Chronicles of Tom
First, Dan is posting again on LJ, welcome back! Everyone go see his post and encourage him. Tim, you're up next!
On Monday we went to a show in the local hippie town of Carrboro. One of my all-time favorite musicians was playing, Mike Doughty (singer of Soul Coughing). Katy (being wonderful) discovered the show and got us tickets (only $15, it's cheap to like the less well known artists). We went, and it was awesome! I knew all the songs he played and it was a very good show. I have Tim to thank for this, because he made me listen to the three Soul Coughing albums on the way to and from Nova Scotia several years ago. I haven't recovered since and still inflict Soul Coughing on Katy occassionally. She still hates their albums, but likes his solo stuff enough to buy the latest album. Anyway, I was very happy to finally be able to see him in person. Beer is reasonable there, $4 for the local microbrews, so I also got nicely inebriated on a Monday.
Spring continues to roll right on through Durham. The pear trees are gone, the cherry trees have been blooming for about a week now and are on their way out, so next up we have the dogwoods and redbuds. We got some rain in March as well, so we've been upgraded to "only" Class 3: Extreme Conservation water restrictions. Suck it, drought!
Adventures in Cooking Fish (no pics, sorry)
I've been reading about whole roasting fish. Cooking the fish whole keeps more of the juices and flavor in the meat, and is generally more fun! On Saturday I bought a red snapper from Whole Foods (about a pound and a half, came in that day). They descaled it for me so it was all ready for roastin'. I chose a recipe from Mario Batali: the fish drizzled with olive oil and roasted with white win and simple tomato sauce.
I was scared of the project: intimidated by the whole roasted fish (I've only very recently learned to like non-sushi fish), and very much afraid I was going to fuck it up and waste a not entirely cheap fish. Because of this, I didn't take any pictures.
It worked, though! Boy it was ugly when it came out of the oven. The eyes turn solid white and stick straight out, hideous! Aaron warned me it was a bonier way of making fish, which turned out to be true. However, the flesh was soft and moist and came right off the bones which are large in a snapper, so I never got more than maybe two bones on my plate. I made sure to pull all the meat off, including the savory cheek meat (yep, from the cheek of the fish). It was good, though even after two days I couldn't finish all of it. Next time, now that I have some experience I will make this for friends.
Final pic to wrap up. I've been making Cuban sandwiches at work for lunch. They're supposed to be a pile of ham and roast pork with mustard and pickles, made in a sandwich press. I didn't have a press, but I did have a George Foreman. I brought it to work and proceeded to make all my coworkers jealous for two weeks:
