Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, June 2, 2018

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FOOD & DRINK

Mountain Views-News Saturday, June 2, 2018 


TABLE FOR TWO by Peter Dills

thechefknows@yahoo.com


JUNE IS FULL OF SEAFOOD !!!

As much as I love a good burger, my waistband was expanding, I have never 
consumed so many burgers in one month as I did for May, and you know 
it was National Burger Month. Now June is National Seafood month and 
I hope to get some relief, at least my pants certainly do!!! The Discovery 
Channel is full of great shows, and I turn to it when I have exhausted my 
usual programming, such as that critically acclaimed, Dining with Dills. 
One show that has increasingly captured my attention is “The Deadliest 
Catch?” I’m not moving from restaurant reviewer to TV Critic mind you, 
but there is something about the show that just keeps my interest. I have no 
idea who the stars are but it appears to me the treacherous weather is one 
of them. The entire show is dedicated to life threatening pursuit of catching 
Crabs off Alaska and the Russian Border, the Baltic Sea to be exact. The ships 
are equipped with every technical gadget in the business, but like so many 
things in life, it comes down to instinct and in this case it is the captain’s 
instinct that directs the ship to fortune, failure or even death. Unlike the 
“Bachelor,” here I don’t have to wade through 10 episodes for the count or 
the discard, as nearly every episode they are pulling up Crabs in five-minute 
intervals. Crew members battle the crippling Eskimo like conditions and 
sheer walls of mountainous sea to bring up a treasure chest of crabs that is as 
welcome as gold to the pirates of a distant age. 

 The season is brief so each mistake, each lost moment of time is magnified, as the crew must force themselves 
through fatigue and lack of sleep to race against the ticking clock. Maybe I find a special delight in the show since I 
love King Crab but it is more, as the show turns my stomach in knots as I watch with childlike fear and anticipation 
as the crew of the boats challenge the harshest elements of nature. Here is a sample of the shows description. “Relive 
the dangers, adventures and disasters of the original miniseries. Meet the salty sea captains and greenhorns who 
risk their lives on the job to earn part of a 90 million dollar King and Opilio Crab payoff. Set sail and learn all 
about crab fishing.” Yea, that’s the whole premise and I can’t get enough of it!!! If they are willing to risk their lives 
for this, I feel obligated to support these courageous soldiers and their imprisoned catch? This week is dedicated to 
those crews and their delicious prisoners, so let’s see where we can catch our own crab and not lose a life or wallet 
in the process. King Crab Legs can be very expensive, so I suggest checking out Von’s. Typically, they have a great 
selection at a very reasonable price. If you are a Costco member they have some of the freshest crab and some of the 
lowest prices anywhere. On sale you can expect to pay about ($19.95) per pound. How about Crab Cakes? If done 
right they can be very tasty, but many restaurants do not use the traditional method or lack a quality in their crab 
cake to capture the heightened glory that this dish can achieve. The traditional method is done with Dungeness 
lump crabmeat. Some places in our region are: Cameron’s Restaurant, Smitty’s, and Ruth Chris’. For this crab lover 
though, the very best Crab Cake by far is at Fleming’s on Colorado located in Old Pasadena. There they use real 
lump crabmeat with a light breaded cover. What’s your favorite place for Crab Cakes? Send me an email to the 
chefknows@yahoo.com. 

 Please listen to my radio show on KLAA Radio Sunday evenings at 5 PM . Party likes it’s 2018 ! Paco’s This Sunday 
at 5 PM join me for Happy Hour , yes it’s open to the public.


