A recipe and a poem for Tara

I came across a recipe for red mullet.  It was recommended by Billy Collins the former U.S. poet laureate.

Below you can read The Fish, a poem by Billy Collins.   It is a bonus, especially for you Tara dearest.

Bon Appetit.

Red Mullet With Pancetta And Thyme

4 red mullets (about 8 ounces each), cleaned and gutted

Olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

A large bunch fresh thyme

1 lemon, cut into 8 wedges

8 thin slices pancetta (or bacon)

4 good-quality anchovy fillets in olive oil, drained.

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Heat a large skillet until very hot.

2. Meanwhile, rub each fish and its cavity with olive oil and season, inside and out, with salt and pepper. Stuff each cavity with a few sprigs of thyme and a lemon slice.

3. Cook the pancetta in the hot skillet until lightly browned, about 30 seconds per side. In the same hot skillet, sear the fish, 1 minute per side. Transfer to a cutting board. Wrap each fish with 2 strips pancetta and top with an anchovy fillet. Lay the fish in a roasting pan, top with extra thyme and drizzle with more olive oil. Roast in the oven until cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Serves 4.

Below the poem promised for my compassionate Tara; I know you will get this poem unlike most teens…

THE FISH

BY BILLY COLLINS

Published November 25,2007 New York Times

As soon as the elderly waiter
placed before me the fish I had ordered,
it began to stare up at me
with its one flat, iridescent eye.

I feel sorry for you, it seemed to say,
eating alone in this awful restaurant
bathed in such unkindly light
and surrounded by these dreadful murals of Sicily.

And I feel sorry for you, too —
yanked from the sea and now lying dead
next to some boiled potatoes in Pittsburgh —
I said back to the fish as I raised my fork.

And thus my dinner in an unfamiliar city
with its rivers and lighted bridges
was graced not only with chilled wine
and lemon slices but with compassion and sorrow

even after the waiter removed my plate
with the head of the fish still staring
and the barrel vault of its delicate bones
terribly exposed, save for a shroud of parsley.

Heathcliff And Catherine

The New Yorker has a contest every Autumn called The Critterati. Contestants are expected to submit photographs of their animal friends dressed up as literary characters. The most amateurish the better. They are looking for home made originality and not "store bought" cliché.

"Babette and Friends" decided Babette and Cooper would be our stars. Since they wake us up very early in the morning, we took our mini revenge and put them to "work". As we were dressing them up they "questioned" our sanity and commiserated amongst each other that humans were indeed very very odd. We, humans, on the other hand, used the beautiful morning's sun and our dogs perplexity for staging a most successful photo shoot and had lots of fun! Of course, they received plenty of chicken treats for their cooperation.

We submitted a similar photo as the one above but not this exact one.

Can you guess which characters they are portraying?

If not, click and find out here.