Goodies and Fish

“Goodies” are certainly different for different people. Phil and I agree on most topics but this one we standalone.

For me, and unfortunately my poor skin, I have been breaking out because of my dedication to goodies. Which has most recently been cupcakes. Here are some lemon cakes with strawberry frosting that I made for the resort. I modified the Joy of Cooking golden cake recipe, added the tasty makeshift frosting and sold every last one. Three dozen in two days is pretty good for me up here. I have become known as the “cupcake pusher.”

Here are the “Freedom Cakes” I made just for today, the Fourth of July. A collective effort. I make the lemon cakes and loganberry frosting while Casey made the delicious strawberry jam filling.

I love just about anything with sugar. For Phil, a goodie is a much more back-to-nature, wild and primal experience. Fishing. Sugar isn’t even a basic ingredient. Phil and Steve, a resort employee and good friend, have been trying to catch an illusive monster brown trout.

I would be hung if I reviled the location of the fish, now named Hank.

After logging many hours over the course of weeks and trying many different flies and lures, one of which looked like a little mouse, Phil departed the resort around 9 p.m. and came back victorious. He caught Hank. Hank did give a good fight but Phil used his master fisherman skills and fought back. Phil being a fly fisherman and like most fisherman of this type, upholds the highest of moral fish standards. He nursed Hank back to health, holding him underwater, moving him back and forth filling his gills with water until he was able to swim away.

Phil wasn’t able to sleep that night after being so filled with adrenaline. Something I totally don’t understand but really admire and love about him.

Since then, Phil has become a self-proclaimed steward of the home water source and surrounding area of Hank. Picking up trash and going late in the evening to see if Hank is still swimming around happy and healthy, which he is. Phil doesn’t know the exact size of Hank but he thinks somewhere around 5 lbs and 20 inches. Caught on a jointed rapala. He said he would of liked to have caught him on a fly rod but resorted to a spinning rod out of slight desperation. A real prizewinner nonetheless. I’m talking about Phil and Hank here although I know I am a prize winner too having a catch like Phil.