Four Flounders

This year we signed up for a fresh fish CSA from Cape Ann Fresh Catch. For those of you not familiar with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), they are a way for an producer of agricultural goods (think farms) to connect directly with their consumer by selling 'shares' of their products. So, we pay an annual fee and get a weekly distribution of food. We have a vegetable share, a meat share, a fish share and a wheat share.

In this case, we pay a group of fishermen to deliver a fresh catch of fish every week. Cape Ann Fresh offers a fillet or whole fish share. So, being the overly ambitious (or stupid) people we are, we, of course, must have the whole fish share. Because filleting your own fish is the hard core way to go, right? Plus, we get the bonus of carcass to make some delicious fish stock - nevermind we will have so much that we will need to bathe in it. We only started this last month, but so far we have had the pleasure of filleting a cod, scup, hake and this week, flounder.

And that's where we begin - four flounders, whole, with heads and guts. These pupies were swimming in the Atlantic this morning and they will be dinner tonight. That is fresh!

Thanks to this wonderful video by Chris Parsons the owner of a killer Winchester restaurant, Parson's Table (get there, you won't regret it and yes, the burger is so worth it.), I quickly became a flounder filleting machine!

That's right, four flounders produces sixteen beautiful fillets.

After a little thought, I decided to steam these over a little red sauce and pasta. All I did was reduce down a big can of diced tomatoes with a splash of balsamic, added a spoonful of basil pesto (from our reserves from lasts year's freezing) a couple of garlic cloves and some broccoli. After adding the cooked pasta, the fillets sat on top steaming for about 10 minutes.

The flounder was fresh, but it wasn't my favorite of the bunch. It didn't flake in nice chunks and the texture wasn't really firm. Good thing I have 12 more fillets to perfect my technique. The thing that always fixes up a fish is pan frying it in a lot of butter.

Out of the fish we tried so far, I think the hake tops my list, but the really, really fresh cod cannot be underestimated. I am definitely looking forward to summer.

Early Season Photos

So, I am not so sure about this whole blogging narcissism thing. I find it a bit awkward to write stuff assuming someone in the ether gives a shit about any of it. However, (and here's where I fly my hypocrisy flag really high), I do think we do some weird shit and I actually feel like remembering some of it as I go along my way. Being unable to keep a written journal that doesn't spiral into little more than "woke up, at breakfast. . . ", I decided to try this out. Perhaps I will maintain some interesting stuff, or maybe it will just fade away only to have it quietly archived into a mass of information. Here goes. . .

I thought photos were a good starting point for easing my way into this journal. As an early birthday gift, I got a new wide angle lens for the camera. So to kick things off, let me introduce you to the happenings and the cast of characters in the backyard.

This trusty stead is our 'guard' dog, Shaft. Not nearly as tough as he looks.

These are the ladies. . . Ricki, Sally, Oprah and Ellen!

The hive! Our Georgia queen, Queen Peaches, is hiding in there somewhere.

Oivind is trying out the new camera remote!

That's me. The beekeeper, by default because I didn't get stung on the first day.

And finally, the backyard. We recently took down the chainlink fence of imprisonment and are happily beautifying some public land that lines our property.