Incredible, It’s Edible

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My grandfather, Oscar Bessonette, fished all his life and owned several bait and tackle stores in Manhattan Beach, California. The first was a bait shack he constructed on the end of the municipal pier. It sported a sign that said “If They Swim — We Have the Tackle To Catch Em.” He lost his pier lease in 1926 and moved, to a two-story building  on Manhattan Beach Boulevard, at the entrance to the pier. He named his store “Oscar’s Surf Club,” and remained there until he lost his lease in 1956 when the state decided they wanted the land for a parking lot. He gave us most of his leftover fishing tackle to use on our sailing trip, some of which later came in handy as trade for food, or souvenirs, along the way. The photos above are from Images of America, Manhattan Beach Pier, compiled by Jan Dennis.
INCREDIBLE, IT’S EDIBLE
On board our sailboat Discovery the continuing conversation at breakfast, (mostly oatmeal with raisins), was always: “What’s for lunch?” When we found it, cooked it, and ate it, someone always asked: “What’s for dinner”?

Foraging for food was central to our way of life.

During our family’s incessant search for meals all manner of sea life, including sharks, cowered in fear when we dropped anchor. In the open ocean, throughout the intertidal zones, and in dark coastal mangrove swamps, the word was out–“here come the Hungry Hogan’s.”

Guided only by the sonar of our growling stomachs, we harvested myriads of edible marine life: most accessible, some unusual, but all nutritious and free for the taking. Necessity taught us how to turn it into a gourmet meal and our logbook reflects our appetites. At last count the logbook list included sixty-three different species of fish, fifty-three of which we caught, cooked, and consumed.

“If wishes were fishes we’d have scales on our teeth,” was our sea shanty. I don’t know who in the crew coined this magical phrase, but it grew into our personal piscatorial incantation. As traditional (to us) as the Star Spangled Banner before a football game, we sung it as we sat around the cockpit waiting for the aquatic animals to bite.

Sometimes, the fish just laughed at our efforts, but on most occasions we had all the seafood we could eat.

“Hawkeye!” was the call to action when a fish actually took the hook in its mouth. A traditional code word, it meant, simultaneously:“ We’ve got a fish, the vang’s straightened out and the line’s taut, call Dad, get the gaff, come up into the wind so we can haul it aboard, grab the hook disgorger, make some tartar sauce, and cancel reservations at Fisherman’s Wharf.”

On any successful passage we ate fresh fish every day.

On our way from Mexico to Costa Rica, just offshore of Cocos Bay we encountered a huge school of dolphinfish in a feeding frenzy, and caught them until our arms were sore.

Bob wrote in the logbook: “dolphin in the five-to-ten-pound class are so thick off the stern that it’s absolutely impossible to drop a bone jig, feather, or anything else in the water without getting a hookup in the first 20 seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it.” The following day, we encountered the school again and Bob wrote “…more dolphin around the boat than I have ever seen. We’ve decided to take some into port with us to give to whoever might be there. The only word that fits is carnage. Dolphin are fighting for the jigs, running into the propeller and the hull. At one time there were about 50 of them in the air at one time.”

From Cocos, during the five days it took to reach our next stop, Quepos, we caught enough fresh fish to feast on finny flounder for fifteen meals in a row (a tongue twisting stomach-filler), for sure. The challenge was always: “How to cook it this time?”

After one particularly successful lunch, the diners: Bob, Robbie and Sharri, awarded me the Pectoral Medal of Honor (with Three Scales), denoting meritorious action in the galley for a recipe I named “Sole Food.” I generally leave recipes for other’s cooking blogs, but the one below is pretty tasty for a winter fish stew, and includes ordinary ingredients most sailors keep aboard:

Sole Food

1/2-cup butter, margarine, or vegetable oil

1/3 chopped green pepper (1/4 cup if dried)

2/3 cup finely chopped fresh onion. Use dried according to package directions

1/2-cup light brown sugar, or maple syrup

1/4-cup vinegar

One, 16 oz. can pineapple chunks

2 tablespoons corn starch

1/2-teaspoon salt

1-tablespoon water

1-2 lbs. freshly caught fish

2 tomatoes cut in wedges or 1 can whole tomatoes

1-1/2 cups rice cooked in 3 cups water with 2 tablespoons butter or margarine.

Melt butter in saucepan. Add green pepper and onion. Sauté until tender then remove from heat. Add sugar, vinegar and pineapple with juice.

Mix cornstarch, salt and water to a smooth paste and add to sauce, cooking well. Stir constantly until mixture thickens then set aside.

Poach fish in water, drain and add to sauce but don’t cook. Cook rice in water, salt and butter. Add tomatoes to fish and sauce. Spoon over rice. Should make 4-6 servings.

Aloha

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                                 (Above: Just a winter walk in the snow.)

