Crab Month Ends on a High Note

I really should have called my dad.

Earlier, as I set out for ShopRite, I told Margy: If they still have soft-shell crabs, I'm getting some. It's the end of June; time is running out.

And what do you know, there they were, languishing in short stacks behind the glass. "Are they alive?" I asked.

"Some of them," said the fish guy, rooting around the crab bin. "But they're fresh -- they just came in today. Oh, look, that one's alive."

"I'll take four."

He knows that if something isn't up to par, then I don't need it that day. He found me four good plumpies.

Now I had to think about frying. For what was surely our last fling of SSC season, it was fry or bust. The first three times, I went with the grill, which was great, but I've regretted not breaking out the peanut oil. Sputter and pop all you want, crabs -- you're taking a hot bath.

In a way, frying was only the beginning, because my overarching scheme was to make soft-shell crab po' boys. I'd never had one, though an oyster po' boy I ate once at a place that used to be on 1st Street at 1st Avenue in NYC was until today my favorite sandwich ever.

The idea of a soft-shell crab po' boy just seemed too good to be true. It reminded me of reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a kid and poring over passages that mentioned the delectable-seeming but hopelessly exotic Turkish delight. This is just a fantasy food, I'd think while I drooled on my OshKosh dungarees.

But somehow I knew soft-shell crab po' boys existed, and I knew how I wanted to make my version. (And I'm still traumatized by the fact that real Turkish delight isn't as good as C.S. Lewis made it sound, though the deconstructed version at Zaytinya in Washington, DC, might be even better.)

While Margy broke out the mandoline to julienne carrot, zucchini, and apple for a slaw, I started with a recent Mark Bittman recipe from the Times for the basic frying method, which was fantastic. I dipped the crabs in a mixture of egg and milk, then dredged them in a 50-50 blend of flour and cornmeal and slipped them into a hot quarter-inch of oil. Good things started to happen.

To make the sandwiches, I broiled split foot-long rolls (coming just a second within having mine go up in flames) and layered them with chipotle mayo, baby red leaf from our garden, sliced pickles, and slivered red onion. On each roll went a crab and a half. That meant there was even a whole crispy, golden-brown crustacean left over for Pops, had I had the foresight to tip him off. What a lousy son.

After Margy wisely decided that one enormous sandwich was enough for her, I ate the fourth crab with a knife and fork and my fingers, drizzling it now and then with lemon juice. I saved a crunchy claw for last.

Crab Month Marches (Sideways) On

Another plate of grilled crabs, even simpler still this time. All they had was a dusting of kosher salt and cracked white and black pepper. I also made soy-honey salmon.

I'm starting to feel like I'm torturing my father every time I mention my crabby exploits. He loves dear, sweet, crunchy-meaty soft-shells as much as I do, but my mom, who's the sole cook in their house, claims to be allergic. It's not hard to do the math: Pops hasn't had a crab all year. I keep telling my mom that even supermarkets sell the things now -- she says she's willing to feed my dad as many crabs as he wants, if only she could find some -- but apparently my parents have moved too far away from civilization to have access to such exotic creatures. I gotta have Dad over for dinner.

Crab Month Continues

For this week's installment, I kept the crabs simple but surrounded them with a few little goodies.

Goodie No. 1 is invisible to the eye, but it made its presence known. My parents recently traveled to Italy, the lucky ducks, and, in Amalfi (my ancestral hometown -- one of them, at least), my mom bought Margy and me a big ol' bottle of our beloved limoncello. Of course, Italian flight officials callously snatched it from her before she boarded a plane to Rome. They were supposedly invoking the no-liquids rule, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the limoncello was not screened for explosive material -- beyond grain alcohol, that is... and we all know what that screening process is like.

So, Mom gave me the next best thing: actual Italian lemons. Big, fat, knobby lemons whose juice is sweet as candy but still carries a lovely tartness. Seems she had offered yummy cookies to their chambermaid and in return was presented with these fresh Amalfitano delights. Five lemons made it home, and I got two of them. The pressure to use them well was enormous.

With the juice of one, I made a poached shrimp dish from a recipe by Marcella Hazan. I boiled unpeeled shrimp in water perfumed with vegetables and a drop of vinegar, then peeled the cooked shrimp and marinated them, still warm, in a two-to-one mixture of good olive oil and (great) lemon juice. I used the same oil-lemon potion to dress purple baby artichokes, which I'd steamed and grilled briefly.

I also grilled the soft-shell crabs, brushed with chive butter that included zest from the Italian lemon. Those legs got nice and crispy!

