Seafood

This week it has been all seafood every night for dinner. On Monday I took the dogs and kids for a walk/bike down Cliffside and we ran into a neighbor who asked if I'd ever tried black cod 'collars'. I had not, and he went inside and came back with a bag of marinating black cod (A.K.A. sablefish or butterfish) collars and a slab of freshly caught halibut. I was thinking - cool now I know what we're having for dinner. And so we cooked it all up on the grill. Black cod collars are absolutely amazing grilled. Too bad you can't buy them at a store.

On Tuesday I bought and thawed some pacific cod acquired from a cannery in town and got home to discover that a friend had brought by some live weathervane scallops. Barbecue time. How do you eat live scallops? We tried eating them raw and cooking them on the grill in their shell. They were excellent both ways. We learned the 'guts' and male scallop milt are not so good either cooked or raw, but that the main muscle, 'clam strip', and female scallop roe are excellent both raw and cooked. Everyone REALLY liked the scallop roe - even better than the big muscle. And it's funny because the only part that people generally eat is the muscle - the rest is usually thrown away. Just think, Perhaps in the future we could create a market for scallop roe in Japan and sell the stuff for 30 bucks a sac? Having tried live scallops I just hope they start to sell them alive and in their shell. We'd certainly be buying them.

On the grill the scallops popped open after a bit and I flipped them and poured a drop of sherry inside. I think butter and white wine would've worked better. But scallops on the grill works really, really well.

On Wednesday it was the Powerhouse restaurant. Not much to say about that except it was excellent as always and included a lot of local seafood.

Finally tonight. Thursday night. Tonight we had canned salmon patties. I mixed up a jar of canned King salmon from last summer with finely chopped onion, chives from the garden, an egg, and one sleeve of Ritz crackers. This is a recipe from the Joy of Cooking. Homemade Tatar Sauce and life is good. Patrick