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CINDY EMPTYING SHRIMP POTS
This weekend, my husband and I went out on our boat. We went out of Whittier, which is in Prince William Sound. It’s almost always rainy and windy there. Although we did have rain part of the time, we also had a little clear weather. It was windy Friday night when we were going out, but for the first time ever I’ve been out there, on Saturday and Sunday it wasn’t windy. Which made for an almost flat ocean. Which was a very good thing, considering we had engine problems, had to shut our engine off while going through a narrow opening into the cove where we were going to anchor for the evening. Of course, since I’m not the biggest water-lover, when the engine alarm began screeching, and upon lifting the engine cover and seeing lots of what I thought was smoke (I later learned it was steam from a radiator that was boiling over), I quickly got the fire extinguisher out, put together the paddles for the kayaks in case we had to abandon ship, and generally was scared to death. But luckily we had a backup kicker motor with us, and were able to motor to where we were going for the evening, and anchor up. We thought we would have to radio the coast guard and have them call in a tow boat for us, but luckily sometime that night or the next morning (I now don’t even remember when it was) my husband discovered what the problem was, and was able to repair it (or at least we were hoping it was repaired!) But since we were safely anchored for the evening, even though we had worries about the cost of a tow boat, we decided to go ahead and have a nice dinner of the shrimp we had just pulled, along with a nice glass of wine. And also some salmon we caught. A nice high protein dinner.
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HUSBAND GETTING READY TO HAVE A SHRIMP DINNER
Shrimping is not easy. The pots are heavy, and they kill your back as you’re moving them around. In Alaska, you are allowed to put out 5 shrimp pots, which we do on 2 lines (about 800 feet of line each). So we put 3 pots on one line, and 2 pots on the other. On a good weekend, we’ll pull the pots 3 times. We’ll put them out Friday night, pull Saturday morning and put them right back out, pull Saturday night and put them back out, then pull a last time Sunday morning. We’ve been known to get 15 gallons of shrimp from 3 pulls. We weren’t as succesful this weekend, but we still had plenty for dinner on the boat Saturday night, a nice shrimp pasta dinner Sunday night, some to give my husband’s boss, and still more to freeze.
Another part of the shrimping that’s not so fun is when you have to pull their heads off. That will make you want to become a vegetarian. Here’s a photo of me pulling their heads off-notice the thick gloves I wear so I don’t feel their “twitching” as much.
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On the way home, we stopped to take a photo of a glacier at Portage lake. This is accessible by car, and is just about an hour south of Anchorage. Notice the blue glow of the glaciers-this is because they absorb all of the light spectrum except for the blue (because of denseness of the ice).
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Once home, I began thinking about what to cook for dinner. It needed to include shrimp, and I was craving pasta. I found a package of black squid ink pasta that I brought home from Italy.
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I sauteed chopped onion and garlic in some butter and olive oil. I then added the shrimp, salt, pepper, and hot pepper flakes. A few splashes of white wine.
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Then mixed that with the cooked pasta. A very tasty dinner.
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After dinner, the sun came out for a short period of time, and I was able to do one of my favorite activities-sit outside in the sun, in my PJs, reading Bon Appetit, with a glass of wine!
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Comments

A Weekend in Prince William Sound — 7 Comments

  1. I bet those shrimp tasted incredible. I give you credit – if I had to rip the head off of anything to eat it I’d starve.

  2. Wow! What great scenery. And what a lucky guy your husband must be to have such a good cook to make him such terrific meals! And what great mariner he must be to fix an engine way out in the middle of nowhere. I envy him.
    Signed,
    Your husband

  3. Yes dear husband, you are a lucky guy to have a wife who cooks you good food, and I am a lucky wife who has a husband who takes me out on the boat and is prepared for any emergency and is smart enough to fix the engine while his wife is quietly panicking.

  4. Cindy, you have an incredible blog which I really enjoy. So thank you for sharing your life, your wonderful recipes and the incredible scenery which is simply breath-taking. I’m a big fan.

  5. Barb-Thank you! That’s so sweet of you. I need to get better about putting more of Alaska on here-I mainly do just food.

  6. I loved your pictures. I lived in Alaska from 1993 to 1997. I now live in Southern Oregon. I miss the fishing in Alaska. I look at my old photos and remember so many fishing trips out of Seward and on the Kenai. I lived in Seward. Yesterday, I baked some red snapper filets with a creole seasoning. It was the best ever. In 1995, I caught a 90 yr old (per Fish and Game) red snapper or yellow eyed Rock Fish out of Prince William Sound. I wanted to have it mounted at the Seward Chamber of Commerce. It ended up in someones freezer and so that never happened and I came back to Oregon. I am glad I found your link. I too love to cook!! Sockeye salmon is my favorite but I will have to say the red snapper filet is a good second.
    I do Miss Alaska
    Janice
    Janice-I’m glad you found my blog. Alaska is an amazing place for fishing, isn’t it? I haven’t been as active on my blog as I used to be, but hopefully you’ll find some recipes you’d like to try. Cindy