Unidentified Fishy Objects

By the time I’m done cultivating my lard connection I’ll have spent so much on organic grass-fed, grass-finished meat that it would have been cheaper to have the lard airlifted to my doorstep in tank of liquid nitrogen (sort of like how we got Enzo).

We went to the Farmer’s Market, and I talked to my lard guy. Did he get my message last week that I had the flu? No, but someone else took the lard. No harm done. Will he take me back? Can I call him again? Of course. So we’re set for next Sunday. I call Wednesday to confirm.

Then I was so flustered and grateful that I spent twelve dollars on two lamb chops. I was scanning the price list desperately for something I could afford, nothing, nothing, and it was all lamb. So I asked for the lamb chops, and then I saw the separate price list for pork. But I was too flummoxed to make the change.

We also bought tiny fish that may be sardines and may be anchovies. And shell fish that look like tiny conch. I have no idea who to cook any of this. I think I’ll start by chopping off the fish heads and taking out their guts. As for the conch, I’ll steam and hope and dip them in melted butter with garlic, and that covers a multitude of sins.

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Last week when I was sick I had no interest in food. Is this how men feel when they stop thinking about sex all the time? It was liberating--and boring.

I didn’t even want chocolate. Ordinarily, for me, chocolate in the house is an itch unscratched. Enzo can carry around two M & M’s all afternoon and not eat them. He puts them in the back of a dump truck, picks them up again, carries them around, puts them on a train, carries them around again. And I feel like prying them out of his plump little fists and devouring them on the spot.

While I was sick, I read like a Turk—Survival In Auschwitz, The Drowned and the Saved, The Reawakening, all in a row. I was going to write that it’s hard to feel too sorry for yourself while you’re reading about the holocaust. But I didn’t have any trouble. Sensation is sensation. Misery is misery. Some is worse than others. The flu was mine. And mixed in with the flu misery was the intense pleasure of reading those books again.

Enzo was almost named Primo after Primo Levi—but we concluded that most people would think of the Mexican beer, not the Italian writer. So we stopped ourselves in time. Not that there’s anything wrong with Mexican beer—god forbid.

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Post script on the fish drama. Definitely anchovies. I picked their finicky little guts out. The bones came out easily, spine and all. I sauteed them very quickly in butter and garlic and parsley—lemon at the end. And they were okay—but very, very fishy. I like fish. But this was a bit much. They needed capers or more lemon or good rough bread with lots of butter. Or maybe just a large pizza underneath them.

The conch were sweet and briny--and a bit rubbery, but in a good way.

Tomorrow, lamb chops.