Fishy fishy:a half-hearted attempt at food blogging

I'm watching Julia again. This photo is from the last round, which I started back in April when I was having major anxiety attacks and looking for any way to think about something Else. Look at the size of the fish head lying on the counter!

Here she is handling an eel. Julia maintains that eels are not only wonderful to eat, they are absolutely required for a true bouillabaise. I like them as sushi but haven't ever cooked one at home.


And finally, here's a picture of that giant cleaver I mentioned last time. If I could post a movie, I would love to show you how she looked as she hacked that thing to pieces. Not graceful, I can tell you. Not precise. She just kept chopping and sawing away with her big mannish hands until the head separated from the body. I love that woman.


Kind of makes you want to eat some fish, doesn't it?

We had lunch today at one of our favorite restaurants and were surprised that the Caesar salad, which we always get and which is big enough to share – all thick with pine nuts and fat shavings of Parmesan and so much anchovy and raw garlic it makes your mouth burn – was delicious as always but today, suddenly and inexplicably, only about two-thirds its usual size. Hrm. We also shared a half of a roasted chicken and a glass of the house red.

Tonight for dinner I've just been grazing ... I made my famous low-carb bagel & lox substitute (one Kavli crispy thin cracker with cream cheese, capers, red onions and a thin slice of Ducktrap River smoked salmon: approximately 5 grams of carbohydrate), followed by some cold steamed cauliflower left over from last night, followed by four salted cashews, follwed by a Hansen's diet ginger ale ... and that's as far as I've gotten so far.

There is a pint of green tea ice cream in the freezer that I will probably break into later. Or maybe right now. One spoonful (15 grams) = approximately 3 grams of carbohydrate.

Then it's back to the task I promised myself I'd finish this weekend: sorting through the three boxes of crap mail I've been collecting for the last several months, separating the stuff that can be thrown in the recycling from the stuff that needs to be shredded. I actually got in a little bit of trouble at the post office the other day – they left me a note saying I need to either pick up my mail more often, rent a bigger box, or sign up for call service (a mere four hundred bucks a month, according to the taciturn gentleman at the counter).

I told him (in the nicest possible way, of course) that I didn't think I should be expected to pay even more for a bigger box, just so they can stuff it even more full of junk I never asked for, from people I understand are "postal customers" but who I deeply deplore for wasting not only the perfectly good trees it takes to produce their stupid "products," but MY TIME in having to sort through it all week after week, looking for the one or two items I actually asked to have delivered.

"If you don't like it, you can call the companies that are sending the mail and ask them to take you off their list," I was informed.

Yeah right. Like I have time to do that! I've just spent three good hours going through the latest set of boxes, and I'm still not quite done.

There really should be some way to deter people from abusing direct mail like this. Or at least, a way for unwilling recipients to more easily and instantaneously opt out. I wonder if it gets delivered to private mail boxes, like those ones you can rent at the mall? I need to look into that.