The Cat's out of the Bag

"Do you think that the fish last night was raw?" asked Beryl not long after she had taken over. Sitting not a metre away from Randy, who'd been with me for about an hour already, and me not having mentioned a thing about the fish to him despite him asking me if "the girls" had been in (to thank) I quietly replied "yes, it was", hoping that Randy wasn't listening to me and his wife. I'm still alive. He settled back down on his stool after having to agree that he ate just as much as I did and even commented at the time that "the best bit is mopping the juice with the bread". But it was a close shave, Randy and Raw Fish are not the perfect partners.

Helen emailed me yesterday all the way from Florida to say that the dish is known as a Ceviche. I've followed on from her research to discover that that word may have its root in the Spanish "escabeche" which means 'pickle' or 'marinade' and that it is, originally, a Peruvian method of using seafood. To say that the fish is raw is quite wrong. It's not. The citric acid in the fruit (which can be any citrus type) "cooks" the fish in the time it takes to prep, plate and present at the table and certainly the marination need be no longer than 3 hours. I spoke to Cecilia last night about her recipe and, as usual, you can do what you want, use what you have etc etc. so I'm going to design a dish presented in the grapefruit skin as a starter (having gleaned ideas from Wikipedia whose article is a darn good read for those interested) using Cecilia's Cod & Grapefruit theme. Classically a Ceviche is simply white fish meat, freshly squeezed Lime Juice, Sliced Onion, Salt and a little diced fresh Chilli Pepper,.

Lisa popped her head through the door yesterday evening to tell me that if she doesn't have to struggle with a brolly today she'll drop off a few plants this evening on her way by the bar. Well, things are looking good, the weather is set fair and I'm doing my sun dance on the terrace just to make sure.