Tick season comes early to Ontario, Canada

 

The new Trump Sandwich, now popular in Canada

 

Happiness is a low-sodium, low-fat supper with rainbow trout fillet from Canada

About 40 mg natural sodium, 1.1 g saturated fat.

Oil the fillet on both the skin side and the flesh side in extra virgin olive. Season the flesh with salt-free lemon pepper. Bake at 450 F in a heavy pan for about 10 minutes. Serve with sautéed brussel sprouts and some basmati rice.

The whole dinner turned out to be just 78 mg sodium and 3.35 g saturated fat, mostly from the added butter and the canola oil used to saute the sprouts.

Happiness is the English language

Seen here:

English is by far the most powerful language. It is the dominant language of three G7 nations (USA, UK and Canada), and British legacy has given it a global footprint. It is the world’s lingua franca. Mandarin, which ranks second, is only half as potent. French comes in at third, thanks to its prestige standing in international diplomacy. Rounding out the top five are Spanish and Arabic.

Happiness is whole Rainbow Trout on the charcoal grill, at least that's what she said

I went to the fish counter at Meijer. They had two fresh farm-raised whole rainbow trout from Canada on ice in the display case. I said I needed four.

Tyler of handlebar mustache fame went in the back and brought out a sealed styrofoam box. He opened it and dug through the ice and pulled out four one-pounders for me. It doesn't get much fresher.

He wrapped them in freezer paper and tossed them to me so that I could say that I caught them.

At home I prepared a double-banked charcoal fire in the Weber.

The fish went into the big lasagna pan with copious amounts of canola oil to slick them up real well. Then I salted and peppered the cavities.

When the fire was ready the fish went onto the grill, heads over the coals on the one side, tails over the coals on the other. The lid was closed with the vents fully open.

The fish cook in about 9 minutes on a side. Turning the fish is a little tricky. Use two spatulas.

Prepare a garlic lemon butter for serving with the fish. Zest a lemon, chop the zest and place in a large bottomed bowl, press two cloves garlic into the bowl, and add about four tablespoons of butter. Cut it all together using a pastry blender and fill two small ramekins for sharing at your table for four. 

Serve each trout on a large plate after chopping off the head and tail, which you can save for the cats if you like.

Smother with the butter as you eat.

Our guest from France said it was the best trout she ever had.

I'm still blushing.

Radioactive Salmon?

The Vancouver Sun provides this discussion of the possible impact of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster on Pacific Ocean salmon:

Radioactive water leaking from a reactor at Japan’s damaged nuclear plants isn’t likely to harm [British Columbia] salmon because they don’t travel as far as the coast of Japan, said Nancy Davis, deputy director of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission.

“They tend to go to Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea, or maybe as far as the central North Pacific, but they are not maturing off Japan and swimming all the way back here,” Davis said. “Immature and maturing salmon are in the deep ocean, they’re not on the Japanese shelf or near the nuclear plant.”

She said it’s possible that Japanese chum salmon might be in the waters near the damaged plant, but that they would not be returning to Japan for another three or four years. Japan mostly produces chum salmon, which Davis said is very unlikely to be imported into British Columbia.

Davis said it is important to consider what elements are involved and what their half-lifes are, and how the salmon would come into contact with the radioactive materials.

Another [Simon Fraser University] professor said he could not say what the effects on salmon would be.

“Given the limited information available, I cannot even speculate about the effects of radiation leaking into the ocean. It is far too early to say anything with any confidence,” said Randall Peterman, SFU professor and Canada research chair in fisheries risk assessment and management.

For the rest of the article, which also discusses radioactive contamination of seaweed, go here.

We eat a fair amount of wild Alaskan salmon in our house, and will continue to do so.