Crab Month Begins

Yeah, I still cook every now and then.

Especially in May, when soft-shell crab season arrives with a great big crunch and a tasty spurt of crab mustard. Sure, I stopped by the fish counter in late April, just in case, but I was sent away with everything but soft-shells. Then I had no choice but to wait as patiently as I could.

The time finally came, and to kick off this year's soft-shell series I tried grilled teriyaki crabs, along with my stalwart teriyaki bearers, shrimp and salmon. (The stuff is great left over, though the crabs, at least, would never make it beyond this evening.) I didn't want to marinate the crabs and soften their legs and claws, so I just seasoned them with salt and pepper and began brushing on the sauce after they'd crisped up a bit on the grill.

After having my anticipation reach a fever pitch, I admit I felt more relief than joy as Margy, now home safely from Beijing and ready for everything but Americanized Chinese food, and I tucked into our first crabs of '07. But this was just an hors d'oeuvre -- there are many more soft-shells to come before the Fourth of July.

Margy's Beijing Journal: A Spicy Farewell

For the last meal of her trip, Margy, along with her hosts/culinary tour guides, ate at a place called the Middle-8th, which serves "refined Hunan food."

"Refined" is not how I'd describe that indecent-looking mound of hot peppers; "thrilling" is more like it. Of course, the peppers aren't meant to be eaten. Rather, they're there to produce heat by association, lending just a steady glow rather than outright flames to the fried heads-on shrimp they surround. Margy was generally dazzled by the chile effect in Beijing, saying that the spicy dishes carried the perfect level of heat, a mellow yet persistent tingle that was dialed only one step down from euphoric.

Adding to the pleasant feelings was a refreshing house-made rice wine that Margy described as looking like lemonade. It was served in tall, handleless bamboo pitchers and drunk from glass Mason jars, and Margy just said "I wish I had some now." Me, I'll settle for about 25 of those shrimp.

So there you have it, Margy's Beijing Journal. I hope I get to join her one day should she ever return, but for now I'll just be glad to have her back and to have someone besides myself to cook for.

Margy's Beijing Journal: Chou Dofu

...or, as it is more commonly known, "stinky tofu" -- tofu that's been marinated in a brine of fermented vegetables.

It's the yummy-looking fried stuff on the plate at left. How innocent it seems -- golden cubes of crispy deep-fried food. Fried anything is good -- how strange could this be?

According to Margy, pretty strange.

A few days ago, after correctly pegging Margy as an adventurous eater, one of her hosts started chatting her up about stinky tofu, asking whether she'd ever had it and beginning to prime her for the experience. Was this a test? After all, Margy had two hosts, and the other one didn't want to have anything to do with the stuff. But Margy was game.

She said she took two bites and knew that fermented tofu wasn't the dish of her dreams (okay, she knew this after the first bite, but she wanted to be sure). The smell and flavor were superstrong and a bit too jarring to be enjoyable. The other American at the table plugged ahead a little longer than Margy before he too gave up.

Luckily there were other, more familiar foods going around, like a whole fish with chili sauce. Margy had lots of whole fish in Beijing, and what could be better? Anyway, the only real reason to object to eating whole fish is that dealing with bones can be a drag, and in general Chinese don't mind dealing with bones. Margy's companions used their chopsticks to make quick work of the task.

While the Beijing gang sipped plum wine and noshed on stinky tofu, I was at Rudy's on 9th Avenue having "rehearsal" with my band, which consisted of drinking beer and eating a lousy but free hot dog, which, now that I think of it, might have also been fermented...

Don't Try This at Home?

One of the coolest places in all of New Jersey is the Mitsuwa Japanese Marketplace in Edgewater. I'm trying to think of something you can't get there, and I'm coming up blank. There's an amazing produce section that offers nothing but prime specimens and includes enough imported fruits and vegetables to set my heart aflutter. There are shelves packed with all kinds of rice, condiments, tea, seaweed, and other dry good(ie)s, plus a vast sake section (which really should come with a person to help us neophytes make sense of all the choices). There are huge cases of fresh, vibrant-looking meats. There are even more cases of sashimi-grade seafood, from familiar varieties (salmon, tuna) to more esoteric choices (salted herring roe) to the just plain decadent (a big box of sea urchin that I wanted to scoop into my mouth as I shopped). And then there's the food court, which boasts a ramen house, a gyoza stand, a sushi bar, a cream puff shop, a tonkatsu counter, and a pasta station.

