Best 66 quotes in «seafood quotes» category

Load the sailboat with bottles of white wine, olive oil, fishing rods, and yeasty, dark-crusted bread. Work your way carefully out of the narrow channels of the Cabras port on the western shore of Sardinia. Set sail for the open seas. Navigate carefully around the archipelago of small boats fishing for sea bass, bream, squid. Steer clear of the lines of mussel nets swooping in long black arcs off the coastline. When you spot the crumbling stone tower, turn the boat north and nuzzle it gently into the electric blue-green waters along ancient Tharros. Drop anchor. Strip down to your bathing suit. Load into the transport boat and head for shore. After a swim, make for the highest point on the peninsula, the one with the view of land and sea and history that will make your knees buckle. Stay focused. You're not here to admire the sun-baked ruins of one of Sardinia's oldest civilizations, a five-thousand-year-old settlement that wears the footprints of its inhabitants- Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans- like the layers of a cake. You're here to pick herbs growing wildly among the ancient tombs and temples, under shards of broken vases once holding humans' earliest attempts at inebriation. Taste this! Like peppermint, but spicy. And this! A version of wild lemon thyme, perfect with seafood. Pluck a handful of finocchio marino,sea fennel, a bright burst of anise with an undertow of salt. Withfinocchioin fist, reboard the transport vessel and navigate toward the closest buoy. Grab the bright orange plastic, roll it over, and scrape off the thicket of mussels growing beneath. Repeat with the other buoys until you have enough mussels to fill a pot. In the belly of the boat, bring the dish together: Scrub the mussels. Bring a pot of seawater to a raucous boil and drop in the spaghetti- cento grammi a testa. While the pasta cooks, blanch a few handfuls of the wild fennel to take away some of the sting. Remove the mussels from their shells and combine with sliced garlic, a glass of seawater, and a deluge of peppery local olive oil in a pan. Take the pasta constantly, checking for doneness. (Don't you dare overcook it!) When only the faintest resistance remains in the middle, drain and add to the pan of mussels. Move the pasta fast and frequently with a pair of tongs, emulsifying the water and mussel juice with the oil. Keep stirring and drizzling in oil until a glistening sheen forms on the surface of the pasta. This is called la mantecatura, the key to all great seafood pastas, so take the time to do it right.

I lost Tomiko and her mother at the eel stall. It was the place to buy prepared fillets of unagi, as meltingly tender as a stick of soft butter. A spotlight shone down on the delicate fillets, gleaming under a varnish of sweet soy glaze. Every eel shop and restaurant makes its own special glaze, which eel purists often forgo. All eel lovers, however, sprinkle on sansho, the tingly tongue-numbing green powder from the ground dried seedpods of the prickly ash tree that lifts the dish from sumptuous to sensational. At that particular eel shop, the fillets, priced according to their fatty succulence, were still warm and drenched with sauce. The next few shops were a sashimi lover's paradise. Spiky forest-green sea urchins swollen with creamy yellow eggs sat in green plastic baskets beside huge steak-like sides of tuna, caught only hours ago from the icy waters off Japan. Gigantic octopuses with suction cups like the bottom of rubber bathtub mats rested on ice near sapphire-silver mackerel imbricated on round white platters.

I need the comfort. I look for a food memory to calm me and I settle on ceviche. A tart bite, a clean, fresh wave of flavor. Think of the process. Raw fish is translucent, but when you dip the lime juice onto it, it becomes something else. Cubes of white-fleshed fish begin to flake. Shrimp turn pink. Texture becomes color. Visible streaks, almost stripes, show the grain.

Is this lox shmear?" Dahlia asks, opening the fancy gift bag I couldn't really afford but purchased anyway and pulling out the Mason jar packed with the pink spread. "Crawfish spread," I say. "But I imagine it would go very nicely on a bagel, same as lox." I am underplaying how delicious this stuff is. It's just poached crawfish tails blended in the Cuisinart with lots of butter and garlic, and a little cayenne pepper, but it's become my favorite thing in the world to eat. I serve it at the restaurant as an appetizer with toast points.

I loved the counter filled with lox, whitefish, sturgeon. Saperstein looked like a sturgeon, long, white, sharp-toothed. I marveled at the way he wielded his razor-sharp knife. Cutting a bit of translucent smoked sturgeon, you expected it to shred if you breathed on it. Manya achieved status as his sturgeon expert. She had grown up with sturgeon, a staple along the Black Sea, and she pronounced a sample too salty, too mealy from being packed in ice, too strong in flavor, or absolutely perfect. Saperstein, a purist, inevitably felt sad that his customers did not truly appreciate his top-of-the-line products. He communed with Bubby over a slice of sturgeon or belly lox as if having a religious moment. Even when bad weather kept customers away from our restaurant and we were low in cash, Bubby invested in a few slices of smoked sturgeon, not for her customers, but for our family. She could ignore lox, smoked whitefish, pickles or fresh herring, but she couldn't do without a weekly treat of sturgeon. To prove that he was a sporting man who approved of her taste, Saperstein created a cone from white paper and dropped in some caviar, which he kept in a tin secreted in a hole under the counter- God forbid during a robbery, the thieves would never discover his hiding place.

I'm intrigued by Jake's mention of the Castelli Farms pork. And anything made with wild boar. Perhaps a wild boar ragout with braised carrots and fennel. Sausages are a must, lamb and spicy pork, served with black pepper flecked polenta. Mussels steamed in sweet vermouth, a salad of chicory and fresh anchovies with a warm caper vinaigrette.

I popped the tape into the VCR and watched a pretty, middle-aged Italian woman in a flowered housedress and frilly apron hold up various fish and shellfish as she spoke to the tape in rapid, enthusiastic Italian, espousing the virtues of the seafood. She was standing at a battered wooden table in what appeared to be her own kitchen. After she finished showing off the fish, she beheaded and eviscerated them, and then washed them in a chipped white enamel bowl full of water that sat on the table. She put the cleaned pieces on a brightly painted platter, chosen, I'm sure, with less deliberation than our Jonathan would have required. She poured olive oil into a large, slightly dented pot that sat on a small two-burner stove and then in a flash chopped a couple of onions and a good amount of garlic and put them in the oil. While the aromatics became, well, aromatic, she cut up a half dozen fresh tomatoes and a healthy amount of herbs and added them to the pot. She stirred everything around, and before long she had all the fish and shellfish in the pot.

It was salty, it was sweet, it was fishy, it was liquor, it was like a deep breath of seaweedy air and a mouthful of sea spray all at once. He bit once, involuntarily, and felt the flavors in his mouth swell and burst like a wave. Before he knew what he had done he had swallowed, and then there was another sensation; another flavor, as the soft shapeless mass wriggled past the back of his throat, leaving a faint, cool aftertaste of brine. He felt a sudden sense that nothing would be the same again. Eve in her garden had bitten an apple. James had eaten an oyster, sitting outside a tiny restaurant overlooking the sea by Sorrento. His undernourished heart swelled in the Italian sunshine like a ripening fig and he laughed out loud. With a great flood of gratitude he realized that he was having the time of his life.

Now that you have the menu, tell me what this is." "Tuna, vanilla brioche crumbs, and a bruléed disk of monkfish liver." "Ah, monkfish liver! Foie gras of the sea!" Michael Saltz said, lifting his cup in a toast. I refused to join him and just tipped the bite backlit a shot, letting the mouthful take shape all at once. Michael Saltz squinted at me while I set the cup down. If he disregarded me, then I'd disregard him. Next, Hugo brought out a single octopus tentacle, roasted to bring out the burgundy speckles in its skin, painted with sweet, sea-infused balsamic squid ink and framed by two quarters of a ruddy pear. We stayed silent as I ate. Skate came wading in a chorizo broth, a cap of seaweed poking through the surface like an island paradise.

That first bite of fat-streaked tuna sushi was a culinary epiphany. It was as though I had been wearing a mitten on my tongue all those years and had suddenly taken it off. The velvety fish had a rare beef-like core surrounded by a creamy richness from the marbled fat. The lightly vinegared rice and earthy soy were like exclamation points at the end of a perfect sentence. The wasabi added a final unexpected prickle of heat that kindled my desire for more. That night I promised myself that one day I would eat sushi in Japan.

