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My top five? Anything fresh.

When I go back to Florida, I go for grouper, red snapper, and maybe flounder.

If I can get my hands on fresh rainbow trout, and once in a blue moon I can, then it’s one of my favorites. Make it pecan crusted and bake it in the oven. Heavenly. Ain’t nothing better. More about rainbow trout later.

And then salmon. We have a butcher who gets Faroe Island Salmon flown in 3 times a week, so it’s always fresh there. Pay a pretty price, but I’ll do it. Fresh is my big thing.

After hard times were over, my Dad would go meet the fishermen, and very often got his hands on their catch. I got spoiled on fresh seafood at that point. I was in high school by then.

Ok, back to the rainbow trout. When I was a kid, we took long summer vacations (tent camping across the US). One year, ok several years, we drove from Florida to wherever. Sometimes to Canada, Québec, and Prince Edward Island. Another time to Fairbanks, Alaska, and all through Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Yukon Territory. I’ve been to the Tetons several times, and it was one of my favorite places. I remember fishing with Dad and my brothers and sisters for Rainbow Trout there. Luckily they were more skilled than I was. I was still pretty young, but it was fun.

Those trips were adversity wrapped up in adventure. We saw many beautiful vistas, but we got there crammed like sardines in a station wagon. There were 8 of us: two parents, and six kids with a 12 year span between oldest and youngest. Tent camping across the US, and these were not nylon tents, they were canvas. Upon pain of death did you touch the side of a tent during a rain storm.

This was all from earliest years (I can remember being 3 years old as one my earliest memories), and every summer until I was 16 and begged, literally begged, not to have to go away for 3-4 weeks. I promised the moon. All the chores. All the work. (We had a family business.) Please don’t make me go back in that station wagon and sleep in a sleeping bag in a tent for weeks on end. The trip relaxed my father, but by the time I was a teenager, I was begging to stay home. Mom must’ve talked sense into Dad, as he relented. Thank you, Mama!