A pasta station? Hey, we're still in Jersey.

I had been to Mitsuwa once before, solo, but this was Margy's maiden voyage. Her eyes grew wide as we entered. It was a bustling Sunday afternoon, so rubbing elbows with everyone else was unavoidable, but we didn't mind. All the activity simply added to the impression that we had actually arrived in Tokyo.

Margy did hone in pretty quickly on the one thing Mitsuwa seems to lack: a gift shop. But I'm not sure we turned every stone -- there may be one back there someplace. Plus apparently there's an ordinance in the area about selling certain goods on Sunday, so the aisles and aisles of rice cookers and other fun-looking appliances were kept under wraps. We'll be back, and we'll find the gift shop. Anyway, there was an enormous sweets counter that held every imaginable variety of candy and cake, many of which looked too precious and ornate to eat (and some of which, I'm sure, would be too shocking to the western palate to enjoy, as has been my experience with Japanese desserts). That stuff would make great gifts, depending on the recipient.

The first thing we did was eat lunch -- gyoza and fried rice with a tiny cup of broth and a small daikon-and-seaweed salad. This good-sized meal was $6.95 (Margy and I ordered the same thing), and it was delicious and had been made to order. After lunch we took a walk by the river, and it sometimes seemed like we could toss a pebble and hit the west side of Manhattan.

When our stroll was complete, we returned to Mitsuwa to shop.

It wasn't easy to stop. I felt an electric current of adrenaline as I picked through things I'd never seen before, never even heard of. I grabbed some new stuff, some of the usual, some "eureka!" favorites, some things I had no idea what to do with. We bought two tiny yuzu fruits. We bought Japanese tofu. We longed for a knobby root of fresh wasabi, but it was $99.99 a pound and we put it back. We agreed that tonight we'd have sashimi at home, at our kitchen table, which we'd never even considered before.

Back at the ranch, the buzz of discovery continued into the evening. Among our purchases were four kinds of produce that were new to our kitchen: yuzu (citrus fruit), myoga (a mild gingerlike bulb), mitsuba (an herb that sort of falls between parsley and celery), and mizuna (a slender salad green). What the hell was I going to do with these things?

First I made some sashimi dipping sauces, including a riff on ponzu that used the zest and juice of the yuzu plus soy sauce and grated ginger. I'll tell you, those little fruits are stingy, with a yuzu about the size of a small plum yielding maybe two teaspoons of juice. But this juice was transporting -- it was a familiar flavor, but it was exotic at the same time, possessing a sharpness and a bitterness that distinguished it from other citruses. For a bit of our beloved heat, I mixed up some wasabi from a powder that my sister had given me, and I used Sriracha sauce to make a chile-ginger dip. I used the other produce in a salad and whipped up a sesame-yuzu dressing. (I was going to squeeze every last drop from those four-dollar fruits.)

Meanwhile, I had a second course in mind to follow the sashimi: the famous black cod with miso. If I'm not mistaken, Margy and I had eaten this dish only once, during our sole visit to Nobu, and it vaulted right to legendary status in our food memories. Sweet, salty, fatty, with a bit of crispy skin -- it was a perfect food, great fun to eat. A few years ago I tried making a version with salmon -- I got the recipe from Nobu's cookbook -- and we both found it a little sweet. This, after marinating, and obsessing over, it for two days. In the years since, I've noticed black cod with miso on just about every Japanese menu, but I believe it's still considered Nobu's signature dish. Today, since I'd found actual black cod at Mitsuwa, I tried a "quick version" recipe from the wonderful Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh, which calls for -- guess what? -- yuzu peel. The cod was marinating as I got the sashimi ready.

Now, I have tried my best over the years to cultivate a certain kitchen fearlessness, with "Why not?" as my motto. Can an Italian-American punk from Jersey make a real Indian curry? Why not? Can he steam a chicken the Chinese way? Why not! But suddenly, in the simple act of slicing raw fish, I was losing my nerve, feeling like I somehow had no right to do what I was doing. All because of tradition.

It's a dream of mine to be a sushi chef. And sushi chefs in training don't get to make sushi for years. For the first, say, 24 months or so, they scrub the wooden bar. Once they've gained proper respect for their surroundings, they begin learning to make rice, which takes a long time to master. Only after they've perfected the rice, way down the line, do they get to begin to use a knife. And so it goes, give or take -- and now here I am, catapulting myself light years ahead to the fish-slicing part, and I haven't even washed the table. I felt like I was intruding.

