Crab Fishing Quotes

Fish in another man's pond and you will catch crabs.

THIS IS THE ACCOUNT of when all is still silent and placid. All is silent and calm. Hushed and empty is the womb of the sky. THESE, then, are the first words, the first speech. There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, or forest. All alone the sky exists. The face of the earth has not yet appeared.

How very many scatters of stars are named for animals, thinks Miss Moss. Eagle, swan, crab, bull, bear, fish, lion, goat, scorpion, horse. We see animals everywhere. We are animals. Or we used to be animals, and mostly now we forget how to be animals, which is why we look for them everywhere.

Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look, you Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

A Faint Music by Robert Hass Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing

Wetlands are actually unsung heroes. They nurture young fish, provide refuge to birds, bats, bugs, and sometimes to big mammals like panthers and bears. Mangroves, for instance, are trees and shrubs that inhabit coastal swamps, and they form peat that is home to clams, snails, crabs, and shrimp, and filter pollution out of the water. Their “interlaced roots protect tiny fish from ravenous jaws of larger fish, and even manatees and dolphins take refuge there.

She noticed a monger’s window where, on a bed of ice, a wonderful scene was worked in fish. A skiff made of flounder fillets rode waves of shrimp and blue-black mussels. A whole salmon was a lighthouse, shot out rays of glittering mackerel. All framed by a border of crab claws. She

I'm pretty strong," he says. "I could cart you around on my back all day long. Hey, I could even teach you to swim." 'Tisn't true," she replies haughtily. "How could you do that?" I know how--with floats, to keep your feet up." She shakes her head. He puffs out his cheeks and whistles soundlessly. "I go fishing with my father on Sundays. I can bring you back a hake big as this!" He spreads his arms to show a fish about the size of a whale. "You like hake?" She shakes her head. Bass?" Same response. Crab claws? We got a lot of them, in the nets." She turns her chair around and pushes the wheels along--now she's the one who goes away. Snobby Parisienne!" he yells after her. "And to think I almost fell for you! I smell too fishy is that it?

There, at a depth to which divers would find it difficult to descend, are caverns, haunts, and dusky mazes, where monstrous creatures multiply and destroy each other. Huge crabs devour fish and are devoured in their turn. Hideous shapes of living things, not created to be seen by human eyes wander in this twilight. Vague forms of antennae, tentacles, fins, open jaws, scales, and claws, float about there, quivering, growing larger, or decomposing and perishing in the gloom, while horrible swarms of swimming things prowl about seeking their prey. To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconsciousness, of creation. There in the awful silence and darkness, the rude first forms of life, phantomlike, demoniacal, pursue their horrible instincts.

Fool brother Filip led blind brother Daret deep into the black cave. He knew that inside it, the Queen Crab resided but that didn’t scare him away. Said blind brother Daret to fool brother Filip, does Queen Crab no longer reign? I have heard she is vicious, and likes to eat fishes. It’s best we avoid her domain. Answered fool Filip to his brother small, have I not always kept you safe? I know what I’m doing, for I’m older than you, and I’ll never lead you astray.

Those less fortunate eat dried fish while the truly destitute fight with the spiny shells of crabs or lobsters. Decades later, my father will find it incomprehensible that Americans crave what in his childhood was considered repugnant fare.

They believe all paths of evolution eventually lead to crabs—a process called carcinization

A world like that is not really natural, or (the thought strikes one later) perhaps it really is, only more so. Parts of it are neither land nor sea and so everything is moving from one element to another, wearing uneasily the queer transitional bodies that life adopts in such places. Fish, some of them, come out and breathe air and sit about watching you. Plants take to eating insects, mammals go back to the water and grow elongate like fish, crabs climb trees. Nothing stays put where it began because everything is constantly climbing in, or climbing out, of its unstable environment.

Boxes are being opened and vans idle with loads of fish and crab, early spring berries, bunches of sweet lemony sorrel, chocolates, cheeses, oils and vinegars in thin green bottles, flowers with sweet-smelling heads the colors of confectionary.

have always been angry, Bastard Daughter of the Waves. The other day, I was in the shallows near Puná, and I watched a ship unload garbage into the waters. I was buried under it for days and no one came to help me. The other fish and crabs couldn’t hear me.

Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool on the tip of the Peninsula. It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals. Crabs rush from frond to frond of the waving algae. Starfish squat over mussels and limpets, attach their million little suckers and then slowly lift with incredible power until the prey is broken from the rock. And then the starfish stomach comes out and envelops its food. Orange and speckled and fluted nudibranchs slide gracefully over the rocks, their skirts waving like the dresses of Spanish dancers. And black eels poke their heads out of crevices and wait for prey. The snapping shrimps with their trigger claws pop loudly. The lovely, colored world is glassed over. Hermit crabs like frantic children scamper on the bottom sand. And now one, finding an empty snail shell he likes better than his own, creeps out, exposing his soft body to the enemy for a moment, and then pops into the new shell. A wave breaks over the barrier, and churns the glassy water for a moment and mixes bubbles into the pool, and then it clears and is tranquil and lovely and murderous again. Here a crab tears a leg from his brother. The anemones expand like soft and brilliant flowers, inviting any tired and perplexed animal to lie for a moment in their arms, and when some small crab or little tide-pool Johnnie accepts the green and purple invitation, the petals whip in, the stinging cells shoot tiny narcotic needles into the prey and it grows weak and perhaps sleepy while the searing caustic digestive acids melt its body down. Then the creeping murderer, the octopus, steals out, slowly, softly, moving like a gray mist, pretending now to be a bit of weed, now a rock, now a lump of decaying meat while its evil goat eyes watch coldly. It oozes and flows toward a feeding crab, and as it comes close its yellow eyes burn and its body turns rosy with the pulsing color of anticipation and rage. Then suddenly it runs lightly on the tips of its arms, as ferociously as a charging cat. It leaps savagely on the crab, there is a puff of black fluid, and the struggling mass is obscured in the sepia cloud while the octopus murders the crab. On the exposed rocks out of water, the barnacles bubble behind their closed doors and the limpets dry out. And down to the rocks come the black flies to eat anything they can find. The sharp smell of iodine from the algae, and the lime smell of calcareous bodies and the smell of powerful protean, smell of sperm and ova fill the air. On the exposed rocks the starfish emit semen and eggs from between their rays. The smells of life and richness, of death and digestion, of decay and birth, burden the air. And salt spray blows in from the barrier where the ocean waits for its rising-tide strength to permit it back into the Great Tide Pool again. And on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull.

An army of helpers for the twenty-eight cooks were preparing the meats and vegetables, plucking chickens, killing fresh fish and lobsters and crabs and cleaning them, doing the thousand tasks that Chinese food requires—as each dish is cooked freshly for each customer.

Maybe it was mean country, but not an inch was lean. Layers of life—squiggly sand crabs, mud-waddling crayfish, waterfowl, fish, shrimp, oysters, fatted deer, and plump geese—were piled on the land or in the water. A man who didn’t mind scrabbling for supper would never starve.

The narrative was of a virgin (Virgo) who would bear the promised seed and pay the price of justice to overcome the “wounder of the heel” (Scorpio the scorpion). This promised one would be a conqueror (Sagittarius the archer), who would carry the weight of sins and bring living waters for his people (Aquarius the water-bearer). Those people would be blessed though bound (Pisces the fish). Their blessings would be consummated through a ram of sacrifice who would become a ruling leader (Taurus the bull), a king with two natures (Gemini the twins). He would hold his people fast in his grip (Cancer the crab), and would ultimately reign as king over the earth (Leo the lion).

As we followed, she listed all the dishes Auntie Tina had ordered: crispy eel in sweet sauce, smoked duck two ways, hand-pulled noodles with crab roe- "luckily we had enough pregnant crabs on hand!"- and others I could not decipher from their poetic yet opaque Chinese names: squirrel-shaped Mandarin fish, eight treasure rice, four happiness pork.

IN the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was only one small fish left in all the sea, and he was a small 'Stute Fish, and he swam a little behind the Whale's right ear, so as to be out of harm's way. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said, 'I'm hungry.' And the small 'Stute Fish said in a small 'stute voice, 'Noble and generous Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?

Apocalypse Hal was on the corner by the Laundromat. Hal was a neighborhood street preacher who worked at the fish and crab place next door. He wore a sandwich board sign of Bible verses and shouted angry things at passersby like “The end times are near” and “Seafood sampler $5.99.” Now his sign just read “TOLD YOU SO,” and he looked more anxious than angry.

As a boy, in my own backyard I could catch a basket of blue crabs, a string of flounder, a dozen redfish, or a net full of white shrimp. All this I could do in a city enchanting enough to charm cobras out of baskets, one so corniced and filigreed and elaborate that it leaves strangers awed and natives self-satisfied. In its shadows you can find metal work as delicate as lace and spiral staircases as elaborate as yachts. In the secrecy of its gardens you can discover jasmine and camellias and hundreds of other plants that look embroidered and stolen from the Garden of Eden for the sheer love of richness and the joy of stealing from the gods. In its kitchens, the stoves are lit up in happiness as the lamb is marinating in red wine sauce, vinaigrette is prepared for the salad, crabmeat is anointed with sherry, custards are baked in the oven, and buttermilk biscuits cool on the counter.