THE WORLD AROUND US


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

BUILDING A LEAN-TO

A MERRY HEART DOETH GOOD

[Nyerges is the author of 
“How To Survive Anywhere,” 
and other books. He leads 
regular outdoor skills classes. 
For more information, go to 
www.ChristopherNyerges.
com or Box 41834, Eagle 
Rock, CA 90041]

 Should you build a primitive shelter if you get lost in 
the woods and you know you need to spend the night 
there? Perhaps. But if you were alert, you might be 
surprised how many ready-to-occupy shelters abound 
in the wilderness. Why build something if you can 
simply find some shelter for the night, whether man-
made or natural? You know, hollow trees, caves, rock 
overhangs, old cabins, outhouses, utility shacks. 

 But if there is nothing around to protect you from the 
cold, the snow, the rain, then you must build something. 

 At one of our survival skills courses, we built a simple 
lean-to shelter and one of our students spent a few nights 
in it. Though the lean-to is only one of many possible 
emergency shelters, it is relatively easy to construct, 
assuming there are sufficient natural materials available.

 Since the student, Christopher Reamer, spent a few 
nights in the shelter without blankets or a sleeping bag, I 
asked him if he had a comfortable night.

 “I was plenty warm without blankets in my lean-
to motel,” says Reamer. “But that’s only because I got 
underneath all the leaves and duff that was supposed to 
be the padding that I slept on top of. I was really sorry 
that we hadn’t picked out all the sharp pointy twigs 
when we built the shelter.”

 Reamer pointed out that, when sleeping in such a 
shelter, it is always well-worth the time to spend as much 
time as possible to make the bedding comfortable. “It’s a 
better use of your time to make the bedding as thick and 
soft as possible,” he explains, “than to lie awake all night 
from the cold.” 

 Reamer said that he had a fairly comfortable night 
in the lean-to, except “there were some sort of weird 
animals roaming around outside the shelter, which was 
kinda scary.”

 So let’s say you’ve determined that we need to build a 
shelter. How do you begin?

 Just like with real estate, the primary consideration 
is location. You need to build your shelter where there 
is the necessary abundance of natural materials. You 
want a location that provides some natural protection, 
if possible. But you don’t want rocks or branches to fall 
on your shelter. You don’t want to be too close to water 
for many reasons: mosquitoes, possibility of flooding, 
inability to hear people approaching. Etc.

 You’ve found your ideal spot. A simple lean-to begins 
with a tripod so that one length is as long as your body. 
The simple tripod is the frame for your shelter. 

 And in an emergency survival situation, you don’t 
start with a high tripod, like a tipi. You want a low 
ceiling in order to capture your heat. Then you simply 
lean branches onto your frame, keeping in mind where 
your entrance will be.

 Once you’ve covered the frame with branches, you 
add little branches and leaves, and eventually cover the 
shelter with a thick layer of insulation. 

 You then add thick layers of grass or leaves into the 
floor of the lean-to for your bedding. I try to avoid using 
pine needles for insulation because it pokes into your 
body, and you get full of the bits of sap that seep out of it. 
But if there is nothing else, use it. 

 If possible, add a layer of large rocks to define your 
bedding area to keep all the leaves and grass from 
flattening out too much.

 Reamer said that someday he wants to try sleeping in 
a shelter with massive loads of cattail fluff for bedding. 
Cattail down has been used in the past as a substitute for 
the goose down in sleeping bags.

 Another way to begin a lean-to is to simply lean a 
solid ridge post onto a low branch of a standing tree. 
Then lean your smaller poles onto the ridge post, and 
continue from there.

 Shelter is extremely important, whether you’re in 
the extreme heat of the desert, or exposed to the winter 
snows. But the process of shelter-building need not be 
a daunting task. After all, children all build “forts” and 
“hideouts” in the woods. 

 Perhaps the best way for adults to make shelters is to 
become like a child again, not worry about getting dirty, 
and just go and learn by doing.


With all the sad news in our 
country today, it is about time 
for some good news. However, 
the way things are going I am not going to hold my 
breath.

 We just finished supper and the Gracious Mistress 
of the Parsonage and I was watching a little bit of 
television. We like to try to catch up on the news after a 
day of working.

