Try Something New?

I'm not the most adventurous eater. We decided to try something different today. The lady at The Seafood Shoppe in St Augustine Beach recommended Trigger fish. (This place is terrific. They're always friendly, everything is spotless & their seafood is always fresh - usually caught that day.) The filet looked appealing. The whole fish - Yikes - one ugly bugger with a captal UG. We like seafood, better than the usual landlubber fare, but after seeing the whole fish displayed in ice, I had my doubts. We took a shot at it anyway, but bought some Mahi, just in case.

Riding home from the store we debated about what to have with the ugly, don't know how it will taste, fish & stopped at another store to get some fresh vegetables and Deb's 'Vitamin Water'. Deb is a fantastic cook. She can flat out make anything. There have been times where we have gone out to dinner, liked what was served & 2 weeks later she has duplicated it at home. Me, I can barely get by making grilled cheese.

The trick with fish is to have a side dish that is light, like the fish. Deb decided on a modified rice pilaf. Modified because she added red beans, fresh tomato, scallions, & seasonings - like cayenne pepper & garlic salt. The fish was baked, covered with a very light dose of grated Romano, garlic, topped with freshly sliced tomatoes & shaved hot chile peppers & some seasoning. Now this is where I would screw it up - I assumed dinner would take at least an hour or more to prepare. I'm not much use in the kitchen, though I do help out with the clean up regularly, so I moved out to the porch to resume my writing. (It's going well today.) After checking my email I was all set to return to my WIP when I was summoned to the kitchen. Everything was ready in 10 minutes! (How does she do that? It takes me that long to make a PBJ!)

Well, lemme tellya - it was awesome. The fish was perfect, nice texture & taste, pure white. The rice (not normally a favorite of mine) was another show stopper, just enough spice to give it an interesting bite. I'll admit it here - I'm spoiled.

They say that in the water a Trigger fish is quite beautiful. I find that hard to believe but, on my plate, it looked like the prettiest fish ever. Thanks Deb!