LAW 105: What's for Dinner?

I want to be up front here. I will eat almost anything, from almost anywhere; i do however draw a line across which food from China will not pass. This may not be fair to Chinese producers, still there has been too much information published that points to all sorts of contamination, why take a chance? Besides the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay makes not eating Chinese seafood hardly a sacrifice. Since we're talking fish here i would also like to point out that i also boycott any 'farm' raised seafood, this to me is also a 'no brainer'. Mungo and i try to eat as locally as possible. Again living on the Bay makes this an easy matter.

So, last Friday we had just walked into Geresbeck's, our locally owned grocery store, making a beeline to the fish market. Justin(the seafood manager) is a great guy. He offers locally sourced seafood, mostly wild caught, as well as the standard offerings. Since we have gone out of our way to 'make friends' with the people we interact with on a daily basis he has been very accommodating; and searching out and delivering at great prices a wide variety of special requests. I've written at length about the glories of the grilled and stewed octopi. So when he and Jack saw us coming they were ready for us.

Turns out that Justin had special ordered a rather special treat for another customer; what he didn't realize was that the smoked black cod fillets came as a two pack. Since this is a very very pricey fish this could have been rather big ouch! But, ahem…. good Samaritan's that we are, we obligingly took it off from his hands. Justin didn't lose any money, we got a great deal, and an almost two pound fillet of smoked sable fish(it's other name).

Mungo trying to distract me, i think the cat's in on it too!

Oh my! Oh my oh my, can i tell you just how drool worthy this piece of finny goodness was? Although neither of us had ever had this particular species of fish smoked before we were not at all worried that we would not like it. I have never met a piece of smoked fish that i didn't like. Go ahead, feel free to call me a smoked fish slut. I grew up in a part of the country where smoked and pickled fish made frequent appearances on the party table, and had lived in Denmark for a year i knew just what to do with this little treasure. Enter a platter of Scandinavian sushi, err, Smorgasbord. Well really a Smorrebrod platter, daintily little open face sandwiches, surrounded by the best fresh vegetable garni and pickles.

Yes, dinner!

So our first night's dinner consisted of the loin of the sable fish, pumpernickel bread, sweet cream butter, Havarti cheese, assorted olives, fresh radishes and green onions, paper thin lemon slices and homemade  Sichuan cucumber pickles.

Culinary heaven!

So in total we managed to dine on this almost two pound piece of piscatorial pleasure for five, no six separate meals. Two supper Smorrebrod platters, two lunch time snacks and a hard to describe, but very delicious concoction i found in one of the late, great Bert Greene's cookbooks. A hybrid cornbread, (made with polenta) quiche, which always features a grated summer squash, lots of onion, and in this case the last little bit of smoked sable fish flaked into the batter. Oh, did i mention lots of cream? It is very good right out of the oven, but frankly i think i like it better as a leftover breakfast or lunch at room temperature.

So all in all it was very good eats this past week.

More later,

Morgainne