Issued in February 2012, and still online as of May 5, 2016, the report was written by one set of state officials for another. After a chilling description of a “cancer slope factor,” the report continues, in a matter-of-fact tone, to advise the recreational fisherman on how to prepare a contaminated fish to eat: “Trimming the fat and skin on finfish, and removing the hepatopancreas from crabs, will reduce the amount of contaminants in the fish and shellfish,” the document reads.

Back then the towering gums marched down to the water and the area was sparsely populated with fibro weekenders - simple cottages and boat sheds - mainly owned by coal miners from the nearby Hunter Valley. My grandfather worked in the mines. He'd lend my family the one room boffy attached to his boasted almost every school holiday, and I have such vivid memories of jumping off his jetty and boiling crabs for dinner and fishing with a line wrapped around a piece of cork and playing in the rock pools and parking about in his tin runabout.

Hanging from every corner, above every window, standing on every shelf and tabletop, were dozens of handmade birdcages. Nomi had crafted them all, mostly out of old fishing twine, scraps of nets, and chicken wire. Woven in between the bars of the cages were bits of seashells, crab shells, pebbles, and driftwood she had scavenged along the beach. In a pinch she had made a few out of old clothes hangers she had scissored apart and woven together with strips of a negligee or shirt. Each one was personal, each one was unique, each one was a story

The fish market is a fresh adventure every day, varying according to the previous night’s catch. Every evening, at dusk, the lights of the sardine boats dip and shine out at sea like floating stars. In the morning, counters are piled with silvery sardines, strewn with a few odd crabs and shells. Strange fish of all shapes and sizes lie side by side, speckled or striated, with a rainbow sheen on their fins. There are small fish with black streaks on shimmering pale blue scales, fish glinting pink and red, and a Moray eel with wicked black eyes

I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram— lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull— he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins— that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path— he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales—happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily

This was the southern sea. The colors that fade when coral is drawn out of its element were garishly bright here, intricate and lovely labyrinths on the bottom. Among the coral, fish went darting; and overhead a sea-bat, a devil-fish, flapped slow wings past, its stingaree tail trailing. Morays coiled by, opening their incredible, wolfish mouths at him, and many-limbed crabs scuttled sidewise over the rocks and little sandy plateaus of the bottom. Groves of seaweed and great fans of colored sponges swung with hypnotic motion, and schools of tiny striped fish went flashing in and out among them, moving all together as if with a single mind. Pete swam down. From a cavern among the brown and purple rocks an octopus looked at him out of huge, alien eyes. Its tentacles hung and quivered. Pete swam away, hovering over an expanse of pale sand where the light from above shimmered and ran in rippling waves, his own shadow hanging spread-eagled below him. In and out of it many little creatures went scuttling busily on their underwater errands. Life here was painted in three dimensions, and there was no gravity. There was only beauty and strangeness and a hint of terror that sent pleasurable excitement thrilling through Pete's blood. ("Before I Wake")

Somewhere in the great sky beyond this sky of planes was a star made entirely of words. And on the star lived as many different kinds of words as birds in all the skies, fish in all the seas, and clay patterns in all the hands of adoring women. Some words were cautious as the crabs nesting on the beach. Others, bold as the giant hornbills prattling in the trees. Then there were those that made no sound, but were equally fearless, folding their arms and waiting for her to sit on their lap. The prisoner who was no longer a prisoner was gathering all these many words to herself and would speak them, if there were but someone to listen, even a little.

Summer gazed around more closely, looking less at the wreck of the ship and more at all the living things on or around or within it. Tiny shells clustered on the hull, each a living creature; the octopus that scuttled along, a liquid flurry of graceful motion; the amazing snail that crept toward her foot. There were small forests of soft, willowy plants that made home for crabs and squid and rays. Fish, big and small, alone or in schools, darted in and out, up and down, crossing between her and the sun above like flights of birds. In a single moment of awareness she realised that the dead ship was no longer dead. The machine that had failed to protect its human cargo now protected an entire universe of colourful, indescribably strange, stunningly creative, incredible life.

Fresh seafood stock made from shrimp and crab... It's hot and spicy- and at the same time, mellow and savory! Visions of lush mountains, cool springs and the vast ocean instantly come to mind! She brought out the very best flavors of each and every ingredient she used! "I started with the fresh fish and veggies you had on hand... ... and then simmered them in a stock I made from seafood trimmings until they were tender. Then I added fresh shrimp and let it simmer... seasoning it with a special blend I made from spices, herbs like thyme and bay leaves, and a base of Worcestershire sauce. I snuck in a dash of soy sauce, too, to tie the Japanese ingredients together with the European spices I used. Overall, I think I managed to make a curry sauce that is mellow enough for children to enjoy and yet flavorful enough for adults to love!" "Yum! Good stuff!" "What a surprise! To take the ingredients we use here every day and to create something out of left field like this!" "You got that right! This is a really delicious dish, no two ways about it. But what's got me confused... ... is why it seems to have hit him way harder than any of us! What on earth is going on?!" This... this dish. It... it tastes just like home! It looks like curry, but it ain't! It's gumbo!" Gumbo is a family dish famously served in the American South along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. A thick and spicy stew, it's generally served over steamed rice. At first glance, it closely resembles Japan's take on curry... but the gumbo recipe doesn't call for curry powder. Its defining characteristic is that it uses okra as its thickener. *A possible origin for the word "gumbo" is the Bantu word for okra-Ngombu.*

TAKING LEAVE Of the unhindered motion in the million swirled and twisted grooves of the juniper driftwood lying in the sand; taking leave of each sapphire and amber thread and each iridescent bead of the swallowtail's wing and of the quick and clever needle of the seamstress in the dark cocoon that accomplished the stitching. Goodbye to the long pale hairs of the swaying grassflowers, so like, in grace and color and bearing, the nodding antennae of the green valley grasshopper clinging to its blade; and to the staircase shell of the butter-colored wendletrap and to the branches of the sourwood making their own staircase with each step upward they take and to the spiraling of the cobweb weaver twirling as it descends on its silk out of the shadows of the pitch pine. Taking leave of the sea of spring, that grey-green swell slowly rising, spreading, its heavy wisteria-scented surf filled with darting, gliding, whistling fish, a current of cries, an undertow of moans and buzzes, so pervasive and penetrating and alluring that the lungs adapt to the density. Determined not to slight the knotted rockweed or the beach plum or the white, blue-tipped petals of the five spot; determined not to overlook the pursed orange mouth of each maple leaf just appearing or the entire chorus of those open leaves in full summer forte. My whole life, a parting from the brazen coyote thistle and the reticent, tooth-ridged toad crab and the proud, preposterous sage grouse. And you mustn't believe that the cessation which occurs here now is more than illusory; the ritual of this leave-taking continues beyond these lines, in a whisper beside the window, below my breath by the river, without noise through the clearing at midnight, even in the dark, even in sleep, continues, out-of-notice, private, incessant.

The deep, salty, black sea rolls toward us, cold and indifferent, lacking all empathy. Detached, merely itself. This is what the ocean does every day. It doesn't need us for anything. It doesn't care about our hopes and fears, not does it give a damn about our descriptions. The dark weight of the sea is a superior power. Many have been in this situation every since some of our overconfident ancestors set a hollowed out tree trunk in the water and paddled off on languid waves, only to venture out too far where the currents were stronger than their arms or paddles. Or maybe like us, they were surprised by a storm. All of them must have felt the same cold shiver when they realized the sea is truly without sentimentality or memory. Whatever it swallows is gone, becoming food for the fish, crabs and annelid worms. For the lamprey, hag fish, flat worms, ring worms, and all the parasites of the deep. To be drowned and embraced by the eternal, indeterminate all.

When the crab arrives, I realize I've barely given any thought to Ann and her ministrations. To my surprise she has added a few finishing touches of her own. The crab sits snugly in its pink shell, beside a neat mound of delicately green mayonnaise. How has she colored it green? "This could be made into a curry," pronounces Mr. Arnott. "In Madras, curried sea oysters are considered the pinnacle of fine food. Anything can be curried... fish, fowl, even eggs." "Eggs?" Again, he has intrigued me. "Indeed eggs," he says. "Hard-boiled and placed in a hot curried gravy, they are quite delicious." I taste the mayonnaise, trying to fathom how Ann has greened it. Simultaneously I try to commit Mr. Arnott's recipe for curried eggs to memory, while also checking the seasoning in the crab. "Do you think the crab would benefit from a little more lemon juice?" I ask. "Or perhaps chili vinegar should have been used." "It is certainly fresh." He slowly savors the crab upon his tongue. "It tastes of the sea.

