Steve and I have lived in Alaska for going on seven years, and we went fishing for the first time today. This was a massive act of love on Steve's part because he doesn't even like fish.

Last night a few of the teachers put a net in the water. The net is attached to the white buoys you can see in the pictures above.

We pulled the net to shore looking for fish.

Okay, so the use of the word "we" was a little generous. Steve was the only Alston that did any of the actual pulling of the net.

The fish get tangled as they try to swim through the net.

Steve was a pro at untangling the fish.

The lineup. Notice the sanitary conditions. 🙂

Me with the future fillet.

Steve humored me and posed for a fish picture too.

The beginning of the fillet. A nice slice below the head.

Hard at work in the filleting process.

The other filleting stations.

This is what was left after I was done filleting. The leftovers were donated to one of the local dogsled teams.

The fillets were reserved for human consumption. I took a couple and cooked them in a bit of hot vegetable oil. After a couple of minutes, I put them in the oven.

Note to readers: the pictured fillet was not filleted by me. It was filleted by another teacher earlier in the day.

While the fillet baked, I gathered some of this beautiful lemon zest.

I added the zest to some butter, shallots, and lemon juice, inspired by this.

The finished fillet with the sauce. It was delicious. Even Steve agreed. Maybe there's something to this fishing thing after all...