I don’t know if you’re curious about why I end my emails and letters with the word “Aloha,” but I thought it might be an interesting blog today because this very Hawaiian word comes from a warm, tropical archipelago––located in the Tropic of Cancer about 20-degrees above the equator––where I lived for thirty-five years. And where I live now, in Blaine, Washington, just two miles south of the Canadian border, it’s cold, and snowing really hard.

We’ve lived in Blaine exactly six years and whenever it snows I’m reminded of Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz statement to her little dog, when she looks around Oz in amazement and says: “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

I miss Hawaii terribly. The longing to be there is constant, whether its snowing, or not. When people hear that we lived there for thirty-five years they ask, in amazement just like Dorothy, “why did you ever leave?”

The short answer is Terrorism. Or fear of it.

In 2000, Bob sailed our boat, Discovery, to Blaine, so we could cruise the San Juan and Gulf Islands. Previously, we’d made at least three trips to the area and checked the islands out thoroughly, or so we thought. We liked the places we saw and the people we met there, and thought it would be a great place to continue cruising when we retired. It is. Our original plan was to fly back and forth, from Hawaii to Washington for summer cruising, then back to Hawaii for the winter.

               (Above: Dogzilla wearing his orange snow shoes. He hates them.)

Our first cruising summer from June through September, 2000, was a lot of fun. Then we drove to California to see our children, and during that visit we learned that Bob needed a hip replacement.

“Why not get it taken care of in California?” we thought. And he did, in late August, 2001.

Ten days after Bob’s operation Al Qaida Terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers. Suddenly the world was all changed. Nine-eleven was a horrifying day for the world, for the United States, and for us.

A few days after 9/11 Bob accidentally stepped into a kiddie wading pool, broke his hip-replacement leg, and returned to the hospital, via ambulance, for emergency surgery.

Sharri, our flight attendant daughter was concerned about flying. We were scared, too. We began considering what could happen, flying back and forth to the islands, and that’s when we decided to sell our Hawaii house and live permanently on the Mainland. It was fear, pure and simple.

We bought a house in San Juan Capistrano and for the next few years we spent winters in Southern California and summers in Blaine. The terror chatter increased and    I grew afraid Los Angeles wasn’t safe enough either, so we bought a home in the Pacific Northwest, and moved north.

The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful, evergreen area, but…(sigh)…it just isn’t Hawaii. However, one day a few years ago I remembered something my late surfing friend Rell Sunn said when we were sitting on the beach at Makaha. At the time she was battling terminal cancer; she lost.

“We never tell people we love them enough,” said Rell. “So wherever I go and whatever I do, I always say ‘aloha.’” Rell took her aloha all over the world.

Among its many meanings, aloha means “love and affection;” it can also mean hello or goodbye. I found this definition on the Internet at www.To-Hawaii.com/aloha: “Aloha is a Hawaiian symbol and its meaning goes beyond any definition you can find about it in a dictionary. In Hawaii you hear aloha all the time and you are treated with aloha everywhere.” It also says “Aloha is a way of living and treating each other with love and respect. Its deep meaning starts by teaching ourselves to love our own beings first and afterwards to spread the love to others…Being able to live the Spirit of Aloha is a way of reaching self-perfection and realization for our own body and soul. Aloha is sending and receiving a positive energy. Aloha is living in harmony. When you live the Spirit of Aloha, you create positive feelings and thoughts, which are never gone. They exist in space, multiply and spread over to others.”

I’m no longer afraid of the terrorists. I say aloha to create positive thoughts, warm my spirit and spread the love, and the word makes me feel warm. So that’s why I always sign off with it––whether its snowing, or not. Aloha.

Costumes

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Ever since I returned to college I have been amazed, and often left speechless, by the outfits students wear every day to school. That’s probably because I’m what’s called “an older returning student” and I tend to dress conservatively, or put another way, appropriate for my age. No need here to reveal my age but it does exceed, by several decades, that of most other students who attend Bellingham’s Western Washington University. Dressing more for the climate I choose jeans, sweaters, jackets, suede boots, and scarves because, on the Canadian border, it’s usually cold during the school year.

In particular, one of the first things I noticed when I started school was that many of the female exchange students don’t dress for the weather. Instead, they wear tiny mini skirts over lacy black stockings with holes in them, and high-heels or fur-trimmed, knee-length boots. Puffy nylon jackets with fur collars top decolletage, covered with flashy jewelry. I imagine this is their first taste of freedom –– away from home, parental supervision, and a school uniform consisting of a white, buttoned-up blouse, dark skirt, dark blue jacket, black leather shoes, bulky white socks, and a scarf wound around their neck.

(In the interest of accuracy I decided to Google “Asian school girls” to check whether or not I was remembering the uniforms correctly. Whoops! Don’t go there unless you’re into porn.)

