Ellington

When I was a kid, my family and I would go on long fishing trips, involving hikes with several pounds of equipment, baiting our hooks with both a wriggly worm and our fingers, and getting our fishing poles stuck in a tree at least three times. My dad would "scout" out the "crick" (as creeks are called in Montana), and find everyone their own fishing hole: a deep, slow moving bend of the crick.

I was quite the accomplished fisherwoman. My favorite fish to catch and eat were rainbow trout. Fresh-caught rainbow trout, cooked over a fire right next to the water, with just a little salt and pepper … OK, now I'm drooling.

However, one day I became a staunch supporter of catch and release, quite by accident. I was 12 years old, and probably hormonal, and I caught a fish. Then, I started to look at it, really look at it like a friend, and suddenly, I felt like a murderer. Blubbering, I ran to my dad and told him I didn't want to kill the fish. My dad, being the consummate hunter/fisher/outdoorsman that he is, probably wished I was not his child. But he is a good dad, so he took the fish out into the current and attempted to coax it back to life. (Similar to those marine life rescue shows, where they capture a shark, and then have to "walk" it around the tank until it kind of revives itself.) After a few minutes, he came back to shore.

"What happened to the fish?" I asked, although it sounded more like "Bwat appened to da bish?" since I was still blubbering.

"It swam away," he said, without making eye contact.

I was relieved. It wasn't until much later that I realized that my scaly friend had probably not made it. But that was later, when I wasn't 12 and hormonal.

Aside from rainbow trout, my dream catch would have been a salmon. Pink, big and almost magical in their relentless battle against all odds, the amazing thing about salmon is that they are born in a mountain creek and migrate downstream to the ocean to live and find a mate. Then, in a self-sacrificial act of posterity, they swim upstream against the current all the way to their birthplace to lay their eggs. And then they die. Talk about getting back to your roots.

Although ours comes from a package instead of a creek, my husband and I go through some salmon in our house. Sautéed, baked, with sauce, without sauce, on salad, on rice, with pasta. Even with all this variety, though, after a while we get a little bored. And when I get bored with something I'm eating but still have to cook it, watch out. I'm about to experiment.

For me, experimenting in the kitchen can be either very good or very not-so-good. I have discovered that baking cookies under the broiler does not cook them faster but turns them into small lumps of charcoal. I have discovered that eating even one seed from a red chili pepper can make my eyes swell and my throat close up. And I discovered that cheesecake doesn't contain real cheese.

So, the other night, I baked some salmon, mashed it up with some bread crumbs and eggs, and fried it. Very tasty. And, as it turns out, distinguished. Salmon cakes come from France, where they are called salmon croquettes. In "Lonely Planet World Food Guide for France," Steve Fallon describes a croquette as a "thick patty or ball of minced meat, fish, vegetable, rice or pastry breaded and deep fried or sautéed." Without even knowing it, I was cooking like a true Frenchwoman.

SALMON CROQUETTES

3 salmon fi llets (12 ounces)
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper

Pour olive oil into a baking dish. Rub salmon with salt and pepper; and place in pan. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 8 to 12 minutes. Remove the pan from oven and let the fish cool. Then, place in a medium bowl and mash.

Add:
2 tablespoons pesto
2 eggs
1 teaspoons paprika
Juice from 1/2 lime
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
1-2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Mix thoroughly. Shape into two-inch patties. Place into hot, oiled skillet, and cook on each side for two to three minutes. Serve hot.