hooklineandskillet

Fishing the Florida reefs

Posted on January 24, 2014 by johncoleman95

Went to palm beach. Saw boats. Had to fish. Pics below.

Great fishing out on the Atlantic coast of Florida. We signed up to go out on the Sea Horse. We would be bottom fishing with chunks of Sardines. We got to the dock and met Captain Lee. It was about 45 degrees and he immediatly pegged us as northerners. Our shorts must hVe been the tell. Lucky for us captain lee sports a thick Long Island accent. After a few salty words out of his mouth about how freekin cold it was he explained that he came down here from comack longs island. He was well versed on fishing the east end and many stories were shared over the 4 hour trip. We headed out to a spot just west of the Gulf Stream. A nice 30 min cruise out there. The wind was suppose to be out of the west but clicked a few degrees north and was churning up the water. After picking off a few rose porgies in 200 feet of water. The cavu crowd was satisfied. We were hardy souls used to four minute early spring drifts through the gut that might as well be a white water rafting river in wester Virginia; no bites and a hell of a ride. A few slow drifts and some action and we’re were content. Dinner was already on ice. After slugging it out for an hour captain lee and deck hand Jacob (could have survived a weekend skiing the way he was bundled up yet still “cold”) decided to head in shore. We headed north to about 100′ of water. Cpt lee had the holes marked. Along the way fishing legend and local chef Jeff Simms shared some smoked Spanish mackerel he whipped up. It. Was. Good.

Great for Bluefish,Sailfish, Amberjack and Mackerel.

Enough for 5 lbs

4 Cups Dark Brown Sugar
1 Cup Kosher Salt
1/4 Cup Granulated Garlic
1/4 Cup Onion Powder
1/8 Cup Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1/8 Cup Ground Black Pepper
1/4 Cup Soy and Worchestire Mixed

Mix dry stuff and rub generously on fish in a baking dish, sprinkle soy mix over top.
Place more dry stuff on top. Brine for two days, it will melt so move fish around to keep it even.

Smoke at 160 for 4 or 5 hours. Hotter if fish is thick, especially in the last hour or will be mushy.

Tight Lines My Friend,

Jeff Simms, Executive Chef
The Breakers Palm Beach
One South County Road
Palm Beach, FL 33480
http://www.thebreakers.com

Posted in Fishing, Travel | 2 Comments

Skiing Okemo -NYE 2013

Posted on January 4, 2014 by johncoleman95

I was fortunate enough to get a few days off of work to celebrate the coming of 2014 and the conclusion of 2013. We headed north to spend 5 days in the mountains of Vermont. After getting almost 17 days of skiing in last season the bar was set pretty high. We broke in our legs the first 2 days and lucked out with some 8 inches of snow fall on Sunday night. Monday we got first tracks and skied hard. I took the plunge and picked up a new pair of boots. I also got some killer hestra gloves for Christmas. File both under “You gotta have the right tools”. I guess I can now say I’m a full on skier.

Total stats for the first 5 days:
Vertical decent: 36,607 ft
Miles covered: 40.9
Top speed:44

Pretty good start seeing that total vertical decent last year was 95,902

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!!Christmas Day!!

Posted on December 25, 2013 by johncoleman95

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Christmas Poem

Posted on December 25, 2013 by johncoleman95

Christmas isn’t about “me me” but I’m guna get it going with the memes of 2013. Oh bieber her we go. Hunger games soared, j law tumbled.

Orange is the new black but sharkado is the new yeezus.

Hold on let me insta retweet that. I hope you like it… on Facebook. Wait wait wait. The lines are blurred. That not the filter I wanted but lets keep this filtered. NSA maybe watching. Watching watching slowden. I mean snowden. We are going, to fast, to furious…. Too soon? To soon for Mandela. Too soon

Tweeting twitter twerking, kimye, north westing, Kensington royal baby a poppins mr bates saving. pope no longer gay hating. iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5c, 5 cloud, what cloud. Get off my cloud. Bringing it back to basics, to classics to interacting, laughing, story telling, lesson learning generations meshing. Family.
But at the end of the day
And the end of the year
All you really need
Is to keep warm those you hold dear.