I had grown pretty blasé about unusual student costumes, until recently, when my husband accompanied me to school and waited in a campus restaurant while I attended class. We were to meet up after class, have lunch, and then go to an appointment. While waiting in the ordering line he suddenly noticed the young woman in front of me, wearing a pleated mini skirt, lacy black stockings and furry, high-heeled boots. But he was more conscious of her vintage, dress blue Navy jumper –– complete with military patches, distinguishing patches and white stripes on the cuffs. Naturally, as a former Navy man this would grab his attention. Every day I’m at school I wish I had my camera, because there’s always someone wearing an outfit I would love to take a picture of, for what I think would make a wonderful photo essay.

Yesterday, for example, I noticed a colorful student –– resplendent in a long, red women’s coat –– with huge lapels in the front and large pleats in the back, held in place by a wide belt and two round, white plastic buttons. On his head was a yellow wool Pakol cap.

On his feet, poking out from under the coat, were plastic muck out boots and, finishing off this elegant ensemble were leather aviator glasses with green lenses.
Sometimes, I feel like I’m in some kind of weird dream, which may be why I awoke from a deep sleep this morning and, still in a fog, rushed to get to my 8 a.m. book club. When I walked in I headed straight for the caffeine, while at the same time noticing that one member was wearing a chef’s white jacket and toque

while another was decorated with plastic flower leis.

“I didn’t know she worked as a chef,” I thought, knowing that particular woman loves to cook. “She must be going to Hawaii,” I reasoned of the other. It never occurred to me it was our Halloween meeting. What’s worse, I didn’t really notice anything out of the ordinary on any of the other club members, EVEN THE ONE SITTING ACROSS FROM ME WITH A STUFFED, HOT PINK FLAMINGO ON HER HEAD. I was in jeans and a sweatshirt –– the only one not in costume. I guess I’ll just have to get over my conservatism and assemble my own outrageous outfit for Halloween.

College on a Magic School Bus

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For the past seven years returning to college has been anything but easy for me. Every quarter there is at least one new challenge––not including the class work––especially when you’re a senior citizen with a septuagenarian brain, like me. Well, Wednesday Western Washington University’s fall quarter began and was certainly no exception.

To make it even more knotty, last night I watched Dancing with the Stars, then wrote and researched on the computer, then read a book instead of going to bed early. When the alarm went off next morning I was stuporous. I wanted only to go back to sleep.

Instead, I brewed a strong cup of Bellingham’s own “Wakey Wakey” tea then tried to turn on my computer to see if there were any relevant school messages. But my wireless mouse was near death’s door, (poor thing), so I gave it two double AAs (batteries, not Aspirin) and logged in. The clock was ticking and by the time I finished checking my email (no urgent messages) and my bank account (no more money in it than the day before), it was 8 a.m. I was running late. Zilla needed to be fed and walked. I needed to be fed, hop in my Magic School Bus and make the half-hour drive to campus.

Naturally, when I tried to shut down my computer it wouldn’t turn off. I resorted to “force quit,” (sounds so violent) and the screen turned black JUST as I remembered I was supposed to check my wait list status on WEB4U to see if I’d actually made it into the class I was planning to attend in an hour––Editing and Publishing.

I re-booted the computer and couldn’t log in. Now my password wasn’t working.

What next, I thought? These little snafus were getting to me. I could call the student help desk but I was seriously late so I quickly fed and walked Zilla, made myself a protein shake and together the shake and I hopped into my Magic School Bus. I could drink it on the way.

My plan, if you could call it that, was to quickly stop by registration and check to see if I’d made it into the class. I stopped… I didn’t.

I was still wait listed, so I went to the classroom and “showed up,” as the professor had earlier advised.

The classroom––in the basement of a cement building–––was a small, windowless bunker, (great for possible nuclear events), with three rows of desks, a roll-up movie screen and a whiteboard. Every chair was occupied, but one very polite, younger, (of course) male student gave me his chair. I sat down.

The course description said the class was open to 20 students only on a priority scale as follows: declared Creative Writing majors (I wasn’t one), declared English Department majors (I wasn’t one), seniors (I wasn’t one), and juniors. (I was one).

I spoke to the professor, and her worrying comment was that at least 10 others were wait-listed, (totally discouraging). People were still walking in the door and taking seats on the floor. The professor called roll and 20 enrolled students answered. Then she called wait list names, and every wait list student was present, too. At this point the professor explained she would be teaching the class next spring, and suggested it might be easier to get in then. (Because of the economy and so many people out of work, this is a phenomenon in almost every community college and university today as people return to college to “re-career.”)

I was sick with apprehension.

The professor studied the list and appeared to make some calculations. Absolutely certain I wouldn’t make it, I was trying to steel myself so I could “graciously” handle not getting in the class. She called one girl’s name and told her she was in. Then she looked at me and said quickly “Carol, I’ll put you in, too.”

I almost fell off my chair. I was so happy I wanted to jump up and down (I waited until I got home to do that.) Whew! Another challenge overcome.

The moral of the story? Sometimes all you need to do is show up and the universe takes care of the rest, because you never know what will happen when you’re on a Magic School Bus.