In the previous issue of California Fly Fisher, I discussed meal planning that would result in exciting camp food that is also easy to transport and to prepare. I was readying for a camping, fishing, and birding adventure on the lower Colorado River at Picacho State Recreation Area, near the Mexican and Arizona borders in the far southeastern corner of California. It is a bypassed place. We were there to fly fish the Colorado itself for smallmouth bass and backwater lakes for largemouth. A bonus would be angling for bluegills that would become live bait for immense flathead catfish that are the tastiest of all catfish species in America. Gold was discovered at Picacho in 1862, and mining took place until the 1920s. A town of twenty-five hundred souls existed for awhile in this godforsaken, scorching, volcanic, low-desert setting. Eventually, the gold ran out, and Picacho became a ghost town. Several miles from the campground, though, there is a sinister hillside area with high fences, security lights, and concertina wire that is said to be a new mining venture. It was the only building for 24 miles. We stayed in campsites that were built around the ruins of rock-and-stone foundations and dwelling walls. Our fire pit was in the middle of some miner’s former living room, and we were visited in the mornings by a covey of Gamble’s quail and at night by frighteningly noisy wild burros looking for food. Gratefully, the anticipated rattlesnakes and scorpions never appeared.
Two full days of driving each way and seven days in camp left lots of time for campfire discussions, which were one of the reasons for going. Two of our three travelers had studied field zoology at University of California campuses, and the third was a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Forestry. All three were accomplished cooks, at home and in the field, so we were able both to admire the ecological aspects of this amazing place and to enjoy good food and wine, which we love right up there with fly fishing. Additionally, we had traveling companions in an adjacent camp who had returned to this area many times as snowbirds from Tahoe, knew the fishing, and shared our love of the wilderness as well as our interest in creating special meals in the outback.
The road to Picacho winds 24 miles north from Winterhaven, California, with 19 of that a terrible washboard that took two hours and a quarter of slow driving in the dark to traverse, towing a boat. We bought groceries in El Centro, not far from the Mexican border, and loaded our ice chests. We wouldn’t go out during the week unless absolutely necessary.
Our grocery list covered items that I mentioned in the last issue and was added to by what looked fresh and good at a Von’s market in El Centro. It included pork tenderloin, chicken thighs, beef tri-tip, and as an afterthought, two pounds of 85/15-grind hamburger meat, sliced cheese, tomatoes, and buns. Our third member drove in the next morning after overnighting in Yuma, and we knew he’d bring excellent tortillas, as well as other food items that would be fun and easy.
Ice was an issue, and I had splurged and bought a rotationa l-molded camp-cooler ice box on the Internet that could double as a rowing seat on my river skiff. It was touted as holding block ice for 5 to 10 days, depending on conditions and ambient temperatures. Our ice supply was still good after 6 days. My partner’s camper had a small propane freezer and refrigerator, and he brought a cooler, so we had redundancy.
That first night, after the drive-in in the dark, we wanted an easy meal. Out came pork tenderloins, sliced tomatoes, and two deli salads from Von’s. I marinated the pork in Alder Market Sesame Spinach Salad Dressing after dusting it with garlic powder and smoky paprika. We turned it three times over the coals, taking it off the charcoal in 25 minutes. It came out pink/gray after resting for another 10 minutes. A chilled Russian River rosé was a perfect accompaniment. We were thinking of tacos the next night with the leftovers, but we ate the whole thing.
Our campground friends, who had arrived a week earlier, had caught a 10-1/2-pound flathead catfish that night out of the clean, flowing water of the Colorado. We helped butcher the fish, then decided to combine camps for the next evening’s dinner. Catfish tacos using hard-to-find The Cable Guy batter mix were combined with an achiote-marinated beef tri-tip grilled over black oak that we brought from home. Jan put together a white cabbage slaw and her famous taco sauce made with mayonnaise, orange juice concentrate, and Tapatío hot sauce. (See the “Camp Fare: Fish Tacos” column in the May/June 2014 California Fly Fisher.) Some chose craft beer, others white wine, then red to go with the thin sliced tri-tip. It was a memorable meal, and we got leftover tri-tip for the next day’s lunch. How could we beat that?
We didn’t quite beat those fish tacos the next night, but Bruce’s simple, salivatingly good achiote-dressed thin carne asada filled the bill for another fast dinner after a long day’s fishing. His wife, Jackie, is Mexican, and he learned from another great cook — her mama. Carne asada is usually made with sliced top round. Thin slices across the grain make this often-tough cut tender. It cooks in a minute or so on a hot, sizzling plancha, griddle, or large, seasoned cast-iron skillet. (See the “Camp Cooking on La Plancha” column in the July/August 2013 California Fly Fisher.) He brought his favorite hybrid corn flour–wheat tortillas, which hold
together well. A Mexican flag–inspired red, white, and green pico de gallo was all we needed. The red is from tomatoes, the green from finely diced passillo chilies and cilantro, and the white from diced onions. Passillos yield flavor with a very mild, smoky, interesting capsicum heat. The cilantro in El Centro was the best-looking and freshest I have ever seen. Our next-to-last day on the water lasted well into late afternoon. Out came the chicken thighs, which have much more flavor than skinless/boneless breasts. On went a Big Green Egg spice rub and then more Alder Market sesame marinade. There’s just enough residual sugar in the dressing to get nice caramelization on the chicken. We had an arugula/spinach salad laced with hothouse tomatoes, pepitos, and sliced red onion. Our cooking was on charcoal, so there were no pans to clean up. The chicken was marinated in a foil-lined pot. The foil went into our garbage bag, and there was one less pot to wash. Paper plates went on the coals after dinner and then more oak for a campfire. With this dish, you can’t beat a citrusy sauvignon blanc, a lightly oaked chardonnay, or for that matter a hearty red zinfandel.
