Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Fish Day
I found something today that I haven't seen in years: fresh hazelnuts. When I was a child, we
had hazelnut bushes all around our house. My friends and I used to pick them the moment they looked even remotely nut-like, crack them directly on the rocks out there and eat the young, pale fruit. Those were the days... Then the city grew, the bushes were replaced by the orderly hedges of suburbia and I did a runner as soon as I could. But I do miss it all - the apple and pear trees, the berries that grew in the bushes by the side of our street, the herbs and edible wild greens in the fields behind 
the house, our neighbour's cornfield that we used to play hide and seek in and occasionally nick a cob or two for snack from, the forests full of mushrooms that in a time before Chernobyl were actually edible... The markets and small food shops of Dublin have often brought back memories of those times, but when I saw a big basket of lovely pale green hazelnuts at Fallon & Byrne, for a few seconds I was really there again. But then I noticed Lofty's face and came right back to Dublin. I managed to sneak in a quick picture to document my trip down memory lane before we were off to the market.After buying nearly one of every kind of vegetables that Jenny had on offer today, we moved on to the fishmonger. He had some
amazing seafood and we once again bought nearly one of each: tuna, smoked cod, fresh cod and some huge scallops. I was going to make mixed sashimi for dinner, but mum told us in no uncertain terms that she was not going to touch, let alone eat raw fish. Oh well, I'm flexible. There's always something else to do with great food.In this case I opted for a combination of tuna sashimi (I wanted to do carpaccio, but found no way to slice the steak I had bought thinly enough) and smoked cod tartare served with sliced limes for Lofty and me. Mum was not to be convinced that raw fish is neither poisonous (if you know who you are buying from, that is) nor slimy (if it is fresh, that is), so she had to make due with a bowl of my creamy pumpkin soup.
Next came a small second course of grilled scallops with garlic butter and parsley and some freshly baked baguette. Ok, I admit, it was part baked from a package; we had lunch at La Boulangerie, but we forgot to pop into their bakery afterwards for some real fresh bread. Oh well, these part baked things may not be perfect, but they're not bad. And I must say, the baguette went perfectly with those lovely, tender scallops.
After these two courses, we were almost too full to think about a main course and were seriously considering skipping straight to the desert. After a small break and a look at the nice, fresh cod fillet sitting on the kitchen countert
op, we could not help but have more. There was no way any of us could handle a full meal though. So I just lightly grilled the cod, seasoned only with a pinch of sea salt, and served it alongside a green salad and some boiled baby potatoes. That wasn't exactly the most spectacular culmination of a seafood meal, but it was definitely the right thing for us tonight.After all this food we really didn't want any crumble anymore. All we wanted was to pass out on the sofa. So instead of desert I made a round of coffee and we spent the evening lounging in the living room. I can definitely think of worse ways to spend a day.
Christine at 10:32 pm
