yes, a bit removed from the Real McCoy, I admit.
Then again, we tend to just eat the pork as a roast or grilled chops.
May 20, 2010 at 9:55 pm
I still like hot dogs.
I know it’s a lot of bone-meal and anus-meat.
But I still like them.
May 20, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Here’s the ones to eat if you like hot dogs:
http://www.hebrewnational.com/products/hot-dog-beef-franks.jsp
No anus meat.
May 20, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Yeah…where can I get THOSE?
NOT at our local Cheezi-Mart, I suspect.
May 20, 2010 at 10:24 pm
I bet the old butcher shop that burned could have ordered them.
Dammit.
May 21, 2010 at 7:04 am
You could try tofu-dogs, Friar. No anus in those either. And really, when you BBQ them, slap ‘em on a bun and pile condiments all over them, you won’t be able to tell the difference. Really. I promise.
May 21, 2010 at 10:13 am
@Brett
Figures…one of the few really good stores in the area. And it gets torched.
@XUP
I have a tofu dog once. (Someone threw a few on the BBQ…I didn’t realize until after I started to eat it…).
Frankly, I think I’d rather have anus-meat.
May 21, 2010 at 10:48 am
I kind of understand tofu substitutes, and I kind of don’t.
I mean, if I absolutely *hated* the taste of carrots or had ethical problems with eating them, I wouldn’t create a synthetic carrot made out of powdered beef.
Know what I mean?
I just wouldn’t eat carrots or anything that looked like a carrot.
(Yes, I know that the tofu is eaten for the nutritional content too – I’m just being a dork!)
May 21, 2010 at 12:23 pm
@Brett
Good idea.
I’d love to see more meat-based vegetable substitutes.
May 21, 2010 at 12:48 pm
There are people who won’t eat meat substitutes either. I never disliked the taste of meat — I didn’t like much of it. I liked beef and stuff like hot dogs and burgers and bacon, but that’s about it. So it’s nice once in a while to have something that tastes sort of like it. It doesn’t compromise any ethics to eat something that resembles the thing you won’t, ethically, eat. Otherwise you wouldn’t eat jelly babies either.
May 21, 2010 at 3:12 pm
How do you know I *don’t* eat real babies?
(I was just teasing you, XUP. Here’s something you might not expect – do you know the burger chain “Lick’s”? My fave burger there is their veggie burger – the Nature Burger. I think it tastes better than their “real” burger or at least is more consistent, perhaps. Once you load it up with everything you can’t tell the difference in my meat-eating opinion… So there, right from a Paleo guy!)
May 21, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I know. I love the Lick’s veggie burger. We had a Lick’s in Ottawa for about a week afer I moved here, then it closed down. The Lick’s veggie burgers you can buy in the grocery store aren’t the same at all. A lot of veggie burgers are crap. McDonald’s once had one for a very short time that was absolutely the worst veggie burger ever made. It was probably one of the top 3 most horrible things I ever tasted.
May 21, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Gee, I never thought I’d be writing a food blog!
May 21, 2010 at 5:04 pm
@XUP,
Agreed, the McD’s one was terrible. The Harveys one was okay last time I tried it.
@Friar,
Hey – what’d you expect, you showed us a pic of some tasty fish and made us hungry!!!
May 21, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Now I got a craving for a Licks Burger.
Too bad the nearest one is 5-6 hours away from here.
(Sigh) Everything of any value is 5-6 hours way from here.
May 21, 2010 at 6:41 pm
@Friar,
I suppose, eh? Well, a Piggie Burger is a close second
May 23, 2010 at 7:55 am
Let’s all move to Ta-rawnna!!
May 23, 2010 at 12:21 pm
@XUP
No…I’d rather eat a tofu dog than move to the Big Smoke.