On our last evening, before loading up our boat, we caught bluegills in a side pocket of the Colorado just before dark, when they bite best, and used them for bait and one last try at the flatheads. Perhaps it was the low barometer and cool north wind that put the bass and catfish down. There were no tempura-battered smallmouths for us that night, either. We had fished all day, dragging our skiff through a narrow cane-and-tule-lined channel into twisting Long Lake and fighting the wind. Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen immediately came to mind. Debris covered our hair and bodies and filled our skiff. Our youngest member, age 67, told of clinging leeches from such waters in Vietnam. We were tired puppies, but my partners tried once again for a big flathead at dusk.
I stayed in camp, prepped a salad in advance, and took out the hamburger when they returned without any fish, remembering to uncork a balanced cabernet blend by Evolve. Six patties were quickly and gently hand-formed, dusted with campfire favorite Montreal Steak Seasoning and garlic powder, and put on a brushed grill suspended over a bed of glowing charcoal. Our committee of cooks debated heatedly on when to turn the meat, but we nailed it. We added cheese slices, then five minutes on the back side of the grill and onto lightly toasted buns topped with onions grilled over the same bed of coals. I went for lettuce, tomato, onions, mayo, and a small bit of mustard. One partner was adamant that only pickles, tomato, and catsup should grace his cheeseburger. The other went for the full monty.
It wasn’t the best grind or best-quality beef. We used basic grocery store American cheese. There were no artisanal buns, and only French’s yellow hot dog mustard, not Grey Poupon, but those three-to-a-pound, hand-formed medium-rare patties soaked up the smoky essence of our campfire and caramelized in a way that would have made Argentina’s Francis Mallmann proud. Our ravenous attack on the cheeseburgers was a little embarrassing. We gulped through six juicy burgers in no time, pausing only long enough to swig down the good cab between bites. Bruce finished first and asked if I could pass more of the cab. It was he who said, “This is the best burger I have had in my life. A cheeseburger is paradise.”
I asked the others if they had ever been to the Cabbage Key restaurant that Jimmy Buffett made famous when he met the perfect cheeseburger, a piano, and a cold beer after an awesome day of fishing. Like our remote desert camp, it’s in a unique setting on the intercoastal waterway, built in the intriguing Old Florida style, between Fort Meyers and Boca Grande, the tarpon capitol of America, on the lower Florida Gulf Coast. It’s accessible only by boat. For starters, you tip the dock hand with a six-pack of beer. It was built by mystery writer Mary Robert Rinehart and her son in 1938. Put a visit on your bucket list. There’s great snook, sea trout, and redfish fly fishing at nearby Bull and Turtle Bays out of Gasparilla Sound on the north side of Charlotte Harbor. Anglers celebrate a hard-to-get West Coast grand slam with a cheeseburger at Cabbage Key or a grouper sandwich and a tall cold one amid the iguanas and bikinis at the West Beach Café on Boca Grande.
As the evening wind howled down through the desert ravines and our tent sides flapped, we stoked our campfire with more oak, pulled our camp chairs closer to the fire, and opened another bottle of red. Bruce surprised us with an immense bag of chocolate truffles. One of the evening’s discussion topics was “The best meal you’ve ever had.” No politics were allowed on the Colorado.
A Cocktail for the Mountains
For years, most of my friends, if they drank at all, imbibed only beer and wine. I don’t know if this was a result of coming of age in the seventies and rebelling against the hard-liquor predilections of our parents’ generation, or an echo of the penury we endured in college. I was certainly no different in my choices, but over the years I’ve found myself gravitating also toward the occasional evening cocktail.
The drink I’ve preferred is the gin Martini, because its juniper aroma reminds me strongly of my youth in the Sierra. I’ve tried to extend this effect by infusing vodka with pine needles and by adding bruised rosemary to “experiments,” but have not been happy with the results. Recently, I came across a 1920s concoction known as the Last Word, and my first sip swept me back to the mountains. I can’t say why, because its ingredients don’t all point in that direction, but for me their sum has a coniferous essence that exceeds what I get from gin alone.
To make, combine equal amounts of gin, lime juice, chartreuse, and maraschino liquor. Shake with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, then sit back and dream of trout amid the firs and pines.
— Richard Anderson
