u/JacquesNuclearRedux

Not the most traditional (although compared to Wisconsin style beer cheese, it’s far more of an actual soft-cheese), but nevertheless tasty. Cheddar, garlic, stale beer, and some form of hot pepper (flakes, powder, Tabasco, etc).

NOTE: there are many brands but Charlie’s is my favorite. Kentucky Beer Cheese brand is a close runner up. the good brands will always use aged cheese and have enough beer that they have to list the ingredients IN beer.

Whole little lake i fish at has been covered with algae and duckweed since the summer started, now it’s all turning to the color of days old yard clippings. Now, i know all about decaying algae and the subsequent lack of oxygen, but my question is this: where do they go? These fish were all happily eating frogs and bluegills and baby turtles under the weeds less than two weeks ago, and now the only life i’ve seen buzzing around the weeds is old bugs.

What do you grass/scum intensive anglers do in that weird transition between mostly clean fall waters and the weeds of summer?

It’s supposed to arrive later today. Huge fan of the establishment and how they play around with expectations of new england food. Does anyone else own this, and what’s their favorite recipe out of it?

Very excited personally to have the brown butter steamed lobster roll again.

I’ve been having fun with throwing a flappin frog in the scum and watching a bunch of little bass go after it, but is there anything I can specifically do to target the larger members of the pond?

I kinda thought a standard 65 frog was big enough to weed out a lot of the smaller ones, but the bass have been mostly piddling this summer.

Do the larger ones become less active during the summer or are they just in deeper waters?

What’s everyone’s favorite restaurant cookbook that doesn’t get a ton of press or have a bunch of write ups? Preferably books that are super rooted in their time and place.

This is mine - a bunch of recipes from the Lowcountry of South Carolina, representing both the extremely genteel (oyster stew, smoked goose), and foods of lower provenance, some from the local Gullah community (red rice). It’s kind of an interesting snapshot of the coastal south, with plenty of original flair. I’ve cooked out of it so much and it’s always good.

both on the SPRO green pumpkin flappin frog, which is becoming one of my favorite lures for throwing in the scum. Both these fish were caught barely three feet from the bank, just posted up in slop and tree limbs.

Words can’t describe how excited i am to chase fall bass once the mats have died off and the bass have less of a torpor to them, but it still feels really good to catch a couple dinks here and there during the dog days.

Paprika really added something to the gravy, but i’ll probably eat it over cornbread or plain white toast next time. Not a huge fan of rye bread i must say.

This is my second meal from Ronni Lundi’s James Beard award winning cookbook Victuals. Thinking of doing kind of a series of these sorts of posts, so stay tuned for eats. Porkchops, pan seared with some gravy.

As for the mashed potatoes… well I reckon y’uns know how to make ‘em if you’re posting in here and not a tourist. But Mrs. Lundi does do a little something different with hers which I have done, and that’s using half buttermilk/ half half-and-half to wet ‘em to the right consistency. Adds a bit of fat without making them too rich, and the buttermilk has twang.

The author is from Corbin (although she did move to Louisville)! won two James Beard awards! best cookbook and best American cuisine cookbook. I might post some recipes from it here if anyone would be into that!

The salmon cake was more delicate and complex than you expect from a canned fish patty, and the tomato gravy is better than you’d get in a coal camp. The bacon gives it some meatiness, the addition of the onion and a quick simmer almost puts you in mind of a certain kind of tomato sauce (like Marcelle Hazan’s) but as an Appalachian, I give it my approval.

I will say, it’s clear this book won the James Beard award for the lovely prose, the whole thing reads like a wistful travelogue from an author who feels complicated things about the region, and the fact she has never actually lived there except for when she was a child. There’s a yearning for the real that could only come from an outsider. I could write an essay on what this kind of doe-eyed wistfulness for a “better” Appalachia actually probably complicates our actual needs as an impoverished region in the shadow of mono industry, but this is a cookbook review.

Dug it out of a shelf in an east kentucky law office.

It’s officially summer, and bass are no longer pushed into spawning bays or hanging just off of them, they’re god knows where, and one bait can cover water like nothing else.

The beauty of the bait to me is the fact you can play with colors and presentations with such a degree of options.

Personal favorites:
Brett’s Bluegill Jackhammer with green and white Hogfarmer/Missile Baits spunk shad

Evo Elite in Bama Craw with matching colored rage craw OR Delta Red rage craw for the spring/conditions where i want a pop of color. I tried the summer craw color and haven’t gotten much luck

The last time I made this, it tasted like a sweet mess of shellfish and onions; truly an offensive food. I blame myself though. Apart from the addition of a little fresh andouille, what would kick this up? Not trying to change the recipe too much as the author seems knowledgeable and people seem to like her restaurant. Just think it needs a little finesse work to be golden.

Just getting back to my car after getting no less than EIGHT topwater strikes in the middle of a hot afternoon. Most of the fish never actually got it in their mouth (very thick mats) but they all seemed to recognize it as a frog instantly and all made good efforts to eat it.

I usually use Spro or Scum frogs, but i may switch to solid-legged frogs exclusively this summer; they just seem to get more fish attention and interest.

Throwing a brown and purple prawn star on and off a popping cork and a super spook jr and nothing.

I may change up the color of my shrimp to something less naturalistic (rootbeet and chart or gold) or throw a golden spoon but what would YOU GUYS like to throw in an archetypal small tidal creek with structure and a depth of maybe three feet