 I well remember the time when the “world news” 
was only broadcast for 30 minutes, which was broken 
up by commercials. It is hard to get all the news that 
is worth hearing together for 30 minutes. Back in “the 
day,” the commentators were able to do it. At least we 
did not hear about all the news of the day, which was a 
blessing.

 It is a different story today. We hear news from around 
the world all day long. In fact, some television channels 
are devoted exclusively to news 24/7. The problem with 
that is 99.9% of the news is bad news. Good news does 
not have much of a place on television. We are too busy 
these days to listen to good news.

 We had just settled down to catch up and some of 
the news and I was not paying too much attention. The 
way I am, I can watch the news and not hear anything 
they are saying. My wife, on the other side of the room, 
hears every word the news commentators are talking 
about.

 We were relaxing, enjoying some coffee while 
watching the TV. I was drifting off into Whatever Land 
and just chilling. It was then that I heard from across 
the room some gasping.

 “What is wrong with people?” And, “Don’t they 
know to do any better?” And, “What does all that 
violence solve?”

 I looked over at my wife and saw her grimacing at 
the TV. Every once in a while she would shake her head 
and make some kind of a moaning sound.

 I knew not to interrupt her Grimacing Moment and 
allowed her to have her space. After all, everybody 
needs a little bit of personal space.

 “I can’t believe,” she said most disgustingly, “that he 
actually said that! What is wrong with that person?”

 I did not need to tell her that we live in a very crazy 
world. A world that has lost all sense of sanity. Unless 
you are insane these days, you are not going to get 
along with anybody.

 At this point in the evening, I certainly did not want 
to get into a discussion about how crazy our world was. 
I have ridden in this rodeo before and I am not ready 
for another ride.

 My wife and I agree on many things and this is one of 
them. Anger, hatred and violence never solve anything. 
What we need today is a little more laughter.

Even there the world has gone crazy. The so-called 
“comedians” are just as bad if not worse than the 
average insane person in our country. They have a 
platform to make people laugh, but they use it to vent 
their anger and wrath toward somebody.

 I knew I had to pull my wife out of this cesspool of 
lunacy. Then a thought came to me. If you want to get 
your wife to laugh, remind her of something about her 
great-grandson. It works all the time.

 “I was wondering,” I said, trying to direct her 
attention away from the television, “what our great-
grandson was doing today. I wonder if he’s having fun?”

 It worked beautifully. She looked at me and changed 
that hard grimace look into a hilarious laughter.

 “You know,” she said, “I was just thinking about him 
today. I wonder what he’s doing today.”

 Then she was off talking about her great-grandson 
and some very happy moments she had with him. Of 
course, I cannot be sure of this, but some of what she 
said was a little bit exaggerated. Believe me, I am not 
the only one in the family that exaggerates.

 However, it worked. It got her away from the 
heaviness of the insane world around us to the hilarious 
world of great-grandsons. Nothing is funnier than a 
great-grandson.

 There is a song out in the world that says, “What this 
world needs is love, sweet love.” I am not sure who sang 
it, but there is a message to that. I think it goes much 
further than that. If I was a songwriter or a singer (don’t 
worry, I’m not going to sing) I would write a song called 
“What the world needs is laughter, hilarious laughter.”

Love can be rather complicated but laughter opens all 
the floodgates of real joy.

 After a half-hour of laughing about her great-
grandson, my wife was back to her normal, jolly self. 
Laughter makes all the difference in the world. You can 
tell a lot about a person by what it takes to make him or 
her laugh.

 Solomon understood this better than anyone 
when he wrote, “All the days of the afflicted are evil: 
but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast” 
(Proverbs 15:15). And, “A merry heart doeth good 
like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones” 
(Proverbs 17:22).

If I were a doctor, this would be my prescription. Laugh 
three times, and then call me in the morning with a 
new joke.

 The Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God 
Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with 
the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, in Silver Springs 
Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail jamessnyder2@
att.net. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com