The whiff of Ben's parcel hovered under the delicious aroma of fish. Suddenly John felt hungry. The men, he saw, were sipping from a ladle which they passed between them. The tallest of the three slurped and smiled. 'Whether or not Miss Lucretia consumes it, the kitchen has discharged its duty,' he declared cheerfully. He towered a whole head over the others. 'A simple broth is most apt for a young stomach, especially a stomach which chooses privation over nourishment. Lampreys. Crab shells ground fine. Stockfish and...' He sniffed then frowned. 'Simple, Mister Underley?' jibed Vanian in a nasal voice. 'If it is simple, then how is it spiced?' 'Came in a parcel this morning,' Henry Palewick offered. 'Down from Soughton. Master Scovell had it out in a moment. Smelled like flowers to me. Whatever it was.' 'Which flowers?' demanded the fourth man of the quartet, in a foreign accent. He pointed a large-nostrilled nose at Henry. 'Saffron, agrimony and comfrey bound the cool-humored plants; meadowsweet, celandine and wormwood the hot.

The smooth, flat rocks were exactly the same, the sea pounded down on them in the same way, and also the landscape under the water, with its small valleys and bays and steep chasms and slopes, strewn with starfish and sea urchins, crabs and fish, was the same. You could still buy Slazenger tennis rackets, Tretorn balls, and Rossignol skis, Tyrolia bindings and Koflach boots. The houses where we lived were still standing, all of them. The sole difference, which is the difference between a child’s reality and an adult’s, was that they were no longer laden with meaning. A pair of Le Coq soccer boots was just a pair of soccer boots. If I felt anything when I held a pair in my hands now it was only a hangover from my childhood, nothing else, nothing in itself. The same with the sea, the same with the rocks, the same with the taste of salt that could fill your summer days to saturation, now it was just salt, end of story. The world was the same, yet it wasn’t, for its meaning had been displaced, and was still being displaced, approaching closer and closer to meaninglessness.

He fed the meter, and we walked the short distance to Hannibal's Kitchen, which was famous for its soul food. It was crowded, but we only had to wait fifteen minutes to be seated. Having Dante cook for us spoiled me, but I was always down to try another Gullah-Geechee soul food spot. I ordered the crab and shrimp fried rice and shark steak. Quinton had the rice with oxtails but then begged until I gave him some of my fish. Once we left, we went down East Bay to King Street, stopped in a bookstore, and walked through the City Market. Quinton picked up a pound cake from Fergie's Favorites, and I picked out a beautiful bouquet of flowers fashioned from sweetgrass. Sweetgrass symbolized harmony, love, peace, strength, positivity, and purity. I needed any symbol of those things that I could get. I also thought they'd be a nice peace offering for Mariah. I'd give her a few. We walked to Kaminsky's for dessert. I had their berry cobbler with ice cream. It was served in the ceramic dish it was baked in. I liked the coziness of eating out of a baking dish. The ice cream tasted homemade. The strawberry syrup exploded on my tongue. I didn't make pies, so whenever I had dessert out, I got pie. Quinton had his favorite milkshake and took key lime pie and bourbon pecan pie to go for his mother.

Still, the alien biologist might be excused for lumping together the whole biosphere - all the retroviruses, mantas, foraminifera, mongongo trees, tetanus bacilli, hydras, diatoms, stromatolite-builders, sea slugs, flatworms, gazelles lichens, corals, spirochetes, banyans, cave ticks, least bitters, caracaras, tufted puffins, ragweed pollen, wold spiders, horseshoe crabs, black mambas, monarch butterflies, whiptail lizards, trypanosomes, birds of paradise, electric eels, wild parsnips, arctic terns, fireflies, titis, chrysanthemums, hammerhead sharks, rotifers, wallabies, malarial plasmodia, tapirs, aphids, water moccasins, morning glories, whooping cranes, komodo dragons, periwinkles millipede larvae, angler fish, jellyfish lungfish, yeast, giant redwoods, tardigrades, archaebacteria, sea lilies, lilies of the valley, humans bonobos, squid and humpback whales - as, simply, Earthlife. The arcane distinctions among these swarming variations on a common theme may be left to specialists or graduate students. The pretensions and conceits of this or that species can readily be ignored. There are, after-all, so many worlds about which an extraterrestrial biologist must know. It will be enough if a few salient and generic characteristics of life on yet another obscure planet are noted for the cavernous recesses of the galactic archives.

The clearest signs of Hakodate's current greatness, though, can be found clustered around its central train station, in the morning market, where blocks and blocks of pristine seafood explode onto the sidewalks like an edible aquarium, showcasing the might of the Japanese fishing industry. Hokkaido is ground zero for the world's high-end sushi culture. The cold waters off the island have long been home to Japan's A-list of seafood: hairy crab, salmon, scallops, squid, and, of course, uni. The word "Hokkaido" attached to any of these creatures commands a premium at market, one that the finest sushi chefs around the world are all too happy to pay. Most of the Hokkaido haul is shipped off to the Tsukiji market in Tokyo, where it's auctioned and scattered piece by piece around Japan and the big cities of the world. But the island keeps a small portion of the good stuff for itself, most of which seems to be concentrated in a two-hundred-meter stretch in Hakodate. Everything here glistens with that sparkly sea essence, and nearly everything is meant to be consumed in the moment. Live sea urchins, piled high in hillocks of purple spikes, are split with scissors and scraped out raw with chopsticks. Scallops are blowtorched in their shells until their edges char and their sweet liquor concentrates. Somewhere, surely, a young fishmonger will spoon salmon roe directly into your mouth for the right price.

Dinner with Trimalchio as explained on Angelfire.com Fragment 35 The next course is not as grand as Encolpius expects but it is novel. Trimalchio has a course made that represent the 12 signs of the Zodiac, again showing his superstitious nature. Over each sign of the zodiac is food that is connected with the subject of the sign of the zodiac. Ares the ram - chickpeas (the ram is a sign of virility and chickpeas represent the penis in satire) Taurus the bull - a beefsteak . Beef is from cattle and the bull represents strength. Gemini (The heavenly twins) - Testicles and kidneys (since they come in pairs!) Cancer the Crab- a garland (which looks like pincers) but we also learn later (fragment 39 ) that the is Trimalchios sign and by putting a garland over his sign he is honouring it. Leo the Lion - an African fig since lions were from Africa. Virgo the Virgin - a young sows udder , symbol of innocence. Libra the scales - A pair of balance pans with a different dessert in each! Scorpio - a sea scorpion Sagittarius the archer - a sea bream with eyespots, you need a good eye to practise archery. Capricorn- a lobster Aquarius the water carrier - a goose i.e. water fowl. Pisces the fish - two mullets (fish!) In the middle of the dish is a piece of grass and on the grass a honey comb. We are told by Trimalchio himself that this represents mother earth (fragment 39) who is round like a grassy knoll or an egg and has good things inside her like a honey comb.

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this. I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do. I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first. Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, which used to be my go-to plan at Chloe's grandmother's house. One time Chloe even started a food fight to get me out of it. I glance around the table, but Rayna's the only person I'd aim this slop at. Plus, I'd risk getting the stuff on me, which is almost as bad as in me. Galen nudges me with his elbow. "Aren't you hungry? You're not feeling bad again, are you?" This gets the others' attention. The commotion of eating stops. Everyone stares. Rayna, irritated that her gluttony has been interrupted. Toraf smirking like I've done something funny. Galen's mom wearing the same concerned look he is. Can I lie? Should I lie? What if I'm invited over again, and they fix seafood because I lied about it just this once? Telling Galen my head hurts doesn't get me out of future seafood buffets. And telling him I'm not hungry would be pointless since my stomach keeps gurgling like an emptying drain. No, I can't lie. Not if I ever want to come back here. Which I do. I sigh and set the fork down. "I hate seafood," I tell him. Toraf's sudden cough startles me. The sound of him choking reminds me of a cat struggling with a hair ball. I train my eyes on Galen, who has stiffened to a near statue. Jeez, is this all his mom knows how to make? Or have I just shunned the Forza family's prize-winning recipe for grouper? "You...you mean you don't like this kind of fish, Emma?" Galen says diplomatically. I desperately want to nod, to say, "Yes, that's it, not this kind of fish"-but that doesn't get me out of eating the crabmeat-and-scallop mountain on my plate. I shake my head. "No. Not just this kind of fish. I hate it all. I can't eat any of it. Can hardly stand to smell it." Way to go for the jugular there, stupid! Couldn't I just say I don't care for it? Did I have to say I hate it? Hate even the smell of it? And why am I blushing? It's not a crime to gag on seafood. And for God's sakes, I won't eat anything that still has its eyeballs.

