Season 4—Episode 03 (Culinary Ineptitude)
Two days…. Forty-Eight hours…. Two-Thousand Eight Hundred-Eighty minutes…. One-Hundred Seventy-Two Thousand Eight-Hundred seconds. Rusty Flathers lay conscious in his bunkhouse computing the exact time he and his team at Flathers and Scales Fishy Outfitters (FSFO) had remaining before their first guests arrived at the island.
Excited? YES. Petrified? YES. But after spending a couple of hours the past two evenings chasing fish with Clarence Bishop, he was super confident that at least the angling portion of their business was shaping up quite nicely.
Rusty and Cos had convinced Clarence to repower the electronics on the boat rentals. In their opinion, they notched a win. What they could not do was get him to use conventional fishing equipment. But as results indicated this was in no way a deal breaker. At least for their newly hired top-gun-sniper.
From the first evening they hit the water as learning passengers with Clarence at the helm…. They watched him wield a willow stick—equipped with thirty-feet of string and a shiny bent nail—bringing countless fish boatside with effortless form.
Walleyes—shimmering gold—glass eyes the size of silver dollars. Northern pike—razor sharp teeth etched with a lathe—shoulders you could saddle. Smallmouth bass—pro football size—pound for pound tough as leather. Musky—big silver—king of kings in the freshwater. Clarence Bishop raked them in like a blackjack dealer hitting Twenty-One on every hand.
Presumably…. Rusty Flathers played little league baseball as a youth…. Cosmoid Scale built butterfly collections…. And this dude, Clearance Clarence, chased about his home field advantage lake in a fourteen-foot skiff with a nine-horse Mercury discovering endless haunts for piscatorial trophies.
Truly, what Rusty and Cos witnessed was an insurmountable learning curve established by this person who started his guiding career at age thirteen. Unprecedented—Unmatchable—
“Aren’t you even going to use bait?” was Rusty’s first inquiry.
And after several seconds of silence and innumerable fish landed, Clarence’s only respectful response was, “Bait’s for kids.”
Then there was a wink and a nod shared betwixt the two business partners…. A human fish finder…. This is what Rusty and Cos had secured for their adventurous camp.
Fishing—covered. Cabins—dialed. Meal plan—TBD (to be determined). Rusty remained in bed, wheels spinning, before his alarm clock blasted rise and shine for the grind.
“I can’t possibly ask Sally to step in for cooking duties,” he thought. “She’s only got one good arm.” But, bringing Celine Maple Cramshaw on board as their executive chef was starting out, he feared, sketchy at best.
This thought was provoked the day prior when he had suggested to Celine that she venture to the patch of wild spring asparagus growing on the hillside near the generator shed. A test of sorts to see if she could prepare a grilled side dish glazed with a simple butter and lemon sauce. Something the guests might enjoy is nature’s table fair.
Celine took this challenge to level-hyper declaring the upcoming evening staff meal would be titled Foraging Foray at FSFO. Practice for doing it with the guests.
“Everyone, please bring me something wild to prepare, to go along with the asparagus,” she commanded. “This will be great!”
Clarence brought in a dead squirrel that had been lying in the bush for no less than two days. Most likely one of the three eagles setting up shop for the summer near the boat harbor was responsible. Hopefully, it was not one of Link’s faithful compadres.
Rusty rambled through a patch, unbeknownst to him, of poison ivy. His immediate puffy eyes and irritable skin being the dead giveaway prompted immediate retreat. “Better find an alternative,” he thought. But the snails uncovered beneath the molding log sure looked appealing.
Cos hit the jackpot with a cluster of wild onions discovered beyond the west edge of the boat house. Much to his chagrin, he would later watch Celine dice them up with a fillet knife, then blend them on high speed with Timmie’s coffee grounds and BC Brine’s pickle juice.
Later that evening…. It was discovered Sally had opted out on the wild foraging foray. Apparently, she was “tired”…. Evidently, there was a growth of “medicine” she stumbled upon, and then proceeded to overwhelmingly consume her find. In bed “early”, she grasped a half-emptied bag of family size Doritos, face covered with multiple splotches of orange chip dust surrounding her cemented grin.
This original asparagus test? Epic failure—borderline Culinary Ineptitude. This, caught by Cosmoid as the team gathered for their evening meal. Cos was more than hesitant to “dig-in” as the steaming platter of suggested asparagus was brought to the table, knowing he had passed the wild patch just minutes prior on the way to the lodge, and noticed not a single stem had been cut.
“Stop!” he ordered. Hoping not to offend their new hire. But also wishing to prevent anyone from ingesting a toxic plant. “This is NOT asparagus—it’s horsetail. Look at the color…. Light brown, not green. Spore-bearing cones at the tips.” Suddenly, everyone (excluding Sally who never made it to the table) lost their appetite.
“Fine by me,” announced Clarence. “This whole mess looks like an August algae bloom and tastes like bait anyway.” Then pushed himself away from the table and walked out.
Celine, bursting into tears, could be heard in the back of the kitchen chugging down a bottle of cooking sherry and sobbing words of “Fine, I’ll never cook anything that doesn’t come in a box!”
When Rusty’s alarm clock finally sounded off, he felt as though he hadn’t slept. “She’s young—We will give her the benefit of the doubt—I will appoint Cos to inspect all meals before service,” he thought. And then rubbing his eyes and dragging both feet heavily to the floor he rose to greet the day. “Fourty-eight hours…. We got this…. I think, anyway.”
–To Be Continued–