Tomorrow marks the second Friday of this Lenten season.

Fresh Pompano

“So what?” you ask.

SO WHAT!?

Suddenly the whole country is fixated on seafood! And I fucking love it! Fish fries are popping up in every fire hall, church and VFW in the city.

People can’t get enough of it this time of year.

Repent mother effers! Give up your chocolate, your pizza, your bread, your wine….and for the next 5 weeks….

You’re all mine!

Here’s what I picked up at the market today. If it were any fresher, it would still be swimming!!

Fresh Yellow Tail Snapper

Fresh Awesome Tazmanian Sea Trout

I wanted to give Baohaus a shout out!

I hit this place on my way into FIN at least 2 times a week. It’s freakin’ awesome!

People of Earth….Try it! You’ll like it!

Thanks NY Times for sharing!

Brimming Buns
Eddie Huang, the chef, prepares sweet bao fries.

Ligaya Mishan asks: “Is there room in this town for another pork bun?” The answer is yes if the bun is from Baohaus, which opened on the Lower East Side in December. Their specialty is gua bao, or Taiwanese hamburgers. “For $4, you get a lily-white bun – the bao – brimming with Niman Ranch pork belly, glossy with fat and topped with the classic Taiwanese condiments: peanuts pulverized to a powder and tossed with red sugar; suan cai (pickled mustard greens), and a fistful of cilantro.” The buns, which have eccentric names – Chairman Bao is named after Mao Zedong, who is said to have loved red-cooked pork belly, and Uncle Jesse is packed with tofu – are the creation of Eddie Huang, the 27-year-old son of Taiwanese immigrants who is also a street-wear designer and a former lawyer. “Mr. Huang cooks everything himself and is prone to whipping up new dishes on the spot. For Chinese New Year, he devised an eight-course menu. But he says he wants to focus on his gua bao. After all, less is more.”

All bullshit aside, I am here to cook! Not to play grab ass, not to fuck, and not to be a bitch to some bitch.

Oh yeah, I am not here to be fucked with.

I am taking this fight with our neighbor to the plate. Let’s see whose food comes out on top. These fuckers will be out of business in a week if we focus.

First round goes to me.

EAT THIS!

I had a glimpse of hope, and I found it in a fish.

A Striped Bass to be exact, a nice size one with a really full belly.

I knew that something had to be in there, freshly eaten.

When I gutted the fish, I pulled out a one pound Shad. Hmmmmm

Shad only run in the Spring!

So I took it one step further. I filleted that fish too to see if it carried what I hoped to find.

And OH YEAH!

There is was, a little sack of Roe.

Fuck the Gob-knobbler and his shadow! I have uncovered Spring!

Jonsi

Suddenly I was in no mood for any of this FIN bullshit, so I made like a boy with his first boner and “beat it.”

I’m back if it really matters to anyone.

I’m back, fuckers!

Sole…

I’ve come home.

Finally something to smile about after wanting to fucking kick everyone’s ass around here for screwing with the vibe – those douche bags across the alley, Chef being all nice to everyone because mommy-fucking-mind-your-manners Adrienne told him he had to, the late night lounge scene out front… it’s all pissing me off right now.

Can you tell?

But I love Massive Attack (notice the flames) and this is cool because I didn’t even know they had a new album coming out until an hour ago when a friend texted me the link to this– how often do you get to say, “Fuck yeah, NPR!” ??????

Click on the picture of the album cover down below here and check it out now.

I walked up the back alley into FIN this morning, because I thought I saw that Jenna, or Janna, or whatever that oh-so-dirty blonde’s name is that I truly did have oh-so-much fun with last week and then never called back, even after she left numerous voice and text messages.

It’s not that I don’t like her,

or that I don’t want to do all of those things we did again at some point in time,

(and even some things we didn’t do…)

but not today.

Today I’m in no fuckin’ mood.

Anyway, it probably wasn’t her at all, but just a little egoism – mixed in with mild paranoia from having smoked a morning spliff of some killer kush the bartender at The Dove gave me last week after his first son was born.

It came in a dime bag package with a blue ribbon tied around it that read, “It’s a boy!”

I guess cigars are “so last century” or something.

I’d have rolled a blunt to keep with the theme of things, but I only had that pack of Rizla’s that Delroy left in the walk-in yesterday.

So I’m tired, and I’m stoned, and I’m just a little pissed off at the homeless dude on the train who had his sausage and eggs hanging halfway out of a giant rip in his filthy fuckin Tommy Jeans sweatpants, as he slept over three otherwise available seats while I had to stand up for nine stops.

I don’t generally mind the homeless in this city – the panhandlers, the hustlers or even a busker’s shitty tune – but the indecent exposure of a “painted black” bum, punch drunk and sleeping where I could sit, just chafes my ass a little.

So, as I said, I was tired and stoned and annoyed, and it’s not even 9 AM.

On top of all this, I notice a piece of dried salmon skin still stuck to the back door from that obnoxious and soon to be retaliated for prank those dick lickers from Sole pulled on us last week, and it ticks me off to no end.

Wars have been started over dried salmon skin stains before, and I for one am not about to sign a peace treaty with those juicebags.

I just haven’t figured out my plan of attack yet.

I’m still strategizing, but believe me, when I figure it out,

it’s gonna be good!

CHECK THIS SHIT OUT!!!!

Aoyagi Clams!!! Some people know this as an Orange Clam. They are from Maine but were originally from Japan. I am going to make Battleship Sushi from the belly and Nigiri from the foot.

I just love what we are able to pull from the ocean and turn into food! You should have seen this Hog Fish a chef I met today at the Fish Market caught in Belize on a spear fishing trip he just came back from.

I am in awe!

I feel we are so fortunate to live in this city and to have these amazing ingredients to use.

SQUEAK SQUEAK!

Do you think it is weird that I have a total non sexual crush on my fish monger?

I don’t know what it is about him that makes me think about him when he’s not around.

Maybe it is the way he yields his saber in a way that shows his knife is just an extension of his arm.

I have to say it is something to see.

I only wish I could be as skilled. I saw him once, under the scrutiny of several onlookers yell “How much do you want?”  while he was hovering over a still head-on 80 pound Swordfish.

A voice from the crowd cried “3.85 pounds!!!”

He looked up, his eyes focusing on the horizon of people, “3.85 pounds, you say?” he growled.

The crowd cheers.

With a steady hand and a walloping thud of his knife, he hacked off a chunk of the fish which spun away from it’s body.

The fish monger lifted the hunk of loin with his bare hands and threw it up on the scale.

“3.85 on the fucking nose!” and the crowd goes wild.

What is it about seafood that makes people loose their shit like this? He may as well have been a Bull fighter for all of the pomp and circumstance he received.

That’s what I want.

I want that.

My fish monger is a fucking bad mamba jamba, and everyone in the city knows, if you want fish…

you go see him.

SQUEAK SQUEAK!