Kayak Fishing Tuesday

Dearest Sultana,

Kayak Fishing Tuesday has finally come and gone and the weather delivered on it’s promise. It was a bright sunshiny day. My husband left home at 5AM and launched at 6.10AM on Sullivan’s Bay.

The water was calm and he said in there was a flurry of snapper activity the first hour but there were no more bites after that. He stayed on for a while longer, trying to catch some Trevally but to no avail.

Here’s his catch:

Not bad!

He shared some with his co-workers and brought home 3 snappers.

He scaled and gutted them, then passed them onto me. I cut them into steaks and put them in the deep fryer.

Sorry for the colour of the photo. I only have my phone camera. It sure tasted good though. Moist on the inside, crisp on the outside. We all feasted on fish tonight, the kids loved their fish, which was so good to see. They are usually a bit picky when it comes to fish. It was nice eating fish again after two weeks off. I think this is the beginning of another great fishing season. My husband is already planning his next fishing trip this Saturday.

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Father Day Update, Applique Pieces and Tissue Holder

Dearest Sultana,

We had a beautiful day this Father’s day. Although it was a little chilly, the sun was out, the skies were blue, it was fantastic especially after the week we just had (rain almost everyday). The girls woke their daddy up with lots of kisses and cuddles and home made cards. Then we took out his other presents. I think he was very pleased with his presents. In fact he put up the framed up collage of his fishing photos straight away. With nails into the wall! It usually takes us much deliberation before we put nails into the wall.

For breakfast we had fried bananas (pisang goreng) fried up with the new deep fryer. Believe it or not, it was the first time the girls had fried bananas. Fried bananas are a common street food in Indonesia, and they are very very delicious! They are just fried up bananas in batter, but there are many variations to the kind of banana and batter. My mother in law makes the best fried bananas, better than any bought ones. Unfortunately the kind of bananas that are used for this are quite uncommon in NZ, so we rarely have them here. For this occasion I just used regular bananas  and they turned soft very quickly, they were still very delicious but not nearly as good as my mother in law’s original version.

Later on, we went out to visit some friends and in the evening had dinner at a local chinese restaurant with my parents and sister. The girls wished their Grandpa a “Happy Father’s Day” and June insisted on sitting next to him (and kept pinching his rice!). All in all, a great Father’s Day! Only thing marring it, I think, was the lack of kayak fishing, even though it was a beautiful day on shore, the sea forecast was less favourable, but not to worry, Tuesday’s forecast is very positive and I’m looking forward to some fish for the new deep fryer. I’ll post up some pictures if his catch is good.

I thought I’d share some of my applique pieces for my Christmas gifts project.

Ice cream cones

Snappers

Strawberries

I really wanted to try to incorporate some of these into a simple project. A tissue holder seemed small and simple enough. And if it was up to snuff, I could include it as a Christmas present.

My tissue holder was inspired by this new Kleenex product. I like that it opens up.

This was my first attempt:

I like the colours but I didn’t insert the lining correctly.

I had to think it through a little more and made a little practice one and then attempted it again.

Finished product which I’m pretty happy with.

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Father’s Day Presents – Check!

Dearest Sultana,

Father’s day in NZ falls on the first Sunday of September. That’s this coming Sunday. I think this is probably the first year I’m prepared for it.

My husband is very hard to buy for. His favourite pastime used to be surfing trademe (NZ’s eBay equivalent) (his new favourite site is kayak fishing NZ, more on that soon) and if he needs something he will find and buy it there. Let’s say he’s a bit of a shopaholic. He is very good at finding a good deal and for the most part of it, he rarely buys unnecessarily. So come birthdays, Christmas and father’s day, it is very hard to come up with anything. And to be honest I don’t always get him something, sometimes I cook him his favourite dish, other times we just go somewhere a bit special. He’s the same with me, I don’t always get something special on my special days but sometimes on a perfectly ordinary day, he would surprise me with something special.

However this year, I have not one but two surprises in store for him. All thanks to his new hobby, kayak fishing. He took it up in January this year and since then has been fishing at least once every single week. He’s like a different person. It gives him so much enjoyment. Even more surprisingly, he has really taken to the kayak fishing website. He spends hours on it everyday, reading about trip reports from other members, commenting, planning and dreaming of the next big fish.

I have to admit in the beginning I was getting quite jealous of all this time he’s spending on his fishing. Those first few months it took us a while to adjust to this new hobby. I think the last few months we have finally been able to find a compromise. He can go fishing so long as he reserves one weekend day to spend with his girls. It’s actually quite nice that way because the girls and I can visit with grandma or go out with my sister. And when he spends his day with us, he’s completely there for us, refreshed after a day out at sea.

The only problem with this scenario is the fish. Cooking fish is not something I’m completely comfortable with. The scaling, gutting, etc, not fun. Even when he does those for me, I will need to either fillet or cut the fish into steaks. I can cook it whole but that reduces my cooking options. Moreover, I’m not particularly fond of fish. I didn’t know this until I had this overflow supply of fish.

Whenever I tell him of my reluctance to cook his fish, he tells me we need to get a deep fryer. And I’ve always said NO! Deep fryer? Do we need another reason to eat unhealthy food? Do we have space in our cluttered kitchen for a deep fryer? And once that fryer has been used to cook his fish, it will smell all fishy and we can’t use it for anything else (I know, I don’t need it for anything else!). However after giving it more thought, and the fact that I really don’t enjoy filleting his fish and all that comes with that (sharp fins! scales all over my kitchen! blunt knives! fishiness that permeates the whole house!), I have been persuaded to get one, and what better time to present this than on father’s day!

De’Longhi Roto deep fryer

On top of that, the girls and I have collected his best fishing/kayaking photos and made a collage on snapfish. It looks awesome! Now we just need to get a frame for it. Maybe May will make a colourful one for him.

PS. I promise I will still attempt to cook his fish in other styles, steaming, grilling… but it’s nice to have this option for days when I just can’t be bothered.

 

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