Roughing it...

I love cooking. I love it so much I make Steve cook with me. In the mood for fish recently, we stopped at the Asian food market to see what was available. The Asian food market is incredible. They advertise many different types of animals and animal parts, including a wedge of shark meat that looks like its been chiseled away with a hacksaw, and "sheepshead" which we saw on a sign but... they must have been all out. Thank goodness. At other times you can go browse the rotisserie and see things that are clearly not fowl, the usual occupants of rotisseries. After much debate, we finally settled on red snapper, since my neighbor, an Italian cook, raves about red snapper.

I come from a predominantly white neighborhood, where you can go to the store and buy fish fillets, fish steaks, mollusks and shellfish. The latest novelty which they just installed about a year ago is a sushi bar which is manned for about 3 hours a day by the employees of the Chinese/ Japanese restaurant down the road. Its a big thing. One thing you do not see in our store is whole fish. So naturally, I didn't quite know what to do with this red snapper that we got. I went to Barnes and Noble with a gift card and a gift certificate for a free smoothie from the cafe. Steve settled in with a comic book, I sat down with a whole stack of cookbooks. I didn't end up buying the cookbook dedicated to fish, but I learned how to clean, fillet, skin, and cook a fish. I got a delectable recipe as well. But I ended up actually buying a green tea cookbook.

So now I feel prepared and more educated. I feel like if Steve were to come visit covered in war paint and dragging dinner behind him with a spear through it, I would be able to take it without blinking an eye or asking "what do you want me to do with this THING?" As long as it breathes with gills that is. Perhaps I will find a book that teaches how to get the meat from a larger creature, like a deer. Then I will be prepared for any sort of guy dragging dead stuff to my kitchen.

Next item: Learn how to make fish stock from a meatless carcass.