My Kingdom for a Fillet Knife

Monday morning we fed the birds, made coffee and threw on some eggs to hard-boil. I decided that since Steve’s birthday cake needs to be refrigerated at least 24 hours before it can be plated, and is better once it’s sat in the fridge for awhile I’d make that, too. So back to the oven, sans temperature gauge. I tried the lowest setting, ‘cause this puppy gets hot, and the flame kept blowing out. So I went a tad higher, and the water bath the pan was set in was at a rolling boil. Holy crap, this is like cooking with a blast furnace. I have a cake that is probably lava-like in the middle and singed on top. Media Crema and some mango slices will hopefully hide a multitude of sins. We’re having company for Steve’s birthday dinner – Karl and Kimmie Mohr, the caretakers of this beautiful property. They are from Minnesota and have been here for 18 or so years. Good trade! So while I was working on the day’s blog, and long after the cake was blown out of the oven, Kimmie came by with an oven thermometer. Talk about a day late and a dollar short.

While I was waiting for cake to explode I sat in the air chair with the binoculars and noticed we had yet another new visitor to the yard, a Phainopepla. Do you think they could just use a common name, like silky flycatcher or something? Gorgeous, black jay sized bird with a substantial crest. He was at the top of a tree and the wind was blowing his crest around, like hair being blown by the breeze. I got a strong sense of my late sister-in-law Susan, and how her dark shiny hair used to fly in the wind. Free and happy. She wanted to retire to Cabo Pulmo, but Steve and I mused that Susan wanted to have retirement homes in easily a dozen places. Well, she gets to visit them all now, and I can only hope to catch a glimpse of her when we’re there, too.

We had another new addition to the yard today, what we think is an actual pack rat, not to be confused with my husband. Long tail, HUGE ears, quite cute. Happy to be in the brush under the feeders. The locals are getting quite comfy with us.

We decided that since we had what we thought was north wind for the day we would trek to Los Frialles, a beach that was protected on that side. Well, the wind turned west, but we ended up there anyway. It’s such a dichotomy; a gorgeous 2 ½ mile beach rimmed by mountains, turquoise blue water, a row of palapas on the beach, and a few nice homes set back on the south side, but no one is ever there. And the people who are there are in beat to shit RVs or camper vans, and we’ve all seen a few too many episodes of Breaking Bad to not feel weird about that. Weirder still were the trucks parked with the scales on the back. What the hell were these for? Well, it’s where the locals can sell fish, so they’re weighing fish, not meth. Some back-to-nature dude in one of the old camper vans did a bit of skinny dipping a little ways down the beach. Why is it the people who will actually skinny dip are never the ones you’d like to see naked? He was old, saggy, and so tanned you could have made a pocketbook out of him. But he’s livin’ da life, so good for him.

The locals have an interesting method of bringing in their boats. They start from about 30 yards out and head to the shore at full tilt, slamming the boats as far up on the beach as they can manage. You can hear the fiberglass screaming from half a mile away. Then they attach a rope to the back of a four-wheel drive pickup and drag it the rest of the way. It finally makes it onto a trailer and gets hauled away for the night. We saw them with some of their catch; I saw a 3-4 foot shark, and when we went to buy fish on our way out they had cabrilla, snapper, and a myriad of others on ice. We got about a 4 lb. cabrilla (spotted sea bass) for $7.

The sea birds are so happy to be there, for whatever scraps are around. Pelicans, gulls, frigates, turkey vultures, egrets, you name it. I felt like Tippi Hedren, after she had the breakdown when she walked out of the house and all the birds were jostling around her feet; hard to not get a little jittery. Hmm. Do I look like an anchovy?

We sat and ate lunch on the beach; egg salad in chipotle wraps with tomato and avocado. And cervesas. Corona con limon.

We watched a sea lion make his way from the north end of the beach to the south, popping up so we could get a look. From the size and head bump I’m going to guess an adult male. And we also saw some jumping rays, so not all of them left for colder climes. It made my heart happy to see them playing in the surf.

So I hadn’t cleaned a fish since Uncle Eddie was alive. He taught me how to do it at Mashpee, but the yellow perch was a lot more manageable than this good sized cabrilla. My kingdom for a fillet knife. There is no finesse in going at a gorgeous fish with a big, honkin’ chef’s knife. It wasn’t pretty but it got the job done. We ended up with two beautiful pinky-white fillets, which we grilled in a fish cage we found under the grill. I made a court bouillon with the fish head, fins and tail, a bit of onion, bay leaf, salt and pepper, and reduced it down to make a nice stock. I then made a sauce for the fish starting with a butter and flour roux, then deglazing using lime juice, tequila, cointreau, and the court bouillon. A bit more butter and a simmer to thicken, adjust the seasonings and voilla! Sea bass with margarita sauce. I served it with a salad of jicama, mango and orange dressed with lime zest, juice, crushed pepper and sugar boiled together to make a syrup. The hot syrup cooks the jicama just a tiny bit. Yummy. And we finally finished off the carrot cake.

Today would have been my Dad’s 92nd birthday. Those of you so inclined please say a prayer or send a wish for good in the world out into the universe. Or play a game of cribbage in his honor.

Paz y amor,