In the half darkness, piles of fish rose on either side of him, and the pungent stink of fish guts assaulted his nostrils. On his left hung a whole tuna, its side notched to the spine to show the quality of the flesh. On his right a pile of huge pesce spada, swordfish, lay tumbled together in a crate, their swords protruding lethally to catch the legs of unwary passersby. And on a long marble slab in front of him, on a heap of crushed ice dotted here and there with bright yellow lemons, where the shellfish and smaller fry. There were ricco di mare---sea urchins---in abundance, and oysters, too, but there were also more exotic delicacies---polpi, octopus; aragosti, clawless crayfish; datteri di mare, sea dates; and grancevole, soft-shelled spider crabs, still alive and kept in a bucket to prevent them from making their escape. Bruno also recognized tartufo di mare, the so-called sea truffle, and, right at the back, an even greater prize: a heap of gleaming cicale. Cicale are a cross between a large prawn and a small lobster, with long, slender front claws. Traditionally, they are eaten on the harbor front, fresh from the boat. First their backs are split open. Then they are marinated for an hour or so in olive oil, bread crumbs, salt, and plenty of black pepper, before being grilled over very hot embers. When you have pulled them from the embers with your fingers, you spread the charred, butterfly-shaped shell open and guzzle the meat col bacio----"with a kiss," leaving you with a glistening mustache of smoky olive oil, greasy fingers, and a tingling tongue from licking the last peppery crevices of the shell. Bruno asked politely if he could handle some of the produce. The old man in charge of the display waved him on. He would have expected nothing less. Bruno raised a cicala to his nose and sniffed. It smelled of ozone, seaweed, saltwater, and that indefinable reek of ocean coldness that flavors all the freshest seafood. He nodded. It was perfect.

Wherever you go, Provincetown will always take you back, at whatever age and in whatever condition. Because time moves somewhat differently there, it is possible to return after ten years or more and run into an acquaintance, on Commercial or at the A&P, who will ask mildly, as if he’d seen you the day before yesterday, what you’ve been doing with yourself. The streets of Provincetown are not in any way threatening, at least not to those with an appetite for the full range of human passions. If you grow deaf and blind and lame in Provincetown, some younger person with a civic conscience will wheel you wherever you need to go; if you die there, the marshes and dunes are ready to receive your ashes. While you’re alive and healthy, for as long as it lasts, the golden hands of the clock tower at Town Hall will note each hour with an electric bell as we below, on our purchase of land, buy or sell, paint or write or fish for bass, or trade gossip on the post office steps. The old bayfront houses will go on dreaming, at least until the emptiness between their boards proves more durable than the boards themselves. The sands will continue their slow devouring of the forests that were the Pilgrims’ first sight of North America, where man, as Fitzgerald put it, “must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.” The ghost of Dorothy Bradford will walk the ocean floor off Herring Cove, draped in seaweed, surrounded by the fleeting silver lights of fish, and the ghost of Guglielmo Marconi will tap out his messages to those even longer dead than he. The whales will breach and loll in their offshore world, dive deep into black canyons, and swim south when the time comes. Herons will browse the tidal pools; crabs with blue claws tipped in scarlet will scramble sideways over their own shadows. At sunset the dunes will take on their pink-orange light, and just after sunset the boats will go luminous in the harbor. Ashes of the dead, bits of their bones, will mingle with the sand in the salt marsh, and wind and water will further disperse the scraps of wood, shell, and rope I’ve used for Billy’s various memorials. After dark the raccoons and opossums will start on their rounds; the skunks will rouse from their burrows and head into town. In summer music will rise up. The old man with the portable organ will play for passing change in front of the public library. People in finery will sing the anthems of vanished goddesses; people who are still trying to live by fishing will pump quarters into jukeboxes that play the songs of their high school days. As night progresses, people in diminishing numbers will wander the streets (where whaling captains and their wives once promenaded, where O’Neill strode in drunken furies, where Radio Girl—who knows where she is now?—announced the news), hoping for surprises or just hoping for what the night can be counted on to provide, always, in any weather: the smell of water and its sound; the little houses standing square against immensities of ocean and sky; and the shapes of gulls gliding overhead, white as bone china, searching from their high silence for whatever they might be able to eat down there among the dunes and marshes, the black rooftops, the little lights tossing on the water as the tides move out or in.

On Christmas Eve, Renata prepares a traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes. We dine on fresh lobster, crab, and shrimp, clams casino, calamari, baccalà, and mussels-

The real game, as I soon discover, is donburi. Donburi, often shortened to don, means "bowl," and the name encapsulates a vast array of rice bowls topped with delicious stuff: oyakodon (chicken and egg), unadon (grilled eel), tendon (tempura). As nice as meat and tempura and eel can be, the donburi of yours and mine and every sensible person's dreams is topped with a rainbow bounty of raw fish. Warm rice, cool fish, a dab of wasabi, a splash of soy- sushi, without the pageantry and without the price tag. At Kikuyo Shokudo Honten you will find more than three dozen varieties of seafood dons, including a kaleidoscopic combination of uni, salmon, ikura (salmon roe), quail eggs, and avocado. I opt for what I've come to call the Hokkaido Superhero's Special: scallops, salmon roe, hairy crab, and uni. It's ridiculous hyperbole to call a simple plate of food life changing, but as the tiny briny eggs pop and the sweet scallops dissolve and the uni melts like ocean Velveeta, I feel some tectonic shift taking place just below my surface.

He said wouldn't it be brilliant to have a food emporium on the ground floor of Fenton's, like Harrods, but have everything organic and locally grown." Diana paused to let the idea sink in. "I said not the ground floor of course, Fenton's isn't a supermarket, but the basement has been a dead zone for years. A whole floor dedicated to stationery when no one writes letters anymore." "A food emporium," Cassie repeated. "Fresh fish caught in the bay, oysters, crab when it's in season. Counters of vegetables you only find in the farmers market, those cheeses they make in Sonoma that smell so bad they taste good. Wines from Napa Valley, Ghirardelli chocolates, sourdough bread, sauces made by Michael Mina and Thomas Keller. Everything locally produced. And maybe a long counter with stools so you could sample bread and cheese, cut fruit, sliced vegetables. Not a true cafe because we'd keep the one on the fourth floor. It would have more the feel of a food bazaar, with the salespeople wearing aprons and white caps." Cassie closed her eyes and saw large baskets of vegetables, glass cases filled with goat cheese and baguettes, stands brimming with chocolate-covered strawberries.

Acres of spice-covered almonds, blackberry and lavender honey, chocolate-covered cherries, their young saleswoman reaching forward with samples, her low-cut shirt selling more than fruit. The seafood shop, crabs lined up like a medieval armory, fish swimming through a sea of ice. Her ultimate goal was at the end of the aisle- a produce stand staffed by an elderly man who, some people joked, had been at the market since its beginning a hundred years before. George's offerings were the definition of freshness, corn kernels pillowing out of their husks, Japanese eggplant arranged like deep purple parentheses.

This beach I voyage on leads me through the earth's immortal consistencies. Each form I encounter obeys the principles of perfection and trial, a timelessness in the making. The proportions of truth are at hand. Existence is celebrated in a splinter of driftwood, worn by wind-driven sand into the shape of an arrow. The onshore waves jostle each other, busy with their eternal changing, mixing crab shells, sand grains, and fish bones together. The trim little shorebirds feeding at the water's edge are acutely aware of one another, under the light and shadow leaning and drifting over all awareness. Wither own mysteries behind their beady eyes, their quick, advantageous movements, they follow the great, unifying sea." ~ John Hay. Bird of Light.

C’mon, Barney,” said Lucy. “Can’t you give me something for the paper? A body in the water is big news.” Lowering his voice so only she could hear, he said, “It’s Old Dan. At least I think it is. It’s hard to tell.” “The body’s decomposed?” she asked. “You could say that.” “His face is gone?” Lucy knew that was common when a body had been in the water. Crabs and fish usually started with the bare skin of the face and hands. “More than his face,” said Barney. “His whole head’s gone.

I can tell right away by looking at you what you want to eat," he says. "I can tell how many brothers and sisters you have." After divining my favorite color (blue) and my astrological sign (Aquarius), Nakamura pulls out an ivory stalk of takenoko, fresh young bamboo ubiquitous in Japan during the spring. "This came in this morning from Kagumi. It's so sweet that you can eat it raw." He peels off the outer layer, cuts a thin slice, and passes it across the counter. First, he scores an inch-thick bamboo steak with a ferocious santoku blade. Then he sears it in a dry sauté pan until the flesh softens and the natural sugars form a dark crust on the surface. While the bamboo cooks, he places two sacks of shirako, cod milt, under the broiler. ("Milt," by the way, is a euphemism for sperm. Cod sperm is everywhere in Japan in the winter and early spring, and despite the challenges its name might create for some, it's one of the most delicious things you can eat.) Nakamura brings it all together on a Meiji-era ceramic plate: caramelized bamboo brushed with soy, broiled cod milt topped with miso made from foraged mountain vegetables, and, for good measure, two lightly boiled fava beans. An edible postcard of spring. I take a bite, drop my chopsticks, and look up to find Nakamura staring right at me. "See, I told you I know what you want to eat." The rest of the dinner unfolds in a similar fashion: a little counter banter, a little product display, then back to transform my tastes and his ingredients into a cohesive unit. The hits keep coming: a staggering plate of sashimi filled with charbroiled tuna, surgically scored squid, thick circles of scallop, and tiny white shrimp blanketed in sea urchin: a lesson in the power of perfect product. A sparkling crab dashi topped with yuzu flowers: a meditation on the power of restraint. Warm mochi infused with cherry blossoms and topped with a crispy plank of broiled eel: a seasonal invention so delicious it defies explanation.