But I wasn't about to stop, so I even dared to try to arrange our sashimi platter with a little bit of clumsy flair. I laid out little piles of sweet shrimp (amaebi), with rows of tuna and yellowtail, plus thin rings of Japanese cucumber and stacks of julienned myoga. The yellowtail was particularly uncooperative and fell apart a bit, but it made it to the plate successfully.

And then, next thing we knew, we were eating sashimi in our kitchen. All of the fish were of top-notch freshness. The shrimp were creamy and melted in our mouth, the tuna was tender and clear tasting, and the yellowtail was firm and briny. The ponzu sauce definitely represented a step up in complexity as opposed to plain soy sauce. I look forward to benefiting from the skills of a real sushi chef in the near future, but this experience was aces in terms of kitchen empowerment. Plus it was downright delicious, not to mention wildly entertaining. And the black cod came out beautifully -- thanks to an amazing piece of fish, a shriveled but powerful citrus fruit, and a wise Japanese chef and teacher.

Health Food

After a recent steady diet of meats and tomatoey Italian dishes, we felt like we needed something a little lighter. So I whipped up some shrimp. With lots of bacon. I served them over grits. With tons of cheddar cheese.

Well, so much for that "lighter" thing. On the other hand, we didn't really eat lunch...

Of Sauces and Florets

I like to serve fish pretty simply, but I've also been experimenting with quick sauces to enhance the flavors.

Tonight, as I pan-fried pieces of steelhead trout, I whisked together a little potion on the next burner. I made the tiniest roux possible, with just a bit of butter and flour, since I wanted to bind the sauce without making it thick. I added an anchovy and broke it up, and then I poured in some white wine and shrimp stock. A dab of tomato paste for color, a few strokes of the whisk, and it was ready. Could I have made more of this tasty liquid? Sure. But I was going for just a small pool of flavor, not a full bath, and so the fish-to-sauce ratio seemed right. The trout received just a dash of pick-me-up on its way home.

Meanwhile, I roasted cauliflower with olive oil and pancetta. Per my mom's instructions, I cooked it nice and hot -- 475 -- and turned it with tongs along the way, until it had the proper char. Even without pancetta (bite my tongue!), this is something I could eat just about every day. Roasted cauliflower, you've officially entered our heavy rotation.

Paella Pretender

Ever since I got that great Spanish chorizo for Margy's empanadas, I've been looking for ways to slip the remainder of the sausage into our meals. A bastardized paella had been taking shape in my mind for weeks.

Tonight I gave it a shot. I cooked Arborio rice with chorizo, tiny pork spare ribs from the Asian market, shrimp, clams, peas, shrimp stock (didn't have any chicken stock), aromatics, saffron, and herbs. I definitely wouldn't call it paella, but I would call it dinner. The only bummer was the clams, which were rubbery, but at least they lent the dish a bit of briny sea essence, so they weren't a total washout. The highlights were the smoky, spicy chorizo and the tiny ribs, which were short on meat but long on porkaliciousness.

I should probably backtrack and attempt a traditional paella -- with that great crust on the bottom and all -- but for now this was a fun start. It was a little runny when compared to the real deal, so I'll just call it Spanish risotto and leave it at that.

Sticking with Sardines

Tonight, only sardines would do. Call it the need for oily fish.

Sardines aren't easy. Cheap, yes. Delicious, absolutely. But those little tiny bones, they can become a concern. Even the highly skilled guys at our Asian market's fish counter throw up their hands when you ask them to clean 'em. ("Only gut," is a common refrain.) So when I buy sardines, I feel the same way I do when I buy heads-on shrimp: excited, but a little guilty that I'm about to make Margy labor for her dinner.

Thing is, the bones are so small, in fact, that I'm pretty sure you can just eat them. The thinner, brittler ones, anyway. The pattern for me is always the same: I treat sardine #1 with kid gloves, gingerly excising each translucent little bone with the focus of a surgeon. I work hard for every omega-3-packed morsel I throw in my mouth. Then, somewhere, somehow, a bone or two gets through and I realize it's not the end of the world (as long as I make sure to chew). By sardine #2 I'm throwing caution to the wind.

Luckily, you can get in a rhythm of filleting the sardines and removing the majority of the skeleton in one motion, greatly cutting back on the bone crunching. And it's worth it -- there's nothing like a nice stack of freshly cooked sardines. Their flavor is related to that of their canned counterparts (which, let's be honest, have their share of little bones as well), but the fish are meatier, tastier, more succulent.

Tonight I cooked the sardines in hot oil for a minute and then poured in teriyaki sauce, which got nice and sticky and almost burnt in spots as it cooked along with the fish. Its potent salty sweetness was a good match for the strong-flavored sardines.

I adapted the side dish from the Crispy Vegetables that accompany Lemongrass-Crusted Skate (sounds good) in Dominique's Fresh Flavors. Margy, the mandoline expert, julienned daikon, carrot, broccoli stems, and celery root, and we tossed them in sesame oil with a little soy sauce and Sriracha hot sauce. Whenever we grew weary from the precision demanded by eating sardines, we could just tear into the rice and veggies with flagrant disregard for any consequences.

Let Them Eat Pies

It all started a few weeks ago when Margy and I were watching an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown made a big bunch of sweet and savory pies. His dough was flexible and cooperative, and he noted that the sky's the limit in terms of fillings. Margy and I looked at each other and nodded slowly. Our next project.

I don't think Alton actually used the term empanada (though he did use the term Pop-Tarts, in the final, let's-make-all-natural-junk-food segment). But Margy and I were thinking empanadas all the way. I've always loved the idea of a self-contained meal that includes edible packaging. I was thrown from my course only briefly, when those vile Hot Pockets came along and crept quickly and insidiously into the school, the home, the workplace, and I couldn't look at anything that resembled one. But that didn't last long. My love for empanadas was never in jeopardy.

So it was settled. Saturday, I shopped; Sunday, we cooked.

Margy made the dough. She came up with a recipe online, after we couldn't find Alton's. The ingredients included vinegar, which surprised us. We vetted this with my sister the baker, though, and she said adding a bit of vinegar was a common practice, even if she'd never tried it herself. I think she wanted us to check it out so she could see if it was any good. We agreed.

This dough clearly wasn't as pliable as Alton's, but his seemed unnaturally soft. On TV, it behaved almost like warm, well-worked Play-Doh. Too bad we missed the beginning of the episode, which presumably included a scientifically illuminating explanation of why his dough was so easy to work with. But Margy's no novice, so she kneaded our golden butterball into shape in due time.

Meanwhile, I made the fillings. We were churning out a hefty batch of empanadas, with a good number destined for the freezer, so it seemed three varieties would be about right. Here's what I came up with:

* Shredded chipotle pork (a riff on the braised, vaguely Mexican pork butt I made last month)
* Chorizo, potato, shrimp, and vegetable (a combination that tumbled forth from my brain and somehow just seemed right)
* Spinach and mushroom (because we need our greens!)

It was all lots of fun. And a lot of work. The chorizo and potato empanadas felt particularly inspired, though Margy couldn't resist the pork ones. I bought the chorizo at the little gourmet cheese shop in town, and it made all the difference to have a real serious Spanish sausage rather than a timidly flavored, preservative-packed supermarket brand, which I admit I've tried a few times for convenience's sake. And I'm happy to report that, much like shrimp and bacon, shrimp and chorizo make a pretty cute couple.

This was also the most colorful filling (apologies for not cutting into one for the photo), with red half-moons of chorizo, white cubes of potato, orange circles of carrot, and flashes of pink from the chopped shrimp. Actually, the three varieties were a colorful set -- even the spinach and mushroom ones refused to be upstaged by their porkier counterparts and offered deep mushroom flavor (I used fresh baby bellas as well as dried porcini and morels) along with their deep green color.

Margy felt the dough rolled out a bit thick, but if that was the case it was just slightly thicker than would have been ideal. She handled the stuffing and folding, and she quickly learned to maximize the amount of filling without overstuffing. She pressed the edges of each empanada with the tines of a fork and brushed them all with egg wash (well, only the ones we were going to eat; the others we'd freeze uncooked). I created a system of coded air holes so we could tell which kind was which: three vertical holes for spinach-mushroom, three horizontal holes for chorizo-potato, and five holes for chipotle pork.

The empanadas baked for about 25 minutes in a 375-degree oven, and many hours after we'd begun, we were finally ready to dig in. I'd still like to try Alton's dough for the sake of comparison, but Margy picked a winner. The crust was crisp and flaky -- and tasty. I'm not sure how much impact the vinegar had, but I now consider it a worthy addition to crust for savory pies. Just not for Pop-Tarts.

Sweet (and Slightly Salty) Relief

"I need sushi. It's been long enough."

Margy had been hearing some variation on those words for a couple weeks now, and it was time to do something about it. So we made a reservation at Shumi, our favorite Japanese restaurant in Jersey.

