New skills

On my recent swing down to the real Georgia, I had dinner with some cousins at a local eatery. This was the "fancy" out-to-eat place when I was growing up--it had things like "surf-n-turf" on the menu, and desserts with foreign names like "creme de menthe."

It has changed. Two-thirds of the diners were wearing camoflauge--my cousin and I hypothesized deer season, but I'd like to know what deers are lingering around the salad bar (change for dinner, boys!)--and the surf-n-turf was nowhere to be found. The shrimp scampi had also disappeared. New management, perhaps.

Regardless, I was feeling sassy and decided to get catfish. Fried, of course, because catfish just isn't that great unless it's dredged in cornmeal and fried within an inch of its existence. (I've tried baking and sauteeing this fish. Never the same. Just fry it.)

I ordered, "catfish!" and the surly waitress--not wearing hunting clothing but sporting an apron with her name on it, which my cousin chirpily repeated several times (no more "Sonoma celebrations" for him before dinner!)--said, "you want 2 or 3?"

"Er, I think 2 is all I can handle."

Damn, that was the truth! The fish arrive, and these are not hoity-toity city folk filets! No sir, these are whole catfish that have been drowned in cornmeal and dunked in hot oil. I sat there aghast, unsure of how to eat them, until my cousin told me, "Pick it up, Megarita. You pull off the dorsal fin and then eat it like corn on the cob, only you need to never fully bite down. Gottta miss those bones, you see?"

There is no quantity of napkins that can clean up this sort of mess. Manhandling fried fish and eating it with your hands makes for a very shiny meal. Is it delicious? Hell, yes! Do you want to die after eating it? Yes! you are praying for death! My cousin--a medical professional who ordered three catfish in a fit of hubris--muttered something about his gall bladder that sounded upsetting. Cousin's wife was buried beneath fried shrimp crumbs. She seemed happy. Gleamingly so.

But now I can eat fish with my hands. And not like Gorton's fishsticks, either. Someday I might even catch one. But baby steps, people. Baby steps.