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Food Thread: Thar She Blows! Fish Is Good! And So Is Beef...Don't Think I Am Getting Soft!

There are all sorts of interesting food fish, and any good fish store will carry at least several. Sure, most people know salmon and cod and flounder and swordfish and tuna, but there are dozens of less well known fish that can be delicious. Even if they look weird! Like the Mahi Mahi in the photo. Or the Patagonian Toothfish, otherwise known as Chilean Seabass.

Mahi Mahi is mighty tasty. It is used a lot in fish tacos, but I made it a few days ago, simply sauteed and then finished with a butter and lemon pan sauce. It was delicious and easy, and it is meaty and fatty enough to be relatively easy to cook.

Chilean Seabass is a milder fish that is sort of like the piscine equivalent of chicken breast. The cook can make it taste any way he wants. But it's pushing $30/lb, so unless the preparation looks absolutely spectacular, I'm not springing for it at a restaurant, and I certainly won't buy it for home cooking when Cod is one third the price!

If you have a halfway decent fish store near you, give it a try! There are reasonably priced fish that are delicious, and while many people are intimidated by the relative difficulty of cooking fish as opposed to a big old chunk of cow, with a bit of attention it is manageable, and the payoff is a new food in the rotation.

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One of the maddening, irritating and frankly stupid conceits of our modern society is the tendency of the urban elites to wax poetic about food's elevated status in our lives. Eating a proper (read: leftist, post-modern bullsh*t) diet will connect us to the real, essential world and allow us to understand ourselves and our place in nature.

And to be fair, that could be a carnivore diet, or Michal Pollan's omnivorous diet, or some lunatic bee pollen and lamb testicles diet.

The fact remains that while food is obviously important, and we should probably eat a varied diet to help maximize our health; it is at its most basic, just fuel. Eat a diet that will keep you from getting too fat and keep you from getting too thin, with enough of the essential nutrients that we need, and you're done!

Trying to elevate it to be some ridiculous talisman or, even worse, a marker of one's position in society is offensive. I know a few people who don't give a rat's ass what they eat as long as they are fueled up for the day. Hey! Good for them! It saves time at the supermarket and probably saves them money. But, it's none of my business.

Our society has become so wealthy that we have the leisure time and the excess capital to agonize over which side of the farm your pasture-raised lamb came from, or whether your buffalo mozzarella has ever seen any GMO feed. or worse, criticize others for their choices. Carnivore, Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian...who cares? As long as you don't preach to me that I am making the wrong food choices and your particular food church has the one true answer, I don't particularly care what you eat. Just don't try to make me eat the bugs or the fake meat!

[Unless it's maple syrup on French Toast, in which case we will have a problem]

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Pat LaFrieda is a meat juggernaut, with both brilliant marketing and a very good product. Obviously there are dozens of meat purveyors who can supply glorious stuff to restaurants, but he seems to have captured the branded high-end beef market. There are lots of places that proudly advertise "Pat LaFrieda Beef!"

I think that there is enough variation in quality even within discrete categories that actually looking at the chunk of cow you will be eating is probably the best way to judge. I have seen prime beef that was barely adequate, and I have seen choice beef that was glorious...wonderfully marbled and absolutely delicious.

That's why I always talk about looking at the beef, even when you aren't buying. Training your eye to see good stuff isn't difficult, and the payoff is being the guy whose invitations for a steak dinner will be over-subscribed.

Which depending on the quality of your invitees may or may not be a good thing.

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Ah...traditional foods. I love 'em. Well, at least most of them. Or some of them.

That's potato kugel, which is a traditional Eastern European Jewish dish, and because it doesn't have flour and doesn't rise, a perfect food for Passover.

Perfectly boring too. I have rarely had good ones. But that doesn't mean that potatoes and onions and eggs is a bad start. On the contrary, all I require is a good recipe, and all will be right and good and tasty at the Dildo Seder.

Except...there are lots of crappy recipes, and not very many good ones. Hell, I just found one that included zucchini...for texture! What the hell is wrong with people?

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That's for one dozen eggs, and it doesn't even come with a reach-around! Yes, it's Whole Foods, but the one near me has some competition, so it holds its prices down on staples! Even assuming the higher cost of virtue-signalling free-range, organic, non-binary hens that are massaged every day by neutered roosters, that's still a hefty amount for a dozen eggs.

I have had fresh eggs from free-range chickens, and yes, they are excellent. But that "free-range" is a carefully defined legal definition, and I will bet that you and I would have a tough time differentiating between legal "free-range" and plain old industrial farm eggs. The "organic" part is marketing nonsense, and the price is offensive.

What's the point? "F*ck you Joe Biden is the point.

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What the hell are those things? Some sort of mutant growth I found in the back of the refrigerator?

Or an idea I got while having a delicious Gin & Tonic at a hotel bar in London?

We bought a case of citrus to support the high school music program in our local high school. Or was it the crew team? Anyway, I have an abundance of the things, so I sliced one, sprinkled a bit of sugar on the slices (why? I have no idea), and popped it in the oven set on its lowest temperature for a very long time. I had also made a ciabatta recipe that was...eh...so I sliced one of them for bread crumbs and put it in the oven along with the grapefruit.

It certainly looks great as a garnish, but I think the drink also needs a bit of fresh grapefruit to intensify the flavor.

Yes...this is the daily struggle at Chez Dildo!

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[Hat Tip: Dr. No]

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Well, I had some asparagus and it was pretty good, so..., and Flap Meat...whatever the hell that is...just send it, Broccolini that isn't $6/bunch, garlic...lots of garlic!, well-marbled hanger steaks and elk chops to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Who are those poor deluded souls who shake their Manhattans? These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

However, I will give dispensation to those who use maple syrup on Brussels Sprouts! I tried that and it worked nicely. I still prefer Agave, but still...

And yes, I used to demand fancy bourbon, but let's face it, $1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.