At the Saturday Market this morning I went nuts---2 giant gatherings of rainbow chard; 2 quarts strawberries; 2 quarts beans; 1 quart mixed squash; 2 heads lettuce; 1 quart Japanese eggplant; tomatoes; pink potatoes; Chioggia beets; Italian parsley....I could barely stagger with it all back to the car....then shot to Mastry's Fish place, hoping for porgie, a delicious white fish I just ate for the first time last week.
"No porgie today, but have you had triggerfish? You will love it," said the woman who sold me the porgie. "We'll ring it up here and you just give the guy who cleans it $2." The triggerfish looks like a large, flat tropical fish to me. ( Duh.)
Having paid for a pound of stone crab, and the triggerfish, I headed out to the shed, the heron and egret hanging out in the parking lot keeping keen eyes on the proceedings. A young guy ahead of me is waiting for his mango snapper to be cleaned. "This is the finest fish you can get here," he says. "Absolutely delicious. But of course everything is so fresh at Mastry's there's almost nothing that isn't good."
Mango snapper next time. And more porgie. And whatever else they suggest. I am putty in their fishy hands.
ps A fish caught in the morning and eaten in the evening, possible where we are spending several months of the year in St Petersburg, Florida, is unlike any other. Maybe this is utterly obvious. The chard, grown with ample water, is twice as large as the chard I can buy in Albuquerque. Obvious.
Albuquerque and St Pete: two unique, interesting places, each with great food. Grand.
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