When I last went fish shopping the person at the counter informed me that they no longer carry grouper (a versatile fish that I like to cook with), but that what they label as "basa" (not bass) is the same fish. Google tells me that both names are used for the same fish, so I guess this means they've changed their source and the sources used different labelling. My basa fillets were a little thinner than the grouper fillets I used to get, but otherwise it seems to be indistinguishable.

This was good: take basa fillets, put in a lightly-oiled casserole (I used olive oil) and drizzle oil on top, coat with "Auntie Arwen's fish blend" (assorted herbs, garlic, onion, I think paprika), bake at 425 for about 10 minutes, then add thinly-sliced havarti cheese on top and bake just until melted.

I went surfing for a recipe for cold cherry soup (not being satisfied with the one I know) and found something that mostly worked. (Dani has previously described a cherry soup with sour cream; the key word seems to be "Hungarian".) Boil water, pitted cherries, and sugar for a while until the cherries soften; in a bowl beat cream (if the cherries are sweet) or sour cream (if not) with a little flour, stir in some of the hot mixture, and then pour everything into the pot and simmer (don't boil). Chill well before serving. The flour's job, I presume, is to thicken the broth, but even though I beat it with the cream for a while, I got little globs of flour in the resulting soup. Maybe I used too much flour? (I had non-sour cherries, so I used cream. The recipe didn't specify the type of cream; I used heavy and will probably try light next time.)

Tonight after Shabbat Dani wanted to go to Longhorn, a steak house at the waterfront (don't know if that's a chain or a local instance). They have two non-shellfish fish dishes, both salmon. The grilled salmon was very good, and the steamed broccoli was tasty and not overcooked. The seasoned fries were reasonable, though I failed to procure brown mustard for them and had to settle for yellow. I didn't see anything vegetarian on the menu, but I like salmon so I'd definitely go there again.

But next time we'll sit at a table, not a booth. This isn't the first restaurant I've been to lately where the seats in the booths are really far from the table. In some (like Gullifty's), if I sit all the way back my feet don't touch the floor. So I end up having to sit on the front of the seat, with no back support at all. I'm short, but I don't think I'm farther out than one standard deviation. Are restaurants now planning booth layouts around very large people? (Ironically, the very large people I've had occasion to observe seem to prefer tables with chairs.)

I'm currently trying to learn to chant a torah passage that, if I'm successful, will be the longest one I've learned. This is true for most of the readers in this service (the annual local women's service), and they've told us to do as much as we can (so long as it's valid) and we can fill in the rest from a chumash if necessary. But I'm really trying to do it. And I've got good motivation: <geek> near the end of my section is the following trope sequence: pazeir pazeir t'lisha-g'dolah </geek>. That's fun! This is frilly show-off stuff, if I can just get there. :-)

I think the next president of my congregation likes me even though I've been a thorn in his side on some policy things (nothing personal). By law I'll be stepping down as worship chair in May, and I'm not currently on the board, so he wants to make sure that I have a leadership position I'm satisfied with. I told him that completing the Sh'liach K'hilah program and putting that learning to use, especially in worship contexts, is my top priority -- but that in the meantime he should put me on the budget committee so I can do my nit-picking early. :-) (If he was hoping I'd say "so, tell me about the executive track", he'll just have to be disappointed.)

Monday I got mail from Amazon UK saying that my copy of Blake's 7 (season 2) had shipped. It arrived today. I'm impressed! It's not as if I paid for any sort of expedited shipping; I just got lucky. Pity that I have other things I need to do in the next couple days, like work. :-)

Tonight's dinner featured grouper sprinkled with black pepper and cumin and pan-fried (use a non-stick pan and you can skip the fat). The recipe suggested a side of corn with bell peppers (I used red), green onions, a little cumin, lime juice, and honey. (The recipe called for cilantro too, but alas there was none to be found last night.) There was more cumin in the fish than in the corn, but Dani thought the corn was too spicy (and ate the fish without complaint). How odd. I liked both, and they did work well together.

The plan was a catered main dish with people bringing side dishes to share with the people at their tables, but you can't get a caterer for new year's eve. That was fine, though; we had declared that the main dish would be fish (because I'm the committee chair and I feel strongly about the kashrut issues that would arise if we served meat), so I told the person at the synagogue that I would take care of it. She thought that would be too much work; I explained about cooking three-course dinners for 100 people and that took care of it. Yay, SCA experience. :-)

I got huge amounts of undeserved praise for what was a very simple dish. I hadn't really planned on making it generally known that I was cooking, actually, but I failed to clue my rabbi in about that. Oops. People gushed about the fish, beyond the usual bounds of polite thanks. I was pretty surprised. (I also note with amusement that twice now I've said I wanted to serve fish for a big dinner and had people balk because "people don't like fish"; the other time had similar results. And no, I'm not some sort of fish expert.)

Ok, for the curious: spray or oil a pan, lay grouper fillets in pan, top with thinly-sliced white onions, pour a little olive oil over that, apply spices (garlic powder, oregano, black pepper), top with diced tomatoes. Seal with foil, bake at 425. Check after 20 minutes. Because we were cooking for 55, I used canned tomatoes; in the past I've used sliced plum tomatoes instead, in which case you want to add a little liquid, either tomato sauce or white wine. Sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley right before serving.

I specifically chose grouper for this because it's a very durable and forgiving fish. I knew that we were going to have to hold this at low temperature for a couple hours (Shabbat started two hours before dinner), and I know that cooking times can get out of whack when dealing with large quantities and fully-loaded ovens. (I had two layers of fish in each pan and had to bake it for 30 minutes before turning the ovens down to 200 to hold.) You can do stuff like that to grouper; don't try this with cod. It'll disintegrate -- or, if you didn't add enough liquid, dry out.

For 1 - 1.5 pounds of firm fish fillets (I used ocean perch):

Mix 0.5C flour, 1t salt, 1t dried marjoram (they give alternatives), ground white pepper to taste (not black), some paprika. Spread the mixture on a plate.

Rinse fillets, roll in flour mix to coat, shake off excess, set aside.

In a skillet, heat about 1T butter and 1T olive oil. They should be hot but the butter shouldn't brown. Add the fish; turn when the edges look crispy. The book says 2-10 minutes total depending on thickness; I ended up at about 6 minutes over medium-high heat (translation: started high and then turned down to medium when I worried about heating all the way through without overcooking outsides -- I'm not very practiced at pan-frying).

I'm sure this is calorie-laden with all that fat and stuff (just checked -- yeah, FitDay agrees with that assessment), but boy was it tasty! The white pepper gave it a nice little non-hot zing. (Note to self: a second pepper mill, dedicated to white peppercorns, would be a nice and inexpensive improvement on the mortar and pestle. Yeah, blah blah spice grinder blah blah. Someday. How do you clean them so your grains of paradise don't taste like white pepper?) The recipe suggested some cayenne pepper or cumin as an option, but I didn't do that this time.

I have no idea what the culinary and/or chemical effects of using two different fats in the pan are.