{"id":8020,"date":"2025-09-17T00:33:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/?p=8020"},"modified":"2025-09-17T00:33:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:33:20","slug":"avoiding-poly-ticks-for-now-and-dinner-for-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/avoiding-poly-ticks-for-now-and-dinner-for-tonight\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding Poly-Ticks (for now) and Dinner for Tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Greetings and Salutations!
Currently I’m too tired to think.
I got maybe <\/em>8 hours of combined sleep from Friday until now. The fishing was fantastic<\/strong> and since it was sort of like being on a combat op, I’m still a bit woozy from the lack of sleep. Granted I wouldn’t trade it for anything right now. It was well worth the time and effort and J3?

Dude is a God<\/strong> among Frens for that hookup.

In fact I’m really enjoying the whole post trip analysis.

Part of my issue and pre-trip reticence was that when I last went for a deep sea fishing trip, I was like 10. I spent the entirety of the trip<\/strong> seasick to Hell and Gone. Leastways that I can remember. DeadDad didn’t fare too well either as I recall. I guess that “Mal de Mer” runs in the fam…

That or we’re “Natural Borne Grunts”

Myself? 100% Grunt, thru and thru.

See… Dramamine\/Sudafed\/all the other ‘cures’?
T’ain’t none of them work worth a damn on me.
All they do is make me extremely sleepy, which means I’m blowing chunks whilst halfway into a coma. No fun at all to say the least.

So that being said, The Scopolamine Patches that Doc Samizdat hooked me up with? Oh Holy Hells Batman!!! I owe Doc another bottle when next we meet up. THAT shit worked like a charm!

So as you all saw, the first night home, I cooked up some pan seared and fried Blackened Snapper over rice. It was (of course) off the chain as I mean it was so fresh it started ‘twitching’ when I dropped it in the pan to cook. I also when I first got home realized that I had SO MUCH of it, I just had to share with my next door neighbor, Miz Ellen.

Miz Ellen is my church lady next door neighbor.

She’s a 80+ year old Born-Again Christian Black Lady who I really dig… she’s been a great source of intel on the local comings and goings, and keeps me in the loop as to what she hears and see in general around our local A.O.as she’s wired in<\/strong> in her local church. She’s been here since I first moved in back in 2005. My first X was so asocial that Miz Ellen never really interacted with me, nor my fam. Afterwards (post deeee-vorce from Frau #1) when G moved in w\/me, G got Miz Ellen to open up, and she’s been cool with us ever since.

Even more so as during the Hurricanes we’ve had in the past few, I’ve made sure Miz Ellen’s house was secure, windows taped and helped her with anything she needs. Heavy Lifting being the #1 request for me and Todd… carrying in her flats of bottled water and suchlike.

So since she’s on the ‘cool kid list’ I brought her over a half-a-filet. Now… understand getting Miz Ellen to accept ANY food\/gifts\/help is like pulling teeth. She “(I) …don’t want no charity!!!” as she’s put it from her POV which I can respect, not that she needs it… however, for this offering, I explained that this fish was so damned fresh it just<\/em> had stopped squirming, and to give it a shot as it’d be the best she’s had I’d wager. She reluctantly <\/em>took it, and hey… Mission Accomplished.

Now… the next night (Monday Night) she came out while I was walking the doggos. Normally she doesn’t come near the two puppers as she’s deathly allergic. In this case however? She came blasting out, hugged me and told me that “…in all 83 plus years that God has graced me to live here on this here planet, that was the best fish I’ve ever had in my entire life!!!”<\/strong> She apparently was overjoyed<\/strong> at the gift. Told me she wasn’t sure to begin with as she was supposed<\/em> to cook up some fried chikinenz, but switched out, and was thankful she did!

I told her she was welcome and to let me know if she wanted more. She thanked me again and bailed. Until this afternoon.

Around noon the doorbell rang while I was on lunch… seems it was none other than Miz Ellen bearing gifts! Now, she’s the head of the food pantry at her church, and in the past when they have too much, she’s dropped off the occasional care package here at the Casa. I guess since the fish was such a hit, she dropped one off today as a ‘thank you’ which was cool AF IMO.

I of course then got to show her the pics of the trip, which impressed the Heck out of Her, and then, I ran inside and gave her another <\/em> full filet this time. Needless to say she was beyond grateful again, and to me? It’s good politics to have the local Head Black Matriarch of the Local Church in your corner so to speak.

Good neighbors and all that.
She’s in the past even teased me when I scream some racial epithets when I do something stupid… she’s really cool<\/strong><\/em> like that.

So that was yesterday.

Tonight?
Well besides me getting ready to crash the fuck out early AF as I’m tired-tired-<\/em>tired<\/em><\/strong>? Well dinner HAD to be made and I had almost two pounds of mixed leftover fish left that needed to be cooked tonight<\/strong> no matter what… some parts were amberjack, some were snapper, and one of them bags has my triggerfish meat as well…. but I’m pretty sure<\/em> that that wasn’t in this bag… either way…

I started off by making a beer batter.
I used the leftover blackening spiced to season the batter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

THEN
I pat-dried all the remaining chunks, and pre-seasoned them with some MOAR of the blackening seasoning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I got the deep fryer set and ready, and laid out the wire rack to cool off the post-cooked fishies. Little known thing: When you deep fry a chunk of fish, if you don’t ‘air dry\/drain\/cool’ the piece, it’ll get all soggy on the side it’s laying on. Pro-Tip: Let it drain on a wire screen\/rack like you see… it’ll keep it’s all-around crispiness instead of all going super-soggy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jes’ Sayin’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dredged and dropped each piece, and cooked them for about 4 minutes, 30 seconds… then I pulled them, and let Sapper get his ‘feed on’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The ‘tater cake’ is a breakfast hash brown. I realized as I was cooking that we didn’t have any french fries to cook up, so this was the substitution. I mean what the Hell? It worked right?

So the next thing was to ‘wash rinse repeat’ which I did, and my plate ended up looking like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say…
I’m so full….> UUUUURP!!!! <<\/strong>
Holy Crapola!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man… talk about “Goodness From The Sea”
I just may have to forego the next weapon purchase and look at a rod and reel. Seems there are day-trip fishing expeditions out of Saint Pete that’re short and cheap… granted if you DON’T have any luck, well that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

HOWEVER

Red Snapper at my local Publix?
It’s $22 a pound for ‘previously frozen’ Red Snapper.
$75 for a six hour tour (my, how positively ominous Aye?) and IF things play out? It pays for itself in many respects.

So that’s tonight’s intel dump.
My brain is still trying to process a lot of ‘junk’ and I’m NOT up to speed. I’ll attempt to get better, but it’ll be slow going.

So More Later
Big Country<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amazing how that works Aye?
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings and Salutations!Currently I’m too tired to think.I got maybe 8 hours of combined sleep from Friday until now. The fishing was fantastic and since it was sort of like being on a combat op, I’m still a bit woozy from the lack of sleep. Granted I wouldn’t trade it for anything right now. It … Continue reading “Avoiding Poly-Ticks (for now) and Dinner for Tonight”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8027,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8020\/revisions\/8027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}