Top Secret Egg Curing Tips (or... Fish Bait Finesse)

O.K.. Time to roll up your sleeves and learn a skill that will earn you high marks with anglers near and far. Let's start at the beginning, and go through the process together, shall we?

1.) Obtain fresh Alaskan raw materials from cool friends or related associates (i.e. spouse, or Japanese expert fly fishing son). This would be recently harvested Salmon roe, snatched from the underbelly of an unsuspecting aquatic varmint.

2.) Do the big "cooler hand-off". You are a secret agent of great magnitudinal importance.

Disregard any bear claw marks on cooler. You are in control of these highly valued treasures.

3.)Place eggs in extra refrigerator in a quiet, unsuspecting part of your home.

4.) Drink lots of coffee, blog, go for a walk, clean out a drawer, cook dinner, make sack lunches for sleeping fishermen, call a friend, charge up the cell phone, download some new tunes on your i-pod, pay some bills....until your conscience SCREAMS at you to pay ATTENTION to the little buggers in the 'fridge downstairs.

5.) Arm yourself with necessary supplies: i-pod, gloves, mask, safety goggles, scissors, buckets, gizmos and a good attitude.

This is all about quality.

This is all about consistency.

This is all about "for better or for worse."

AND.....(most importantly)...

This is why everyone else catches FISH, because the bait is the SECRET TO THEIR SUCCESS.

Feel the power.

Gloat in your smug satisfaction.

This might just be the greatest purpose, and loftiest goal of your life.

Caviar Nirvana.

(O.K., it's 3:00 am, and sleep deprivation is setting in)

6.) Let roe drain in a basket over the sink.

7.) At predetermined time, snip into bite sized pieces that would nicely fit on a triscuit.

8.)Get up close and personal with your subject matter.

9.) Be mesmerized by their really amazing segments and differing shaped single eggs. Ponder the thought of throwing a wad of them across the room, to see if they'd stick on the wall.

8.) Pretend that you are part of a medical documentary, and you are on the cutting edge of a new discovery. Feel "doctorish."

10.) fast forward

10.) Cover bowl of cured eggs in plastic wrap and write date and time they re-entered the 'fridge to reunite with friends.

If I told you ALL the secrets of our dynamo egg-cured clusters, you would have to suffer sure and swift extermination.

What part of "top secret" did you not understand?

Additional ideas for enhancing the curing experience;

~wear scrubs

~suggested background tunes: George Frederic Handel's "Water Music".

~determine where you'll call for take-out sushi for tomorrow night's dinner.