The Wildernizer

At left, public domain image of a turkey as hosted on wikicommons. Thanks Dimus. Nice snap.

It's Monday morning and Lou the foxhound and I are on our own this week. The smell of sausage in the pan fills the air and if I wasn't wandering into the office here in a bit I'd start the woodstove.

The Wildernizer.

I woke up this morning with the sound of spring turkey in my ears and the usual Kate Bush playing on the alarm. Weird dreams. I blame John Gierach.

I thought things had gotten a little soft around here last night as I climbed into bed. 

I was reading a camp cooking article from John Geirach in an issue of Fly Rod & Reel magazine: "Camp Food" (Spring, 2013) which had done a good job of capturing the observational humor of a fly fisherman and his vittles. The recipes which followed were about as urban-ified as to be in pure discord with John's preceding yarn but then, editors.

Gierach mentions a buddy in his article who cooks eggs sunny-side up in a fashion where the tops are raw and greasy and the bottoms so over-cooked as to require a knife to eat them.  With this image in my head, I turned to an adventure yarn and submarines under the polar ice caps reading too long for good measure because tomorrow was in fact Monday and I looked to end the weekend all too well rested unless something changed.

I awoke to the concept of the Wildernizer.

There's too much civilization wandering around this place. Lou and I cooked eggs and sausage on the all-electric range making coffee in a GSI Outdoors brand french press coffee-maker (the Keurig needs de-scaled and I won't do that until the night before Beargirl is due home .... just like laundry).

The Wildernizer is an environmental control app. iPhone certainly. Probably Andriod.

To make coffee in the morning, it requires one to at least light a match. Probably three. The NEST people are in cahoots so your electrical grid access is appropriately filtered for a taste of the wilderness experience.

No sulfur odor, no power to the range. Simple engineering. We've had smoke detectors since '80. Let's put 'em to use for something besides scaring the dog when the battery gets low and they start the occasional blatting business.

Instead of Holst or Vivaldi on the alarm, you get turkey gobbles, chirps, and an occasional sound of wingbeats from a big tom leaving the roost.

Snooze mode, you say? 

Truck door slams at the next campsite over as the virtual  fly fishing buddies leave early to catch the dawn midge hatch. Second snooze and you're rewarded with the Chevy Suburban from '76 that never quite catches on the first start. Big V-8's are like that; but, you'll have forgotten what with your second Prius and all.

The slider lets you adjust the "level" of wilderness in the experience. 

Push it a little to the right and the morning is enhanced by the smell of spring skunk having gone off a couple hundred yards away around 4 AM. Push it a little more to the right and the kitchen trash is knocked over and spread around --- just a bit -- from the virtual raccoon assistant [ probably an upcharge in-app purchase].

There's the "extended" mode which awakens you at 2 AM with the sound of snuffles outside the tent. Not perhaps "snuffles" but more like "SNUFFLES" of a large quadruped. Deer? Elk ? Bear? Newfoundland? [ Apologies to Patrick McManus. Your story stuck with me from the summer of '79 when I read it on an August night hot enough to sweat bacon still in the crisper drawer. ]

Push the slider all the way over and the virtualization of augmented reality kicks-in. That's no longer Cheeto -- your wife's cat -- trying to steal most of the bed all night long but a squirrel with a bad attitude you discover in a caffeine-deprived fog of half-dawn.

Yes, the app moderates the display illumination to ensure your experience is complete stumbling in the twilight of false dawn looking for your camp shoes you were sure you placed in the vestibule of the tent. Where could those have gone? Raccoon, again (definitely in-app purchase).

I haven't figured out quite how to make everything damp with the heavy dew of early spring. Maybe I should just go with frost. Those NEST folks come from the HVAC control world, after all.

Oh, yea. There's a market here. 

Look for it soon in the App Store. It's sure to get by the "approved" app-store filter of those turtle-neck wearing millennials at the Apple spaceship. Well, ...

Perhaps if I get the folks at REI to advertise inside the app it'll be more appealing to the gatekeepers of culture. Pop-up kayak ads? Hmmm. Sounds about annoying enough.

It's been a long winter already and I need to get into the field. So do you.

Prost.

Shore. Lunch.

At left, a taco - aka Carne Asada with a good does of style. Jon Sullivan took the snap and while it is hosted over at wikicommons, Jon let's us use the copyright-free photo for any reason at all.

I'm using it at left. Fine quality food porn.

I did a little fishing Saturday afternoon and the trout told me to come back in six or eight degrees. It was fun casting and fun to get out. Cold water, though. Nipped the teens here last week and while the ice is off, that didn't do much for warming the drift.

Could be worse. 16" won't be outside the forecast for the folks on the Au Sable and Manistee this weekend. No trout dash camp Saturday.

Shore. Lunch.

Two words. Important words. Words we trout fishermen too often ignore.

I'm done with cheese sandwiches and tinned oysters on the banks. Ok - you've got me. I'm not giving up tinned fish. Yes I like herring too and no, I'm not Scandinavian. I'm worse.

