Lake Pend Oreille Smoked Kokanee. It's been 19 years since we tasted any of these wonderful fish!

The Little Chief smoking away. 

Here they are!  Yes, they actually have a very beautiful golden color.  

Return of the Kokanee

You are looking at a photo of some of the first Kokanee caught out of Lake Pend Oreille since 1994.

Yesterday Retired Mountain went fishing on the lake with Trav.   They caught their limit and Trav and Lester Bug went out again today and caught 12 more.

Retired Mountain Man has them in his Little Chief Smoker today.  He is as expert at smoking fish.  In my opinion Smoked Kokanee are the best smoked fish.  Their flavor is sweet and the texture is firm and not too dry. They are ten times better than smoked salmon.

We will be enjoying a treat later today.  It takes about six hours to smoke the fish.

Whoo Hoo! YES! Totally awesome!

The nurse called with my blood test results this morning.  As you know I have been working to reduce my cholesterol and blood pressure for the past six months.
After some research  I decided the best to use the DASH diet recommended by the American Heart Association.   It has turned out to be a good choice.

Dec. 2012 to June 2013:
LDL - the bad stuff went from 144 to 126  
HDL - the good stuff  from 48 to 57
Total - is now 204

LDL Cholesterol	LDL-Cholesterol Category
Less than 100	Optimal
100 - 129	Near optimal/above optimal
130 - 159	Borderline high

HDL Cholesterol	HDL-Cholesterol Category
60 and above	High; Optimal; associated with lower risk
Less than 40 in men and less than 50 in women	Low; considered a risk factor for heart disease

Total Cholesterol	Category
Less than 200	Desirable
200 - 239	Mildly High
240 and above	High

And one more thing - I lost another pound today.  I will be continuing with my new healthy eating plan.

How are your numbers?  Do you know them?

King Boletes!

Our good friend, Billy, and his son Darren, who is a chef, stopped by for a visit last weekend.  They brought us these!

Boletus edulis

 These are considered to be one of the best tasting mushrooms.  They are right up there with morels.

As you can see, I have almost four trays of dried Bolete Mushrooms. They have a nutty flavor and can be ground and added to soups and sauces for flavor.

(Sadly,the tomatoes on the counter are the last of my first crop of Red Robin's.  The plants are starting to blossom again for the next crop.)

Take a Seat at the Table Fundraiser

 This post is for a woman who I admire greatly, Mandolin Ann.

Local artists painted chairs to be auctioned at the event

 For the past three days I have been helping Mandolin Ann with the preparations for the  NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Far North banquet and fundraiser.  

Ann has worked tirelessly for this organization, and in 2009 she set up the first CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) Academy in Idaho.  The CIT Academy is a 40 hour training for law enforcement about mental illnesses and how to recognize them.   It takes hundreds of hours to setup one of these trainings and she has done many of them.  She has also stayed with it even when everyone else jumped ship and cancelled at the last minute.  

It is true that she did not do it alone.  There were many others involved, but as with most things, there is always a core group of dedicated people who keep the wheel turning.  NAMI Far North is one of those.

NAMI Far North consists of a small group of people who did an unbelievable amount of work for the fundraiser. 

Local businesses donated dozens of items for the silent auction.

 

All of the chairs were donated to be auctioned off at the event.

I want to share photos of some of the very creative chairs painted by local artists and also several of the school art classes.

This paper mache' was created by the Lake Pend Oreille High School art class.

My small role was to take a 4' flowering plant and make it look like a 12" centerpiece without spending a lot of money.  We had 36 to create.   

Ann talking over the final details. 

To top it all off, Ann volunteered to bid on a chair at the auction for me.  It's not one of the painted chairs, although there were many of them I would have liked to have bought.  

It's an antique so it was not painted.  It actually almost matches my dining chairs. My chairs do not have the filigree at the top, but the woodwork on the arms and legs match. 

 the seat would need to be reupholstered in a blue fabric.

This afternoon Mandolin Ann will be at our Cougar Creek Band practice after having raised thousands of dollars for NAMI Far North last evening!  

What an amazing woman Mandolin Ann is! 

Thank you, Ann!