He would frequently do solo dives at midnight, relishing the tranquillity of his own private world. While decompressing, he rested lazily on a tree log that had fallen into the water. He was often illuminated only by the Moon, whose light beams rippled through his exhalation bubbles, which rose like rapidly expanding flying saucers, exploding when they hit the surface. The rippling light cast eerie shadows on the rock entrance below Berman, making fish, crabs, and crayfish seem to dance in a strobe light, appearing, disappearing, and reappearing in an instant.

So, dinner for thirty-five, forty people. Dagou flips through his notebook. All of his earlier plans now are meager and uninteresting, except for the fresh ducks brining in the refrigerator. Brenda has never eaten Peking duck. He imagines her biting into the finest, most crackling chestnut skin. Enjoying, in addition, a few banquet plates to keep it company. Cold chicken, and the hollow-hearted greens. Plus the stew he promised Winnie. And chicken. He's already reserved the chicken, but his mother believes in combining flavors, she believes in many meats. He has promised her seafood---he can go to the seafood truck. For shrimp to accompany. There must be a shrimp dish---shrimp with mounds of diced ginger and scallions, or salted shrimp in the shell---or both, perhaps. Also, a second seafood dish. To serve only shrimp would be petty and small. Shrimp themselves, so very small. What else? Fish, of course---he's been planning to have fish all along. Soft-shell crab? He imagines how Brenda will glow when he serves platter after platter of soft-shell crab. Of course, she's never tasted it---he knows this because every bit of Chinese food she's ever eaten came from his own hands. He imagines her crunching through the crisp shell.

And the most imaginative sign was the story of redemption that he embedded within the very structure of the twelve constellations that revolved around the earth. The narrative was of a virgin (Virgo) who would bear the promised seed and pay the price of justice (Libra) to overcome the “wounder of the heel” (Scorpio). This promised one would be a conqueror (Sagittarius the archer), who would be the scapegoat of atonement (Capricorn), and bring living waters for his people (Aquarius the water-bearer). Those people would be blessed though bound (Pisces the fish). Their blessings would be consummated through a ram of sacrifice (Aries) who would become a ruling leader (Taurus the bull), a king with two natures (Gemini the twins). He would hold his people fast in his grip (Cancer the crab), and would ultimately reign as king over the earth (Leo the lion). Yahweh’s enemies eventually subverted the original intent of the constellations and twisted the entire system into a form of idolatry that worshipped the stars instead of Yahweh as the determiner of destinies.

Initially, only the crabs demurred. "It's not hot in here," Sarin said acidly. "Nothing has changed. You're all imagining things.

Jeremiah declined, even though night fishing was his favorite. He was always trying to get people to go night fishing with him. That night he said he wasn’t in the mood. So they left, and Jeremiah stayed behind, with me. We watched TV and played cards. We spent most of the summer doing that, just us. We cemented things between us that summer. He’d wake me up early some mornings, and we would go collect shells or sand crabs, or ride our bikes to the ice cream place three miles away. When it was just us two, he didn’t joke around as much, but he was still Jeremiah. From that summer on I felt closer to Jeremiah than I did to my own brother. Jeremiah was nicer. Maybe because he was somebody’s little sibling too, or maybe just because he was that kind of person. He was nice to everybody. He had a talent for making people feel comfortable.

We get too sentimental over dead animals. We turn maudlin. But only those with fur, only those who look like us, at least a little. Those with big eyes, eyes that face front. Those with smallish noses or modest beaks. No one laments a spider. Nor a crab. Hookworms rate no wailing. Fish neither. Baby seals make the grade, and dogs, and sometimes owls. Cats almost always. Do we think they are like dead children? Do we think they are part of us, our animal soul stashed somewhere near the heart, fuzzy and trusting, and vital and on the prowl, and brutal towards other forms of life, and happy most of the time, and also stupid? (Why almost always cats? Why do dead cats call up such ludicrous tears? Why such deep mourning? Because we can no longer see in the dark without them? Because we’re cold without their fur? Because we’ve lost our hidden second skin, the one we’d change into when we wanted to have fun, when we wanted to kill things without a second thought, when we wanted to shed the dull grey weight of being human?)

Our main problem over the past few days and weeks,’ he said, ‘has lain in trying to connect the various phenomena. In fact, there wasn’t any obvious connection until a jelly-like substance started to crop up. Sometimes it appeared in small quantities, sometimes in larger amounts, but always with the distinguishing characteristic that it disintegrated rapidly on contact with air. Unfortunately the discovery of the jelly only added to the mystery, given its presence in crustaceans, mussels and whales - three types of organism that could hardly be more different. Of course, it might have been some kind of fungus, a jellified version of rabies, an infectious disease like BSE or swine fever. But, if so, why would ships be disappearing or crabs transporting killer algae? There was no sign of the jelly on the worms that infested the slope. They were carrying a different kind of cargo - bacteria that break down hydrates and cause methane gas to rise. Hence the landslide and the tsunami. And what about the mutated species that have been emerging all over the world? Even fish have been behaving oddly. None of it adds up. In that respect, Jack Vanderbilt was right to discern an intelligent mind behind the chaos. But he overestimated our ability - no scientist knows anything like enough about marine ecology to be capable of manipulating it to that extent. People are fond of saying that we know more about space than we do about the oceans. It’s perfectly true, but there’s a simple reason why: we can’t see or move as well in the water as we can in outer space. The Hubble telescope peers effortlessly into different galaxies, but the world’s strongest floodlight only illuminates a dozen square metres of seabed. An astronaut in a spacesuit can move with almost total freedom, but even the most sophisticated divesuit won’t stop you being crushed to death beyond a certain depth. AUVs and ROVs are only operational if the conditions are right. We don’t have the physical constitution or the technology to deposit billions of worms on underwater hydrates, let alone the requisite knowledge to engineer them for a habitat that we barely understand. Besides, there are all the other phenomena: deep-sea cables being destroyed at the bottom of the ocean by forces other than the underwater slide; plagues of jellyfish and mussels rising from the abyssal plains. The simplest explanation would be to see these developments as part of a plan, but such a plan could only be the work of a species that knows the ocean as intimately as we do the land - a species that lives in the depths and plays the dominant role in that particular universe.

The narrative was of a virgin (Virgo) who would bear the promised seed and pay the price of justice (Libra) to overcome the “wounder of the heel” (Scorpio). This promised one would be a conqueror (Sagittarius the archer), who would be the scapegoat of atonement (Capricorn), and bring living waters for his people (Aquarius the water-bearer). Those people would be blessed though bound (Pisces the fish). Their blessings would be consummated through a ram of sacrifice (Aries) who would become a ruling leader (Taurus the bull), a king with two natures (Gemini the twins). He would hold his people fast in his grip (Cancer the crab), and would ultimately reign as king over the earth (Leo the lion).

The grilled dish is miso-marinated pomfret, and the small bowls are simmered Horikawa burdock with Akashi octopus, Shogoin turnip, and Donko shiitake mushrooms. Those small fish wrapped in perilla leaves are moroko, stewed in a sweet soy and mirin sauce. The deep-fried dishes are winter mackerel, done Tatsuta-age style by marinating it first, and ebi-imo taro, fried straight-up. Wrapped around the green negi onion is roast duck, around the thicker, white negi is Kurobuta pork. Try dipping those in the wasabi or the mustard. As for the steamed rice with Seko crab, that'll taste best with these mitsuba leaves sprinkled on top.

Starting in the top left: fugu from Mikawa Bay, fried karaage style, and boiled Kano crab. To the right of that are grilled skewers of duck meatball and Kujo green onion, and tilefish tempura. Shogoin daikon and millet cake, baked in a miso glaze; Horikawa burdock and hamo fish cakes in broth. Below that are sake-steamed hamaguri clams, stewed Kintoki carrots and Kujo green onion, and the grilled fish is miso-marinated pomfret.

SAM OWEN always fished by night.