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“Russ, Russ, Get The Mackerel”

Posted on December 23, 2013 by johncoleman95

After getting a hot tip from Bucktailin Billy that Russ & Daughters Appetizers had the best herring around, I knew I had to make the trip. Russ & Daughters is located on the lower east side of Manhattan on East Houston street a few store fronts away from Katz’s deli. I had walked by a ton of times and knew its reputation I just never felt the pull. After whiping up the Wallace Mustard 2 weeks ago I have been on a real interesting food kick. On Friday Katie and I had Filipino food for dinner at Maharlika(lechon was awesome as were the traditional condiments). That was an adventure I will save for another post but after something so foreign I wanted something a little more familiar. Sunday seemed like a great German/Jewish type of day. It’s was warm for December and overcast. We walked a few blocks down to Houston and into the crowded deli to pick our number from the classicly placed round red dispenser atop the deli counter. We were D62, the big light up screen read 44, not bad. It was quickly pointed out to us that they were calling C44. Eek. We were looking at a hour and a half wait!

Knowing the high standards of my client base I knew this place must be worthy of the wait. Half the people on line were from the neighborhood. Everyone hung around outside, spoke yitish, and created small talk. It was like a Tuesday in the office. Piece of cake. After a good while my number approached. I had examined the menu, picked up local tips (peppered mackerel), and outlined my full order in my note book. 5 herring fillets with cream and onion, 5 no cream, (side singles of each for me!), half lb of chicken liver, quarter lb of chicken liver, half lb of Whitefish, and 4 pepper mackerel fillets. What impressed me most about the herring was how fresh and clean the flavor was. The filets were hand cut, cream and onion added when ordered not days before. This was a far cry from the store bought premixed cans/jars. Unbelievable.
Sunday night we had a full spread of Riesling, beer, kielbasa, wallace mustard, pretzels, asparagus with shallots and figs, mushroom perogies, pickled herring, whitefish salad, chicken liver, and mackerel. It was incredible.

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The Making Of The Mustard – 2013

Posted on December 16, 2013 by johncoleman95

This weekend I had a hankering for something tasty. I wanted some sweetness, some spice, and a little tradition. It had to be versatile- equally good as a dip or a condiment; a spread or a dressing. There was only one thing that would fit the bill- home-made “Mother’s Mustard” AKA “Wallace Mustard” AKA crack. I was down in Princeton NJ at Katie’s apartment and as the snow began to fall we headed out to Trader Joe’s to pick up heavy cream, eggs, sugar, vinegar, and a bunch of other secret ingredients. We already had the Coleman’s Mustard Powder on hand. We got back to the apartment and fired up the double boiler. In no time we were boiling, whipping, and dipping pretzels all along the way. The first batch was traditional while the second had a bit of honey added. After jarring the batches we wrapped some twine around to add a special touch. The first was given to Katie’s boss as a gift… lets hope she likes it as much as I do.

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Big moves @ THE BIG HOUSE

Posted on November 30, 2013 by johncoleman95

Ari and I took a business trip to The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI for rivalry weekend. Friday night we checked out the Michigan v Ohio State hockey game at Yost Arena. Michigan edged out a very exciting overtime win. Saturday we got up early to make the walk down State Street to the big house where we met up with 113,511 of our closest friends. In a hard fought game Michigan was down by a touchdown with 30 seconds left against the number 3 team in the country. Ohio hasn’t lost in 23 games and was the heavy favorite. After punching in a touchdown, Brady Hoke asked his seniors what they wanted to do: Kick an extra point and go to overtime or go for 2 points and the win. They came up short on the two point conversion but there is no doubt they left it all on the field.

