For someone who spent a couple of years of his life getting a degree in food, Alan sure hates a lot of it. This becomes more apparent in Florida, where the emphasis is on seafood, which I love. While quite willing to cook it for me by the bucket, Alan shuns it all, from grouper and mahi mahi to scallops and shrimp. I don't quite understand the blanket condemnation, as I feel that oysters are quite a different...eh, kettle of fish than snapper, but so long as he's happy with his steak, I'm happy.
Tuesday evening, dinner at Harbor Docks:
ALAN: Oysters are living biotoxin filters, you know.
ME: Really? *slurp*
ALAN: In the kitchen we referred to them as "hepatitis on the half-shell".
ME: I thought it was botulism you got from raw oysters. *slurp*
ALAN: No, it's hepatitis.
ME: Oh, well, that's not why I like them anyway. *slurp*
ALAN: I can't imagine why anyone would like them.
ME: Well, because they look like snot and it grosses you out when I eat them. *double-loud slurp*
ALAN: Waitress, may I be moved to a different table, please?
Wednesday night, we stopped at a fresh seafood market to obtain my dinner. Alan made me this fabulous dish of sauteed shrimp in a lemon/garlic/white wine sauce. It was FABULOUS. Along with that, I had a lobster tail and some lemon-butter and corn on the cob. He had corn, too, but an onion/garlic-rubbed pork loin instead of seafood.
ALAN: You know, shrimp are basically water cockroaches.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. Slurp chomp munch.
ALAN: They're filthy little insects that happen to be oceanic.
ME: Really? Slurp chomp munch.
ALAN: And don't get me started on lobster. They're the buzzards of the sea, you know.
ME: Mmm-hmmm, I've heard that.
ALAN: Their diet consists of carrion.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. Slurp chew chew.
ALAN: "Carrion" means dead things, you know.
ME: Mmm-hmmm, like that poem by Baudelaire. Pass the butter, please.
ALAN: Dead things that are floating around in the sea already dead and rotting!
ME: Mmm-hmmm. This sauce is fabulous, honey! It's good on the lobster, too.
ALAN: I'm glad you like it, sweetheart.
Last night, fabulous dinner at Destin Chops. Appetizers were onion straws for Alan and escargots for me.
ALAN: You know, they can't even import snails into the U.S. unless they're canned, because they have to undergo pasturization and some other process to purge them of toxins.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. This garlic sauce is wonderful!
ALAN: You know what they're grown in, right?
ME: Mmm-hmmm...the cheese makes it even better.
ALAN: You have to feed them meal for some time, because when you eat them, you're essentially eating their poo, so you have to make sure the poo is edible.
ME: I don't think the poo really adds much to the flavor, though. I think it's Pernod.
ALAN: We always used Pernod when we made them at Doubletree. After we fired them to purge any lingering bacteria.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. *chew chew chew*
Dinner was a prime rib eye for Alan and grouper in meuniere sauce topped with crab in hollandaise for me. We shared garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed herbed mushrooms. He didn't say much about any of those. I'll try to think of something to have today about which he can tell me more grotesque things. Maybe there's a sushi place nearby.
Tuesday evening, dinner at Harbor Docks:
ALAN: Oysters are living biotoxin filters, you know.
ME: Really? *slurp*
ALAN: In the kitchen we referred to them as "hepatitis on the half-shell".
ME: I thought it was botulism you got from raw oysters. *slurp*
ALAN: No, it's hepatitis.
ME: Oh, well, that's not why I like them anyway. *slurp*
ALAN: I can't imagine why anyone would like them.
ME: Well, because they look like snot and it grosses you out when I eat them. *double-loud slurp*
ALAN: Waitress, may I be moved to a different table, please?
Wednesday night, we stopped at a fresh seafood market to obtain my dinner. Alan made me this fabulous dish of sauteed shrimp in a lemon/garlic/white wine sauce. It was FABULOUS. Along with that, I had a lobster tail and some lemon-butter and corn on the cob. He had corn, too, but an onion/garlic-rubbed pork loin instead of seafood.
ALAN: You know, shrimp are basically water cockroaches.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. Slurp chomp munch.
ALAN: They're filthy little insects that happen to be oceanic.
ME: Really? Slurp chomp munch.
ALAN: And don't get me started on lobster. They're the buzzards of the sea, you know.
ME: Mmm-hmmm, I've heard that.
ALAN: Their diet consists of carrion.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. Slurp chew chew.
ALAN: "Carrion" means dead things, you know.
ME: Mmm-hmmm, like that poem by Baudelaire. Pass the butter, please.
ALAN: Dead things that are floating around in the sea already dead and rotting!
ME: Mmm-hmmm. This sauce is fabulous, honey! It's good on the lobster, too.
ALAN: I'm glad you like it, sweetheart.
Last night, fabulous dinner at Destin Chops. Appetizers were onion straws for Alan and escargots for me.
ALAN: You know, they can't even import snails into the U.S. unless they're canned, because they have to undergo pasturization and some other process to purge them of toxins.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. This garlic sauce is wonderful!
ALAN: You know what they're grown in, right?
ME: Mmm-hmmm...the cheese makes it even better.
ALAN: You have to feed them meal for some time, because when you eat them, you're essentially eating their poo, so you have to make sure the poo is edible.
ME: I don't think the poo really adds much to the flavor, though. I think it's Pernod.
ALAN: We always used Pernod when we made them at Doubletree. After we fired them to purge any lingering bacteria.
ME: Mmm-hmmm. *chew chew chew*
Dinner was a prime rib eye for Alan and grouper in meuniere sauce topped with crab in hollandaise for me. We shared garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed herbed mushrooms. He didn't say much about any of those. I'll try to think of something to have today about which he can tell me more grotesque things. Maybe there's a sushi place nearby.
6 Comments:
I looooove seafood of all sorts, as does Flippy. When I was a little kid, my parents would bring me home a "treat" from the grocery store -- not a candy bar, but a smoked whole red snapper, that I'd happily snack on. Now that I'm a grown-up (of sorts), I think my favourite things "from the sea" are squid and salmon.
It's a little bit hard to talk about fish without making one lesbian joke, or saying something which could be construed as a lesbian joke, but I did my best.
By
Anonymous, at 12:31 AM
Hah, Leigh-ann, Anthony just said, "What you laughing at?" And it was your comment! But I didn't explain it to him.
And before that I was laughing out loud at your transcribed dinner conversations.
By
Anonymous Me, at 6:19 AM
A bit o' the old passive/aggressive there, eh?
By
oldhall, at 4:43 PM
Hey, at least no one made a fish taco joke. ;) They're delicious, by the way.
By
Anonymous, at 2:14 PM
You know, I tried very hard to think of a joke which incorporated both lesbian humour and a reference to the infamous Led Zeppelin Fish Incident, but I failed. Maybe Bo can help.
By
Helly, at 4:16 PM
I'm waiting. . .
By
Anonymous Me, at 8:52 PM
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