We’re slightly over half-way through our summer fishing season, so it’s about time for an overdue report. It’s been a good summer so far, with a nice amount of all 5 species being sent down from the two boats. The first couple weeks we had a number of large kings. In fact, the second week of the season Jonah caught a couple beautiful 35 pound white kings. It was the first time at the University District Market that we had a fillet cooler dedicated exclusively to white king! It was fun to hear peoples reactions the following week after having tried it. The pinks have just started to show up, but we should be bringing in a lot more in the next 2-3 weeks.
A couple healthy kings fillets from week 1 of the 2011 summer season.
On July 17th, I had the pleasure of working with Tamara Murphy at Burning Beast. Her new restaurant, Terra Plata, is slated to open in the Melrose Market on Capitol Hill. When Tamara initially approached me about the event, I didn’t know a lot about it except that it was a bunch of chefs getting together and cooking lots of meat. It’s actually a benefit for Smoke Farm, which is a really amazing 365-acre arts and education center in Arlington, WA. I had a great time and will definitely be back next year. I highly recommend checking it out. Here’s some pics from the event:
Fresh Keta fillets getting ready for the heat.
First the fillets were placed on cedar planks, and tied down with wooden dowels, string and wire.
Tamara and Rion getting the salmon just right on the fire.
The fillets were then rubbed with some delicious spices (cardamom!), and hung around a firepit that Tamara welded. There was re-bar sticking through the grating, and the fish was hung by wires around the fire. It was like a magical Christmas tree of salmon!
Amazing, creative food art at Burning Beast 2011.
The salmon was served on top of couscous with a nice yogurt sauce. Unfortunately my iphone died so I didn’t get a good picture of the finished product.
We also had a great demo around the 4th of July at the University District Farmers Market with Becky Selengut, who has recently written a book on sustainable seafood called Good Fish. Becky filleted and cooked a coho and a sockeye for the audience. Unfortunately we were slamming at the stall so I couldn’t get away to check it out. I would really recommend anyone who is interested in seafood to check out her book.
Otherwise, the summer has been relatively uneventful. The summer always goes by fast once it gets going. A couple more weeks and the boats will be back. We’ve got Puget Sound Pink Salmon in September, and fall Keta fishing in October/November. I’ll check in again soon when more exciting stuff happens 