I look at something like the taco in Jon's snap and wonder why we - collective trout enthusiast we - have not done a better job with the culinary enjoyment of our outdoor activities. Sure, I'm usually excited too and yes I want to fish. I don't mind a decent meal, either.

I'm upgrading my game.

I've a day pack I can wear that's out of the way of my casting and landing fish. I've a little wood burning Solo stove (see link at right)  that will also take an alcohol burner. I've got light cookware.

That smell you detect out on the river will indeed be me making fajitas. I'll fry sausage and onions. I'll make a delightful creole rice. After dawn fishing that will be bacon and eggs.

I am rebelling against the cheese sandwich on the shore. Not. Going. To. Do. It.

We spend a mint of time and treasure - collectively or individually - on our gear. I've got more than fifty hours at the vise this winter (yes, I've got it bad this year)  and I've traded for different gear and I've bought a little, too. Overall, I've spent a substantial part of my off-season thinking, dreaming, and preparing for trout season.

I'm not even a "good" fisherman. I just like the outdoors.

When we're outfitting this year, we should consider our culinary enjoyment. Most of us can fry. Everyone can boil. Those two things and a little Thursday night preparation makes the Saturday shore lunch a fine event.

Hmm, tamales steamed stream-side and eaten out of their husks slathered in verde sauce.  Make it hot enough, it'll cut down the evening mosquitoes drifting in from the swampy parts.

Post dawn fishing omelette and coffee right on the river bank? Yes, I say. Yes!

Most of the food we love was invented for field eating, anyway. The French will fold an omlette cooked to leathery perfection into a piece of wax paper and put it in a jacket pocket before heading to the fields.

Pierogi? Pierogi!  Let's see ... butter, a skillet, a camp stove ... delicious.

We're miles from somewhere but miles are hardly a barrier to the willing. After all, we stand in cold water waving sticks. (Thanks to Mr. Gierach - brilliant line. Buy his books. All of them.). We can do with a little civilization out in the wilds.

Why shouldn't we trout fellows be known as much for our fine stream-side cuisine as for our delicate yellow sallies?

I say let's give the aluminum locusts something to stare at.

Hoist your fajita and say it with me: "I'm a trout fisherman and I'm not eating plain cheese sandwiches anymore!"

That is, if you can talk with your mouth full. (I've seen you guys at Spike's in Grayling. Some of you I know are up to the task.).

Prost.

Special thanks to Steve Bird for last week's plug over at his Soft Hackle Journal. Thanks, Steve. Have a fajita. Link to the Journal is over on the right. You should be reading it.

Oh, and Oberon is out. Already. I know! I'm going to have to ask Moberon about this development. It's Best Brown weather. Well, sacrifices must be made. I'm still recovering from excessive Hopslam-ing. Bell's Two Hearted: official beverage of the Amber Liquid crew. Drink some tonight yourself.

Shore Lunch

At left, a print from a glass-plate negative from the Brooklyn Museum donated to the public domain as having no known copyright restrictions. Image is on wikicommons.

The gentlemen anglers - suitably well-dressed for dry fly men - have lunch in 1900.

I sent my mother-in-law a Zingerman's rueben sandwich kit for Mother's Day. The Amber Liquid guys will probably be appalled (Zingerman's holds little cache with adopted locals. I think they've been spoiled by other US locations where good food abounds. It doesn't abound in very many places. Certainly, quality deli treats do not).

Amber liquid guys don't read this blog, anyway. They're living the life of adventure - which means they don't dream of fish at night as I do. I dream of other things too, but fly fishing is the nice part and I don't wake my wife when dreaming of it.

Sending the gift to Marion got me thinking about shore lunch.

Now, I'm fortunate in that my guides have fed well despite mixed encounters.

Mostly my guide problem stems from either not being prepared for the technical job at hand (bonefishing) or not wanting a new best friend (too numerous to count). I don't go fly fishing to have discourse about, well - anything. I'll take direction but I'm not wanting to play 20 questions and that's now (I am much more mellow now than say twenty years back).

All my guides have been good field cooks. Some qualify as amazing cooks. I personally have never had a bad guide cooked meal.

I almost foundered at the Hideway Lodge in Emo, Ontario a few years back prior to a flight out. Wow. What a breakfast. (Special order. I think our pike/walleye crew have used that card.).

Anyway.

Lunch I make myself  when fishing for trout tends to be cold and sparse. Maybe ham and cheese. Most likely some jerky and something else (survival ration?).

I'm going to change that this year. I might not have hot, but I'm going to have good.

Corned beef and swiss sounds pretty good. I like dry sandwiches for travel. I might have to go wet by separating the contents and doing field assembly. There's and idea.

I really want to get a solo stove and do a sausage-and-pepper-and-onion in pita type feast. [ link at right].

I'm trying to beat the gear-whore curse.

I bet fishing partners might be easier to tear away from whatever family obligation they have going with such a treat, though.

I'm going to think on this shore lunch business for trout.

Why should walleye guys have all the glory (and fried fish)?

Prost.