I was ready to go all out. We took a seat at the bar, and, with Margy's permission, I asked the chef/owner, Ike, to just start feeding us. "We like everything," I said, and I meant it. After a soft-shell crab salad took the edge off ever so slightly, Ike presented us with a magnificent plate of sashimi as a prelude to the sushi that would follow.

Each fish made us swoon. Clockwise from top left: white tuna; toro; Japanese horse mackerel, or aji, dressed with a wonderful mince of ginger and scallion; tai, a sea bream that's somewhat similar to red snapper; sweet shrimp from Maine, the first of the season and tonight's special; and squid that Ike scored with a knife and rolled around seaweed, spicy tuna, and cucumber.

What followed were greatly conflicting impulses to devour it all on the spot and slow down to a crawl in order to savor every morsel. I didn't want the moment to end. After the sashimi, as a parade of sushi began, with Ike handing Margy and me two pieces each at a time until we reluctantly asked him to stop, I was struck with one of the reasons why a meal of sushi and sashimi is among my very favorites: It's an ephemeral experience.

And in so many ways. Take, for instance, the pieces of seared salmon with spicy cilantro dressing that Ike gave us near the end of the feast. These hit just about every note that sushi can sing, and in perfect harmony -- the char on the border of the fish gave it wonderful smoky flavor, while the uncooked interior was briny tasting and refreshing, with the perfect meaty but tender texture. The dressing tingled on the tongue. And the rice was just right, meaning it wasn't tightly packed and had a presence of its own. One piece of sushi offered all this -- but there was only one piece for each of us. Sure, we could have said, "Ike, do that again!" But what would we have missed? Seared white tuna with sriracha sauce? That would have been a crime.

So the pleasure of each incredible bite was fleeting, and the wonder of the whole meal was fleeting too, since it's just not possible for us to eat like this every day, or even every week. And though a good sushi meal is supremely satisfying, it also comes with a certain lightness when it's all over, which only contributes to the bittersweet feeling. After I eat a good steak, I feel full and don't want anything more than maybe a nip of brown liquor and a couple bites of dessert. After I eat a good sushi meal, I'm thinking, I could do that again RIGHT NOW. I know it's time to stop -- my wallet knows, at least -- but I want to continue, and the feeling lingers. I would say my number one, taken-for-granted eating rule is to keep things varied, yet for years I've noticed that when I have a memorable sushi meal, I invariably wake up the next day wanting to eat the stuff again. I think it's addictive.

Oh, Snap!

I felt like cooking fish fillets. Margy was in the mood for a whole fish. Guess who won?

The Asian market provided another fine specimen, a red snapper, which I adorned with herbs, lemon, and olive oil and then slipped under the broiler. The fish was moist and succulent -- the "cheek meat," as my parents would call it, was especially delicious -- but the crispy skin was the best part.

Paris Journal 2006: Vin & Marée

On any trip to Paris, eating shellfish should be part of the agenda. Parisians know how to get it right.

For our seafood meal, we took our concierges' suggestion of the nearby Vin & Marée (which they explained means wine and tide). When we walked through the door for our 8:30 reservation to find a quiet, harshly lit, and drab dining room, I remembered my new rule for Paris restaurant seating: Always choose the smoking section. In other words, we were standing in the smoke-free zone, while the smokers were led upstairs to a more comfortable and ever so slightly more charming dining room. Something analogous seems to happen in most other restaurants as well -- the good tables, whatever that may mean at a given place, are where the smoke is. This may not be a factor much longer, with talk of a smoking ban that has the French huffing while they're puffing, but for now it's good to keep in mind.

Even upstairs, among industrial carpeting and white walls that sported a strip of blue waves, I could tell Margy wasn't nuts about the decor. What can you do -- it was Monday night, not the best evening for Paris dining. At least the menu looked good, and there wasn't a nonseafood choice on it.

As we were finalizing our selections, a waiter brought us a bowl of mussels in a bit of chive-butter sauce. They were the best mussels I've had in years, briny and tender. We ordered snails and oysters, plus a bottle of white Sancerre.

A young woman came over with an ice bucket and a bottle of wine, and she proceeded to open the bottle without showing it to us. She poured me a taste as I strained to see the label behind the towel she'd wrapped around the bottle. Not bad. She filled our glasses and then left, and I picked the bottle out of the bucket. Nope, not Sancerre. I mentioned this to our waiter, who smiled, removed the mystery bottle, and declared our glasses an aperitif. (The Sancerre was noticeably more complex, and I was glad to have had a mini comparative wine tasting in addition to a free drink.)