WEEK#1 SHOPPING LIST   *FRUITS & VEGETABLES ALL ORGANIC AND/OR WILD *MEATS FREE RANGE, NO ANTIBIOTICS OR HORMONES ADDED *FISH OCEAN WISE & WILD *Remember to always read the ingredients and check for added sugars, chemicals and MSG etc.   1 LEMON 2 LIMES 4 MEDIUM YELLOW ONIONS 1 BUNDLE ORGANIC GREEN ONIONS 1 RED ONION 1 GINGER ROOT 2 WHOLE GARLIC 1 BUNDLE OF ASPARGUS 2 CAULIFLOWER HEADS 2 ORGANIC RED PEPPERS 2 GREEN PEPPERS 3 AVOCADOS 1 PACK BOK CHOY 15 ORGANIC TOMATOES 1 SPAGHETTI SQUASH 3 SWEET POTATOES 1 YAM 2 BUNDLES OF ORGANIC BROCCOLI 6 ZUCCHINI 4 CARROTS 3 BEETS 12-15 BROWN MUSHROOMS 1 SMALL BAG/BOX ARUGULA SALAD 1 BUNDLE OF ROMAINE LETTUCE 1 BUNDLE FRESH BASIL   2 APPLES 1 BANANA 1 SMALL PACKAGE FRESH OR FROZEN WILD BLUEBERRIES 1 ORANGE   2 PACKAGES FREE RANGE NO ANTIOBIOTIC EGGS (24 TOTAL)   1 20oz (750Ml) TOMATO SAUCE 1 CAN 14OZ TOMATO PUREE 2 8oz (250mL) CANS COCONUT CREAM 2 16oz (500mL) CANS COCONUT MILK 1 12OZ CAN PUMPKIN PUREE   JAR OF OLIVES (no sugars added)   1 - ½ LB SMALL BAG (200G) OF REAL CRAB MEAT 2 – 2 LB BAGS (400G EACH) OF FROZEN WILD SHRIMP & SCALLOP MEDLEY 1 LARGE PIECE WILD SOCKEY SALMON (FRESH) 1 LB BEEF SIRLOIN 1LB GROUND BEEF 1 ½ LB (750G) NO-ANTIOBIOTIC CHICKEN SLICES 4 NO-ANTIOBIOTIC ALL NATURAL CHICKEN BREAST 7OZ (400G) ORGANIC GROUND TURKEY 1 PACKAGE MSG-FREE, NO NITRATE BACON   100G DRIED FRUIT (BLUEBERRIES, CRANBERRIES) 200G HAZELNUTS 100G ALMONDS 100G CASHEWS 100 WALNUTS 100G SESAME SEEDS 50G PUMPKIN SEEDS   1 BOTTLE NO SULFITE ORGANIC WHITE WINE (OPTIONAL)  

He ran west, away from the rising sun. The wet sand glistened in the morning light and felt spongy beneath his shoes. The tide was out, and the beach sat wide, filled with a fresh assortment of seashells and sand crabs scurrying sideways and jellyfish stranded out of water. Seagulls picked over dead fish, and a pelican stood witness. The wind was down, the sea smooth, and the waves low swells instead of whitecaps. The air was fresh, and the beach was his.

The star prophecy that Belial alluded to had a long history of importance. When Yahweh had originally created the heavens and earth, he placed the constellations of stars and planets in the sky not merely for seasons but for signs to mankind. And the most imaginative sign was the story of redemption that he embedded within the very structure of the twelve constellations that revolved around the earth. The narrative was of a virgin (Virgo) who would bear the promised seed and pay the price of justice (Libra) to overcome the “wounder of the heel” (Scorpio). This promised one would be a conqueror (Sagittarius the archer), who would be the scapegoat of atonement (Capricorn), and bring living waters for his people (Aquarius the water-bearer). Those people would be blessed though bound (Pisces the fish). Their blessings would be consummated through a ram of sacrifice (Aries) who would become a ruling leader (Taurus the bull), a king with two natures (Gemini the twins). He would hold his people fast in his grip (Cancer the crab), and would ultimately reign as king over the earth (Leo the lion). Yahweh’s enemies eventually subverted the original intent of the constellations and twisted the entire system into a form of idolatry that worshipped the stars instead of Yahweh as the determiner of destinies.

Whales, porpoises, mermaids and mermen, dead sailors, fishes, crabs, tiny shrimps; the sea is forever full of eyes that watch me. I never fly far beyond the shore. If my town were a map the bay would have Here Be Monsters written on it in golden ink.

Cold-water, fatty fishes such as salmon, sardines, cod, haddock, and mackerel are highest in omega-3 fats. You may also enjoy shellfish such as mussels, clams, oysters, shrimp, crab, and lobster.

Thinking of Osha made Bran wonder where she was. He pictured her safe in White Harbor with Rickon and Shaggydog, eating eels and fish and hot crab pie with fat Lord Manderly.

You know, Susey,” he said, “they ruined a hell of a man when they cut the balls off you!” O’Malley never was one to tiptoe around a thing.

Jess herself had not eaten fowl or roast or even fish in years, but the books awakened memories of turkey and thick gravy, and crab cakes, and rib-eye roasts. Redolent of smoke and flame, the recipes repelled and also reminded her of pink and tender meat, and breaking open lobster dripping with sweet butter, and sucking marrow out of the bones.

Most meals that came from the forest were brought by the women – fish, mushrooms, crab, bamboo shoots, some kuccha or the other. The staples, rice and millet, came from the land.

The boy in me still carries the memories of those days when I lifted crab pots out of the Colleton River before dawn, when I was shaped by life on the river, part child, part sacristan of tides.

Do you love the ocean as much as Brendan does?” There she went, asking him questions that made him think. Questions that wouldn’t allow him to skate by with a quip—and he didn’t really like doing that with Hannah, anyway. He liked talking to her. Loved it, actually, even when it was hard. “I think we love it in different ways. He loves the tradition and structure of fishing. I love how wild nature can get. How it can be more than one thing. How it evolves. One year, the crabs are in one place, the next they’re in another. No one can … define the ocean. It defines itself.

The Rooster taught me to wake up early and be a leader. The Butterfly encouraged me to allow a period of struggles to develop strong and look beautiful. The Squirrel showed me to be alert and fast all the time. The Dog influenced me to give up my life for my best friend. The Cat told me to exercise every day. Otherwise, I will be lazy and crazy. The Fox illustrated me to be subtle and keep my place organized and neat. The Snake demonstrated to me to hold my peace even if I am capable of attack, harm, or kill. The Monkey stimulated me to be vocal and communicate. The Tiger cultivated me to be active and fast. The Lion cultured me not to be lazy especially if I have strength and power that could be used. The Eagle was my sample for patience, beauty, courage, bravery, honor, pride, grace, and determination. The Rat skilled me to find my way out no matter what or how long it takes. The Chameleon revealed to me the ability to change my color for beauty and protection. The Fish display to live in peace even if I have to live a short life. The Delphin enhanced me to be the source of kindness, peace, harmony, and protection. The Shark enthused me to live as active and restful as I can be. The Octopus exhibited me to be silent and intelligent. The Elephant experienced me with the value of cooperation and family. To care for others and respect elders. The Pig indicated to me to act smart, clean, and shameless. The Panda appears to me as life is full of white and black times but my thick fur will enable me to survive. The Kangaroo enthused me to live with pride even if I am unable to walk backward. The Penguin influenced me to never underestimate a person. The Deer reveals the ability to sense the presence of hunters before they sense you. The Turtle brightened me to realize that I will get there no matter how long it takes me while having a shell of protection above me. The Rabbit reassured me to allow myself to be playful and silly. The Bat proved to me that I can fly even in darkness. The Alligator/crocodile alerted me that threat exists. The Ant moved me to be organized, active, and social with others. The Bee educated me to be the source of honey and cure for others. The Horse my best intelligent friend with who I bond. Trained me to recover fast from tough conditions. The Whale prompted me to take care of my young ones and show them life abilities. The Crab/Lobster enlightened me not to follow them when they make resolutions depending on previous undesirable events.

(it was not awesome. It was a significant distance from awesome. If it had to walk to awesome, it would crumple down from heat exhaustion and be picked at by vultures who would eventually turn up their beaks at it because in case I have not made this terribly clear, this was not great crab rangoon. It tasted like someone had stuffed a fish into a sock and left it out in the rain).

Submerged Suburbia by Stewart Stafford Fell out of bed, dragging my soul, Looked out the old goldfish bowl, To see suburbia was underwater, And I was engaged to Neptune’s daughter. There were buses like whales, Driven by aquatic snails, And jellyfish squatters, Chased by octopus coppers. Crab and lobster schoolkids, Scurried by making online bids, As a serial killer shark, Prowled for surfers before dark. Someone let the water out, And it all went down the spout, Flopping fish still tarried, But I got out of getting married. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.

She had renovated the sea-to-table taqueria as carefully as she kneaded her handmade tortillas. She'd selected every item inside the restaurant, from the custom-painted murals on the walls to the Talavera tiles underneath her worn clogs. Every Saturday morning, she went to the open-air fish market near Seaport Village to pick the freshest, most sustainable seafood available. From sea urchins to rock crab, Julieta never shied away from varieties that weren't typically served in Mexican cuisine. And she wasn't afraid to experiment in the kitchen.