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Giving Thanks – 2013

Posted on November 29, 2013 by johncoleman95

We made the annual pilgrimage (sorry I had to) to Guildford Ct on Thursday morning to celebrate Thanksgiving with the whole clan. Cindy was a gracious host once again. All the crazy sisters had been tasked with what they were each in charge of bringing. Their culinary expertise well honed after years of parties, holidays, mass family gatherings. Equip these women with a Costco card and a heat source and they can feed a football team on a level that is worthy of a food network special (Title: Cooking Through Chaos). Nana, the leader of the pack, brought the famous rice stuffing. The youngest generation fell in line as we have been trained to. We tackled the prep, presentation, and Mt Gay consumption with vigor. No small dog underfoot or hilarious maternal jab could slow us down. Connor and I whipped up some “Wallace mustard” and “boozy balls”, CIA trained Justin was in charge of the brine, baste, and general oversight. Austin, as he has since he was 4 years old, made apple sauce from scratch to perfection. Maggie and Laura chopped, whisked, and sipped with a grace none of the young men could come close to possessing. We also snuck in a tray of pigs in the blanket, as is the tradition.

The main man event went down outside around kitchen stadium north. A monster turkey, after being treated to a 12 hour brine, was lashed to the rotisserie spit for a 3 hour high temp smoke. Another smaller brethren of turkey number 1 was also brined 12 hours and got the expedited treatment in 3 gallons of 450* peanut oil. Between the two cooking stations we had a roaring fire to take the bite out of the air. As the sun began to set we heard the victory cries of the wild turkeys taking their nightly perch up in the trees – they had made it through another year. As the food was laid out across the long table, we too took our perch for the evening and reflected on what we had to be thankful for..the most important of which was all around us

Brine below (updates to follow):

For the fryer – 1 pound salt, honey, 4 bay leafs, 20 peppercorns, Which one? The fried one was 1 pound salt, honey, 4 bay leafs, 20 peppercorns, gallon apple cider, gallon stock, 1/2 pound ice.

For the smoked: 1 pound salt, 3 oranges, 3 apples, 15 cloves, 15 peppercorns, 2 sprigs of thyme and rosemary each, the a gallon of apple cider, gallon of stock, 1/2 pound ice

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Bonus Day – Tautog Taken Off Fisher’s

Posted on November 20, 2013 by johncoleman95

Bob and I headed out to East Hampton to close up the house, clear the gardens, and sadly, put the boat away for the winter. We woke up Saturday morning to cloudy skies, no wind, flat seas and a nice fall temperature of 55 degrees. We figured there would be no harm in taking the boat for a spin before we took care of “The List”. We headed east and on flat seas figured we could hit Montauk in 30 min. We pulled into Montauk Harbor to get some fuel and talk to the guy behind the counter. Word on the street was that the bass were still biting off the point. Guys were getting them on live herring that they would catch jigging. This sounded like a lot of work. I inquired about Blackfish aka Togs over by Shagwong. the burly man scoffed “ha, Shagwong was picked over weeks ago. If you want togs, you got to go to the east side of Fisher’s. You’ll see the boats.” I figured that since we just drove to Montauk on a whim and the sun was out, why the hell not head to Fisher’s. We picked up half a bushel of green crabs and headed dead north. After 30min we hit the Eastern shore of Fishers Island…we saw the boats. A rocky shoal about 25-30 deep flared south off of the island. A dozen boats were anchored in the area. everyone was there for Togs and everyone knew when someone caught a keeper because you could hear the hooting and hollering. We picked a conservative spot when we first approached. After 15 min we didn’t have much luck. I decided to move in closer to the shore and get on top of a rockier bottom. We pulled up tight into the pack and got a few harsh looks. Nothing you can do about that. We dropped anchor and after a few minutes Bob hooked up on a nice fish. Once on the deck it measured to 14 inches however it was pump. Too bad we had to throw it back. Another 15 minutes later, now on the back end of high tide Bob hooked up again and this time it was fat and 16 inches long. We had dinner. Eventually we lost the tide and everyone vacated the sweet spot. We checked out the north side of plum island on the way home. It was packed but everyone was catching shorties in a fast moving tide. We called it quits and headed back to the dock. On the most unlikely of days we traveled farther than we have ever traveled on the boat and most importantly, we brought home dinner!

Tautog Tom

dusted in creole seasoning and flour

escarole