The oysters were good but not spectacular. Their liquor was a bit too salty, so unfortunately it was wise not to slurp it all up. But the escargots were wonderful. Last year, they were my revelation -- I hadn't realized how much I loved them before that trip. Once I caught on, I ate big ones, small ones, and microscopic ones that came with a tiny needle, which was the only device that would make it possible to remove the minuscule amount of meat. (I don't mind working for my dinner.) Tonight there was no need for a magnifying glass, but the snails were just as good. They were meaty and firm yet not tough or chewy.

For my entree I had roasted prawns with "caviar d'aubergine." Now, "caviar" I understood, or at least I thought I did; "aubergine," not so much. The word looked familiar, so I just figured, Hey, I'm cool with caviar of whatever. Well, I was surprised to find out that this accompaniment to the prawns was pureed eggplant. Eggplant isn't my favorite, but I was nevertheless thrilled to find some form of vegetable on my plate. The prawns were very good -- they had a bit of char on them, and they offered much more flavor than the shrimp I get at ShopRite back in Jersey.

But Margy's bouillabaisse took home first prize. In fact, I probably stuck my spoon in the bowl almost as often as Margy did. The powerfully flavorful broth was deep and rich and offered a big blast of fennel that joined nicely with the fish stock. The pieces of fish -- mostly rockfish, I believe -- were abundant and weren't overcooked. Rather than being served with a rouille, the bouillabaisse came with croutons and a saffron-garlic aioli. Truly delicious.

You know how I said the dining rooms lacked a certain charm? Well, any missing pizzazz, and then some, could be found in the restrooms. Each of the four men's-room walls contained a row of tiles adorned with cartoons of people using the facilities (as this is a food blog, I'm trying to choose my words carefully). These included a zaftig couple locked in passionate embrace while set upon the porcelain god and a pair of suited businessmen shaking hands while crossing streams. Wouldn't you know I had my camera in my pocket, and I captured it all.

When I returned to the table and showed Margy one of the photos I'd just taken, she shot out of her seat without a word, grabbed the camera, and made a beeline to the ladies' room. Did she find four walls of toilet cartoons? Hardly. The little chamber was decked out in mirrors from head to toe. She'd never seen so many Margys at one time, not even in a Lord & Taylor dressing room...

Fried

I've never had a deep-fried Mars bar, but I know I would like it. Because I would like a deep-fried anything, as pretty much all of us would. Tasty, crispy, golden armor just has that magic.

Fried shrimp are a particular favorite around here. I leave deep-frying to the pros (and those who keep buckets of cooking oil laying around the house) and choose to focus on the kind of frying that happens in a quarter inch of peanut oil. I've said it before, but the difference between frying in peanut oil and, say, canola oil is stunning. Peanut oil has a higher smoke point and can cook food hotter and therefore faster, which is the name of the game.

Anyway, I had a leek in the fridge, so I thought I'd try frying it after the shrimp were done. Best idea I've had all week. I sliced the leek lengthwise into very thin strips, and then I dredged the strips in flour and tossed them in the red-hot, full-of-panko-shrapnel pan. For a little while, not much was happening besides a bit of bubbling. But I moved the stuff around with a pair of tongs, and after a minute it began to brown. Seconds after that, it was done, and I had a brittle little tangle of fried leeks that only needed a sprinkle of salt. Margy looked at me like I'd been keeping some terrible yet wonderful secret from her all these years.

Oh, and just for kicks I repeated the process with a thin-sliced jalapeño. Yowza!

Silverbrite

There's a guy at the ShopRite fish counter who kind of looks like a fisherman. He's the only one I trust back there, and today he told me to try the silverbrite salmon, which was on sale. When I buy seafood, I'm not necessarily looking for a bargain, and I can be suspicious of cut-rate items. But again, I trust this leather-hatted chap. So I bit.

The silverbrite was pinker and paler than bright-orange farmed salmon, and the last time I'd bought it, its flavor was a little strong for my liking. This time, though, as my pal said it would be, it was much better. I dusted it with barbecue rub, broiled it, and served it with a big "autumn power medley" of roasted potatoes with garlic and roasted Brussels sprouts with pancetta. Sprinkled with lotsa lemon, the salmon made a great dinner. But the side dishes, with their fall flavors and alternating tender and crispy bits, were the best part.

Fresh

Living in the Jersey suburbs, it's just a given that good fish isn't so easy to track down. But it's out there.