So for the first course, we have flounder sashimi served with green onions and momiji oroshi, or daikon radish with chili pepper." The fish was delicate and subtle, with a nice, firm texture. What followed after this opening course was an onslaught of fantastic nigiri, small balls of pressed sushi rice with various toppings, served two at a time so I could fully appreciate each perfect morsel. Sea bream was followed by sweet shrimp, tamago, yellowtail, salmon, soy sauce-braised octopus, crab, grilled eel, and the final two pieces were otoro, or tuna belly. The richest, fattest, most melt-in-your-mouth pieces of tuna I'd ever had.

How big can a giant Japanese spider crab grow?” “Ten feet,” I said instantly. “Very good. Hm. What color is a banded butterfly fish?” “Black and silver. Too easy!” “Too pointless, more like,” Mom said under her breath.

Eugenians are proud of the regional bounty and were passionate about incorporating local, seasonal, and organic ingredients well before it was back in vogue. Anglers are kept busy in fresh waters, fishing for wild chinook salmon in the spring and steelhead in the summer, and sweet Dungeness crab is abundant in the estuaries year-round. Local farmers gather every Saturday downtown to sell homegrown organic produce and honey, foraged mushrooms, and wild berries. The general demographic is of hippies who protest Whole Foods in favor of local co-ops, wear Birkenstocks, weave hair wraps to sell at outdoor markets, and make their own nut butter. They are men with birth names like Herb and River and women called Forest and Aurora.

Noryangjin is a wholesale market where you can choose live fish and seafood from the tanks of different vendors and have them sent up to be prepared in a number of cooking styles at restaurants upstairs. My mother and I were with her two sisters, Nami and Eunmi, and they had picked out pounds of abalone, scallops, sea cucumber, amberjack, octopus, and king crab to eat raw and boiled in spicy soups. Upstairs, our table filled immediately with banchan dotting around the butane burner for our stew. The first dish to arrive was sannakji---live long-armed octopus. A plate full of gray-and-white tentacles wriggled before me, freshly severed from their head, every suction cup still pulsing.

There are halibut as big as doors in the ocean down below the town, flapskimming on the murky ocean floor with vast skates and rays and purple crabs and black cod large as logs, and sea lions slashing through the whip-forests of bull kelp and eelgrass and sugar wrack, and seals in the rockweed and giant perennial kelp and iridescent kelp and iridescent fish and luminous shrimp too small to see with the naked eye but billions of which feed the gray whales which slide hugely slowly by like rubbery zeppelins twice a year, north in spring and south in fall. Salmonberries, thimbleberries, black raspberries, gooseberries, bearberries, snowberries, salal berries, elderberries, blackberries along the road and by the seasonal salt marshes north and south. The ground squirrels burrow along the dirt banks of the back roads, their warren of mysterious holes, the thick scatter of fine brown soil before their doorsteps, the flash of silver-gray on their back fur as they rocket into the bushes; the bucks and does and fawns in the road in the morning, their springy step as they slip away from the gardens they have been eating; the bobcat seen once, at dusk, its haunches jacked up like a teenager's hot-rodding car; the rumor of cougar in the hills; the coyotes who use the old fire road in the hills; the tiny mice and bats one sometimes finds long dead and leathery like ancient brown paper; the little frenetic testy chittering skittering cheeky testy chickaree squirrels in the spruces and pines - Douglas squirrels, they are, their very name remembering that young gentleman botanist who wandered near these hills centuries ago. The herons in marshes and sinks and creeks and streams and on the beach sometimes at dusk; and the cormorants and pelicans and sea scoters and murres (poor things so often dead young on the beach after the late-spring fledging) and jays and crows and quorking haunted ravens (moaning Poe! Poe! at dusk) especially over the wooded hills, and the goldfinches mobbing thistles in the meadowed hills, and sometimes a falcon rocketing by like a gleeful murderous dream, and osprey of all sizes all along the Mink like an osprey police lineup, and the herring gulls and Caspian terns and arctic terns, and the varied thrushes in wet corners of thickets, and the ruffed grouse in the spruce by the road, and the quail sometimes, and red-tailed hawks floating floating floating; from below they look like kites soaring brownly against the piercing blue sky, which itself is a vast creature bluer by the month as summer deepens into crispy cold fall.

We moved to Eugene, Oregon, a small college town in the Pacific Northwest. The city sits near the source of the Willamette River, which stretches 150 miles north, from the Calapooya Mountains outside of town to its mouth on the Columbia. Carving its way between mountains, the Cascade Range to the east and the Oregon Coast Range to the west, the river defines a fertile valley where tens of thousands of years ago a series of ice age floods surged southwest from Lake Missoula, traveling over eastern Washington and bringing with their floodwaters rich soil and volcanic rock that now shore up the layers of its earth, alluvial plains fit for a vast variety of agriculture. The town itself is coated in green, hugging the banks of the river and spreading out up into the rugged hills and pine forests of central Oregon. The seasons are mild, drizzly, and gray for most of the year but give way to a lush, unspoiled summer. It rains incessantly and yet I never knew an Oregonian to carry an umbrella. Eugenians are proud of the regional bounty and were passionate about incorporating local, seasonal, and organic ingredients well before it was back in vogue. Anglers are kept busy in fresh waters, fishing for wild chinook salmon in the spring and steelhead in the summer, and sweet Dungeness crab is abundant in the estuaries year-round. Local farmers gather every Saturday downtown to sell homegrown organic produce and honey, foraged mushrooms, and wild berries. The general demographic is of hippies who protest Whole Foods in favor of local co-ops, wear Birkenstocks, weave hair wraps to sell at outdoor markets, and make their own nut butter. They are men with birth names like Herb and River and women called Forest and Aurora.

The cement-paved market is a straight shot from end to end, lined on either side by butchers, cheesemongers, and grocers selling everything from chicken feet to lettuce. The steep, hipped roof rises nearly fifty feet, traversed by white metal scaffolding, and what little sunlight there is today pours through the skylights and windows lining the walls. The air carries a funky mustiness, the combination of aged cheese mixed with fresh fish and bread hot from the oven. A crowd is gathered at the far end of the market in front of the Market Lunch, which serves some of the best blueberry pancakes and crab cakes in town.

when i was five i went fishing with my family when i was five i went fishing with my family my dad caught a turtle my mom caught a snapper my brother caught a crab i caught a whale that night we ate crab the next night we ate turtle the next night we ate snapper the night ate we ate whale the night ate we ate whale the night ate we ate whale the night ate we ate whale the night ate we ate whale the night ate we ate whale

Exactly!” shouted Sarin the crab, now standing on hind legs. The looks of fear had subsided from the faces of the creatures. “We have a right to be happy, and live well my friends. That’s why I’m telling you all to eat to your heart’s content!

On those nights the water was very calm, so silvery it looked like mercury, and the fish in it, violet-colored, unable to resist the Moon's attraction, rose to the surface, all of them, and so did the octopuses and the saffron medusas. There was always a flight of tiny creatures -- little crabs, squid, and even some weeds, light and filmy, and coral plants -- that broke from the sea and ended up on the Moon, hanging down from that lime-white ceiling, or else they stayed in midair, a phosphorescent swarm we had to drive off, waving banana leaves at them.

3 Reasons Why You Should Visit Galapagos Islands Are you have been planning to spend their vacation in most of the beautiful place in the world. Then the Galapagos Islands is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The famous archipelago in the Pacific Ocean is a demand and desired destination for travelers all around the world. The Galapagos isn’t probably the easiest and cheapest accessible place in the world but still attracts huge numbers of visitors, although there is a limit on how many people can arrive in the Galapagos. These are not budget-friendly travel destination Islands, but there are some ways how to arrange your week in paradise from cruising the living onboard and archipelago to making the day trip from one of the islands. You have most already heard or read all superlatives Galapagos Island can offer many visitors. But if you hesitate if the time and money will be worth it, we’ve put a list of three reasons why we should visit the Galapagos Islands. After reading these reasons, we believe that there won’t be any hesitation. The Galapagos Legend should be on every traveler. Pristine beaches You come to Galapagos Island to see fantastic wildlife but firstly mention the beaches. The stretches of fine white sand are on every island, and although you won’t have that much time to relax and lay down here just because of that there is so much to do, so we are looking at you sea lions only walking on those beaches from one to another end is a great unforgettable experience. Never expect deck chairs, bars, or umbrellas beaches on the Galapagos have nothing familiar with those touristy and crowded places form travel catalogs. Wildlife When we think and talk about the Galapagos Islands, we have a suspicion that the wildlife would be something marvelous and unique. What we never know was that these superlatives would get a new dimension on the Galapagos. All the wildlife animal species from iguanas, birds, tortoises, sea lions crabs to fish are incredible, and nothing can make you on their natural behavior that is dissimilar from the animal's behavior we know from our countries. The Galapagos animals never feel fear human at all, so you can get close to them and take images of a lifetime. Island hikes There are many designed ways on islands of Galapagos that will help you to walk through a unique landscape and will also help you to understand the evaluation process better, evaluation of not only the islands but also of the flora and fauna which live here in unbelievable symbiosis. The hikes are short, so visitors are allowed to walk on the island on their own so that you want a certified guide to show you around. Hikes were one of the best activities we did on the Galapagos as it combined the exploration of almost barren volcanic islands and watching wildlife. Galapagos Legend help you plan the trip you have dreamed about. You can choose onshore activities that cater to your interests, from a wildlife safari to a side trip to the fabulous annual Carnival in Rio, Brazil. As you stay on shore before and after your trip, you have the option of staying at a delightful boutique-style hotel or in a 5-star hotel setting.

