Fly fishers have long known that the “Incredible Silver Minnow” is a favorite food among important species.

They wax on about the way its appearance would coax even the smartest salmon out of hiding, and they call it things like a “deadly” lure.

Here is a recipe, apparently from 1965:

Incredible Silver Minnow

Hook: No. 6, 2XL

Tail: A small bunch of gray stripped mallard herl or grizzly hackle.

Body: Wound tightly with lead wire. The wire body is covered and tapered with silk floss of any color. This is covered completely by a double overlay of embossed flat silver tinsel.

Throat: A small bunch of long crimson rooster hackle, the longest ones extending to the point of the hook.

Wing: A very small bunch of white bucktail, over which a very small bunch of blue (dyed) impala hair. Over this is a gray mallard flank feather tied on flat on top of the hair so it surrounds all of the hair. The elements of the wing extand half again as long as the hook.

Head: Built up to minnow-shape with 00 nylon thread, painted silver. Small painted black eyes, with yellow dot in center.

One might think that this would have generated a great deal of concern over the fate of the real Silver Minnow in the past 30 years. Alas, the opposite has happened and minnow populations have been decimated by development and water use. Today the minnow lives in just 5% of its former habitat on the Rio Grande, for example, and conservationists have been trying to reintroduce the Silvery Minnow. Only a few days ago a half million were released. Best of luck to these little ones.

Photo by Aimee Michelle Roberson

The BBC says a man in France has documented how a drug can suppress the urge to drink:

Dr Olivier Ameisen, 55, one of France’s top heart specialists, says he overcame his own addiction to alcohol by self-administering doses of a muscle-relaxant called baclofen.

He has now written a book about his experience – Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass) – in which he calls for clinical trials to test his theory that baclofen suppresses the craving for drink.

I can’t help but notice a phrase offered by Dr. Pascal Garche in Geneva, as quoted by the BBC: “the book is going to set the cat among the pigeons”. Nice marketing.

The BBC Science & Environment warns that we will have to adapt to saltier varieties of food:

Growing crops in salt water is becoming necessary to overcome shortages of fresh water, say researchers writing in the journal Science.

They suggest the domestication of wild plants that grow in salty conditions could help reduce global food shortages.

It seems even harder to me to keep water properly salted, but maybe that is only problematic with fish and seaweed makes a happy house plant.

The Atlantic has a highly amusing story of espionage in America that seems to center around food and beverages:

On my way to meet [the FBI agent] the next morning, I realized that I didn’t know what he looked like. Not to worry: I was in Adams Morgan, D.C.’s original hippie/hipster neighborhood, and he and his colleague were FBI agents straight out of central casting, with dark-blue suits and close-cropped hair. They wanted to know everything I knew about Vladimir. I had assumed that he was a spy. But I was pretty confident that there was nothing illegal about our conversations. So I spent about 45 minutes telling them what I could. I learned my experience was not that unusual: Cactus Cantina, the agents told me, was the favorite haunt of Russian spooks (and the cringe-worthy tipping I had observed was standard practice).

How much is cringe-worthy tipping?

Do the Russians like Mexican food or are they trying to blend in? It sounds like pizza is acceptable to them also, especially if the name of the pizza includes the letters P-U-T-I-N. The FBI on the other hand go for Starbucks. The American agent’s choice might seem as obvious to us Americans as their stereotypical clothes, but maybe it looks to Muscovites like fancy taco joints are where Americans want to go for lunch.

I can just imagine a KGB bulletin describing the current administration’s culture of tex-mex preferences, with a potential shift coming towards deep-dish (Chicago-style) pizza.

Gee, either it’s lunch time or I’m getting hungry just reading about national security…perhaps one of these savvy beltway insiders/journalists could put together a spook’s guide to dining?