Today Margy and I found the elusive Asian market that had been relayed to us as Capital. Its actual name: Captain Fresh.

Judging from the seafood counter, that name is accurate. The place had everything, from snails to clams to finfish to eels, and it all looked pristine. I chose a fat red snapper and asked for it to be filleted. The fishmonger did a beautiful job, working slowly and methodically. I noticed that the man at the sink next to him was cleaning dozens and dozens of small fish, as a piscine mountain grew on the nearby counter.

Our fillets were packed up and wrapped. "Want the head?" the fish guy asked. I hadn't thought about it -- I don't have whole fish filleted that often, and when I do, no one never asks. "Sure, I'll take it," I said, and suddenly I was picturing a sauce in my mind. Margy looked at me and smiled.

I cannot rave about the freshness of this snapper enthusiastically enough. I could have served it as sashimi. You know how the experts always say that very fresh fish has practically no aroma, just a subtle perfume of the sea? This snapper was the very embodiment of that idea. Unwrapping it, I was met with firm but tender flesh, gorgeous unblemished skin, and the hint of an ocean breeze. I hadn't bought this little guy at ShopRite.

I took the head and bones, along with onion, carrot, and parsley, and made a very small amount of stock, which by itself was quite tasty. Then I sautéed the fillets and made a sauce with the stock and some herbs, wine, and heavy cream. Meanwhile, I was roasting potatoes with garlic. On another tray, I roasted some amazing purple-veined beans (I want to say the farmers' market called them lingerie beans, but forgive me if I'm unconsciously merging a few fantasies here) with pancetta.

I don't want to brag, but just in terms of my excitement over the high quality of the ingredients and the fact that everything came together perfectly without any hitches, I would put this dinner in my all-time stove-manning top ten.

And If You Go Chasing Radish...

It's come to the point where there are no more surprises at the ShopRite fish counter (not good ones, anyway). Going in, I know that the only reliable -- or, forgive me, semireliable -- things on hand will be shrimp, squid, steelhead trout, the odd cockle or littleneck, and salmon. That's a shame, because I love nothing more than poking around without preconceptions and having a meal be inspired by my spying a nice piece of fish. And I'm not in the market for a new market -- I'm sticking with ShopRite, the best choice in town for everything else.

Today as I approached the seafood stand I knew I'd be making salmon teriyaki. But, really, there's nothing wrong with that. The sweet-salty-boozy sauce is always welcome around here.

I served the salmon with cucumbers and miso-sesame paste, plus some grated daikon that I dressed with lime juice and togarashi pepper. It was my first time bringing daikon into the house -- I found it at the farmers' market -- but it won't be the last. I was surprised, and pleased, by how spicy it was on its own, which make me realize that in restaurants I've always eaten it in combination with other things. I look forward to exploring more ways to deal with this intriguing white radish.

Missed Opportunities

How did I blow it with our Thai basil plant? Let us count the ways.

Way back in May, when we were poking around a nursery in Vermont, I was beside myself with excitement to find a tiny Thai basil plant sitting in an obscure corner of the greenhouse. We brought it home and I kept it inside until the weather heated up a bit (basil hates the cold), and then Margy potted it and set it outside. All summer I tended to it lovingly, making sure to prune the flowers and to give it enough sun and water. It thrived.

And then I hardly ever used it.

And now it's dying.

And I'm angry with myself.

Don't get me wrong -- it was occasionally put to good use, lending its herbal, aniselike perfume to the occasional stir-fry or curry. But I didn't make enough Thai or Thai-inspired dishes to properly exploit the exotic little bush growing in our back yard.

Tonight is the perfect example. I made a Thai-style squid stir-fry, fragrant with shallots and garlic and fish sauce and spicy with hot peppers, and then I garnished it with cilantro and Margy and I sat down to dinner. All day I was thinking Lotsa basil, lotsa basil, but somehow that crucial bit of information slipped my mind while I was laying out ingredients. Three bites into our meal, I shot out of my chair: "Dammit!" I scared the heck out of Margy, who for some reason doesn't appreciate my frantic non-sequitur exclamations. I clued her in to why I was suddenly upset.

It was pouring out, and we had already started eating. I sat back down.

Thirty seconds later I grabbed the kitchen scissors, stepped into my shoes, and went outside to clip some basil, which I then hastily snipped over our plates. I don't have many chances left, and it's going to be a long Thai-basil-less winter. I'm happy to say this last-minute herb application did indeed make all the difference. If only I had thought of it sooner. And more often.