Court bouillon, made with carrot, shallot, leek, garlic, celeriac, herbs, water and Muscadet, was the heart and soul of Breton cuisine. Langoustines blossomed in it, and crabs drowned in bliss; skinned duck or vegetables simmered in it to perfection. The stock grew stronger with each use and would keep for three days. It formed the base for sauces, and a shot glass of sieved court bouillon could turn a mediocre fish stew into a regular feast.

After the simplicity of the gnocchi, the fish course was astonishing. Pellegrino had spent the entire day preparing the two red mullets. He had partially removed the heads and cleaned the fish through those small openings, leaving the bodies intact. Then he massaged each fish to loosen the flesh and bones, which he painstakingly removed without breaking the skin. The mullet flesh was combined with chopped spider crab, cream-softened bread, finely minced shallots, and a whisper of garlic, thyme, nutmeg, and butter, and then carefully stuffed back into the skin. Pellegrino returned the heads to their natural position and patted each fish into its original shape. He surrounded the stuffed mullets with vegetables and herbs and sealed all of it in parchment to poach gently in its own flavorful steam.

THE PORT OF the main island of Iejima, despite or because of its lack of tourist recommendations, is instantly attractive. Houses tumble down the hillsides, fall over each other, and all but end in the water. Their gray-tile roofs almost touch, and small and narrow alleys swarm in all directions. The mud walls, straw showing through, are so close that it would seem the inhabitants move crab-fashion. The port is filled with fishing boats, strange, junklike ships with high prows and raked sails, and around them, on the docks, are bales and coils and baskets and boxes. On all sides there is the most glorious confusion. In

Beach sands are home to a multitude of other creatures, above and below sea level. Besides the obvious visible ones—clams, crabs, birds, plants—they also shelter all kinds of nematodes, flatworms, bacteria, and other organisms so small they live on the surface of individual sand grains. Despite their tiny size, many of these creatures play an important role in the ecosystem, breaking down organic matter and providing food for other creatures, including fish.43 Dumping thousands of tons of imported sand on top of these organisms can be lethal to them. A 2016 University of California study found the population of marine worms and other invertebrates on San Diego beaches fell by half after a beach nourishment project.44 Another recent study in South Carolina found major drops in populations of bugs, worms, and other organisms living on the ocean floor in areas that had been dredged for beach nourishment.

The casino was at the center of a constellation of transactions. I saw fishermen come to fish the lake; a woman looking for a job; elders cracking crab legs at the casino buffet—one of two restaurants on the reservation that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and a steady flow of men in suits. One morning, I watched a tour bus disgorge a hundred elderly passengers and learned they had come from a senior center in Bismarck. They were among the few patrons I saw come solely for the slots. The other gamblers were oil workers and tribal members, many of whom lived in the lodge.

He reached down, pulled on a piece of seaweed and came up with a handful of gleaming white shells, shook off the water and tossed them on to the sandy bank. I attempted to do likewise, and came up with a handful of slime and a few broken bits of twig, one of which had a tiny but very angry-looking crab clinging to it.

Remind me of the place. The wind breathing through the trees and the sound of coconuts dropping on the mud. Ta-dup ta dup. The hairy mangrove crabs and the turtles. The evening sky looking like a big mash up rainbow with all these colors leaking down on the sea. The fresh smell of fish and sand in the mornings. Cascadura jumping up from the ponds like living clumps of mud. Dew skating down from the big dasheen leaves as if they playing with the sunlight. A horsewhip snake slipping down a guava branch as smooth as flowing water. Cassava pone and seamoss drinks.

Twelve bagpipes wailing, Eleven mermaids dancing.   Ten piskies chanting. Nine boats a fishing. Eight kilts in tartan, Seven shirts for rugby, Six pies of pilchards, Five…rum and shrubs, Four saffron buns, Three hevva cakes, Two Newlyn crabs and a pasty in a pear tree.

Standing up, I promptly scream as what feels like a pound of wet sand falls out of my bikini bottoms. It must have worked itself in there while we were sitting in the sea. “Hahahaha!” Paige cracks up laughing. “It looks like you pooed yourself!” “Yes, thanks, Paige--” “It really does! It totally looks like you--” “Thanks, I think we all get the point!” I dash into the sea as fast as I can, more gobs of wet sand tumbling down my legs, looking and feeling almost exactly like--well, like poo. When I’m waist-deep, I pull the bottoms down and shake and scrape out a big handful of sand. Without any hesitation, I throw it directly at Paige. To my great satisfaction, it lands bang in her cleavage. “Hey! You have poo on your boobs!” I say happily. “Aah!” Taking this in the spirit in which it’s meant, Paige scoops it out and hurls it back at me. I jump back, giggling, as she crab walks deeper into the sea, stands up, and starts fishing handfuls of sand out of her own bottoms to throw at me. We’re both laughing now, not aiming to hurt or hit the other one in the face, just letting off steam, and it feels wonderful. The stress, the tension, the perpetual worrying about who I am fade away; I realize that negotiating with Paige on Kelly’s behalf has helped too. Remember this, I tell myself. Looking after other people. Visiting somewhere new. Splashing around in the sea, throwing wet sand at another girl’s boobs as you both scream with laughter. These are all really good ways to distract yourself from freaking out about things you can’t do anything about. Up above, on his tower, the lifeguard’s standing up and looking down at us, hands on his hips. Laughing too. “Vai bionda!” he’s calling. “Go blondie!” Paige hears it too, and understands--she’s called “bionda” here so much it might as well be her name. Turning around, she waves at him flirtatiously, which distracts her enough that I can bend down into the waves, grab a fresh handful of wet sand, and chuck it so it splatters all over her back. She screams, the lifeguard laughs harder, and people look in our direction, Paige hamming it up hugely, loving the attention. Boys start drifting over; she’s a magnet, and she adores it.

Unalaska’s enormous processing plants convert most of it into fillets for fish sticks or a paste called surimi, much of which is frozen in blocks and shipped off to Japan to be reconstituted into budget sushi. “By the time they’re done, it’s odorless, tasteless protein,” Dickrell said. In a century, the local economy had evolved from fur to war to king crab to fake crab.

The fish vendor had delivered a sea of heavenly delights. Les gambas, large shrimp, were the size of my hand. Once cooked, they'd be lovely and pink. The oysters were enormous and beautiful, the briny scent conjuring up the sea. I couldn't remember the last time I'd swum in open water. Six years ago on a Sunday trip to the Hamptons with Eric? Oh God, I didn't want to think about him. Besides the work of shucking more than three hundred of them, oysters were easy. They'd be served raw with a mignonette sauce and lemons, along with crayfish, crab, and shrimp, accompanied by a saffron-infused aioli dipping sauce. I lifted the top of another crate, and fifty or so lobsters with spiny backs greeted me- beautiful and big, and the top portion freckled by the sea. I loved working with lobster, the way their color changed from mottled brown and orange to a fiery red when cooked. I'd use the tails for le plat principal, flambéed in cognac and simmered in a spicy tomato- my version of my grandmother's recipe for langouste à la armoricaine. The garnish? A sprig of fresh rosemary. The other crates were filled with lovely mussels, scallops, whelks, and smoked salmon filets, along with another surprise- escargots. Save for the snails, this meal would be a true seafood extravaganza.

He sold smoked bluefish pâté and cocktail sauce, lemons, asparagus, corn on the cob, sun-dried tomato pesto, and fresh pasta. He sold Ben & Jerry's, Nantucket Nectars, frozen loaves of French bread. It was a veritable grocery store; before, it had just been fish. Marguerite inspected the specimens in the refrigerated display case; even the fish had changed. There were soft-shell crabs and swordfish chunks ("great for kebabs"); there was unshelled lobster meat selling for $35.99 a pound; there were large shrimp, extra-large shrimp, and jumbo shrimp available with shell or without, cooked or uncooked. But then there were the Dusty staples- the plump, white, day-boat scallops, the fillets of red-purple tuna cut as thick as a paperback novel, the Arctic char and halibut and a whole striped bass that, if Marguerite had to guess, Dusty had caught himself off of Great Point that very morning.