Wrinkly Bits
A Blog by Gail Cushman
I’ve never considered myself a “picky” eater. But then, I’ve always eaten beef, chicken, and bacon, especially bacon. You may notice the absence of lamb, and that’s because when I was about five, one day I couldn’t find Lambie, my pet lamb, and the next thing I knew, well, as Paul Harvey said, “The rest of the story…” No more lamb for Gail.
Well, today I had another challenge. We did some errands and decided stop for a snack, Cowboy calls it a lollypop. I order a red lolly; he gets NA Beer. We stopped at a local restaurant. It was about 3:00 today, a Wednesday and it was jammed, and I mean jammed, but we managed to get a table on the water with sun, blue skies, a day of dreams.
He asked what I wanted and I shrugged, “It doesn’t really matter, just not lamb.”
The server came by and the Cowboy said, “We’ll have an order of grouper cheeks.”
“What? Grouper cheeks?” I looked at the menu and there they were, grouper cheeks. It had to be a mistake, though so I pulled out my it-knows-everything phone and checked, sure enough, groupers have cheeks, the meat on its face, above the mouth and below the eyes. OMG, I’m a fish cannibal. I had lived to age 79 and had never heard of grouper cheeks, let alone ordered them in a restaurant and eating them in front of a roomful of people. The Internet said they sold for $15.00/pound, so they must be a delicacy in demand. Crazy Floridians.
But, I’m from Montana and know where Edgar’s Bar is. Beef is my baby, and Cowboy’s ordering grouper cheeks. What the heck? Grouper has to be the ugliest fish in the universe and I didn’t know it had cheeks. It also has great big eyes and a huge mouth, but we’re not talking about them. I was holding my breath.
The server came by, and I’m thinking where did I go wrong? I ordered a second lolly, because I was sure I would need it. Bite the grouper cheeks, chug the lolly, you know the drill. The server came out, and set the plate down in front of me. I looked at Cowboy, “Am I supposed to eat this?” He said, “Just try it.” Luckily it was covered with coconut and French fried, then smothered with passionfruit and pineapple, and looked kinda like a small crab cake, which I like.
I waited for the server to bring my lolly, because I wasn’t doing this without proper fortification. Finally, I took a wee bite. Wee, mind you, just a bit. Oh my gosh. It was tasty, especially with the passionfruit and pineapple. Okay, I was wrong about grouper cheeks, but I’m still not wrong about lamb. My question is, “Who was the first one to cut off a grouper’s cheeks and fry them up? It makes you think.
