The fisher among us

Having survived the grandest grandkids--and they, us--I can report that we accomplished most of the items on our list with the exception of two: we didn't walk to the park, or even go for that matter, and we didn't dig our own worms.

Which is the subject of this post: fishing, in general and Jack, in particular.

My mother-in-law loves to fish and is quite good at it, as was her father, and my brother-in-law Scott. Son Matt has the gift. The rest of us fall in the okay-category and I'm probably worse than that, but Saturday morning we found this next generation's champion, two-and-a-half-year-old Jack.

It's as if the fish were lining up to get a bite of the worm on his cane pole. Before granddad could get Emily's hook baited with a worm, Jack and I had let one get away and landed two catfish! We were in catch-and-release mode, so the fish were fairly safe, even if they did garner a sore throat from hook removal. By the time Emily had her pole in the water, Jack had brought in three perch!

Emily finally landed her own perch with granddad's help and we found ourselves out of store-bought worms. Jack, finding this enterprise to be too easy and declaring himself hungry (one should always eat ALL of one's breakfast before going on a fishing expedition and I didn't have the sense God gave most grandmothers to pack snacks), we gathered our poles and went back to the truck.

But we've found our fisherman.

Texas Co-op Power Magazine and me

The March issue of the Texas Co-op Power Magazine has my article on catfish buffets. It's the back page if you have a physical copy and it's here, if you read online!

I had so much fun researching this article and then writing it, so to finally see it in print------WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fried fish surprise

The article in yesterday's paper was from Pennsylvania. It seems the state has health codes which made homemade pies and cakes and other sundry items served at church suppers verboten unless baked in an inspected kitchen, such as the church's. The current dust-up has come when a Catholic church was cited during its weekly Lenten fish fries. Off the tables went the homemade goodies and a few store-bought ones appeared, but let's face, it wasn't the same.

To add insult to injury, the church down the block was carrying on as before. Rumor has it there's a bill in the state legislature to counteract this for charities, but that isn't helping the current Lenten fund-raising for the parish.

Well, I can see where this line of thinking might catch on and could very well spoil many a church fund-raiser. Will be watching it.

But what really caught my attention wasn't the above. In the article I read (and the above link is similar but not exactly it), It was this: When talking about how much fish they buy to fry, they weren't talking catfish, the swimmer-du-jour in the South. Oh, no, it was cod and haddock.

Really? I mean, I know the North considers some of our menu choices to be suspect (catfish as bottom feeders and black-eyed peas as cow fodder), but a fish fry without catfish? With, instead, that staple of the Luby's cafeteria line, cod?

I wonder if they serve hush puppies with that.