It is eight o'clock when Juliette plates up Paol's catch. It fills three large platters piled with ice chips- small bright red crustaceans, new-shell spider crabs called moussettes, thin black bigorneaux- everything with claws and barnacles like little prehistoric monsters. A bounty. Fruits de mer- "fruits of the sea"; trésors ("treasures"), more like. From sweet fresh oysters to fat crab claws and everything in between- vermilion, black, and gray.

Madame Reynaud pushes parcels of fish and octopus and mussels into Juliette's hands, gives her fresh heavy cream and a handful off eggs that will make up for the things she has to combine them with. Then she urges Juliette out into the garden and tells her to take whatever she likes, plucking dark spinach leaves for her as Juliette takes some chervil and breaks off sorrel. The green and lemon scent of the sorrel fragrances Juliette's palm, helping her to forget the dreadful hospital smells.

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-

She lifted a piece of sourdough bruschetta slathered with seafood and a light-colored sauce. She bit carefully into the creation. Her mouth exploded with flavor. Prawns and lobster swimming in the most delectable sauce. Buttery and layered, with whisky and leeks and onions and simple herbs. Sophia moaned. There was more than just one bite on this plate. Thank God. Not strictly a true amuse-bouche, but Sophia didn't care. Was it bad form to lick the plate in a cooking competition? This drab little plate had miraculously fixed her taste bud deficiency. Unbelievable. The moment had just shifted from black-and-white to color, like a scene from the Wizard of Oz. Who had created this dish? Someone with a sophisticated palate but no eye for visual presentation. The last plate beckoned, but she already knew it was a lost cause. There was no way it could best that seafood stew. It was a lovely crepe, packed with grilled eggplant and goat cheese. And now that Sophia's taste had been awakened from hibernation, she was able to enjoy every bite. But it still wasn't enough to out-shine the prawns. Those prawns sang to her, and they needed her. They demanded color and brightness. The sauce was bold and rich. That plate clamored for the balance of her garden. She could imagine a prickly little salad to offer texture and bite, to complement that exquisite sauce. Those prawns needed her.

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.

The grilled calamari and spinach antipasto has been a mainstay since we opened, so paying a premium to keep it on the menu is a no-brainer, providing the quality is sufficiently high. I get one of the line guys to pull the lunch menus and type a new one that I dictate while pulling stuff from the walk-in and freezer. Today, our prix fixe menu will feature cucina poverta: polpettone alla napoletana, an Italian meat loaf; pappa al pomodoro; a ragout with sausages and peppers; and braciole (providing Rob, the meat guy, comes through in time). When the meat still has not shown up by ten I'm on the phone yelling at some hapless office person, although it's just about hopeless, because, unless the meat shows up in the next five minutes, there will not be enough time to make the braciole. To cover for the fact that we were only able to buy fifteen pounds of calamari from Dean and Deluca (at an exorbitant price), Tony and I devise an additional antipasto, a ricotta and Pecorino torta flavored with hot pepper and prosciutto.

The meal began with pickled squid, oyster shooters, marinated anchovies, and scungilli salad. Then Rosalie set an enormous bowl of pasta con le vongole in front of Sal, who ladled it out, talking the entire time. The pasta was followed by huge platters of scampi, which we passed around. It was almost eleven when Rosalie set three enormous stuffed turbots on the table, and it was near midnight when she appeared with a plate of warm sugar-dusted sfinge. "So our first taste of the New Year will be sweet," Sal whispered in my ear.

Then together we prepared a magnificent tonno alla Siracusa, fresh from the sea. I showed l'Inglese how to slice little incisions in the fragrant flesh of the fish and fill them with a mixture of crushed garlic, cloves, and coriander. I loved the way he wielded a knife with the flamboyant gestures of his beautiful hands. Everything this man did with his hands had me fascinated. Once the fish was well stuffed with the garlic mixture, we added it to the pan containing the onions we had already softened. Tomatoes, white wine vinegar, and oregano were added next, and while the dish cooked it fill the air with a sumptuous aroma of garlic, herbs, and wine. This heady cocktail stimulated the passions of the hungry and impatient cooks.

The restaurant owner brought them wine, pale and golden and cool. There were just four oysters each, and when they were all gone they turned their attention to the cecinella. After the soft shapeless texture of the oysters these were almost the opposite: hard, crunchy skeletons whose flavor was all on the outside, a crisp bite of garlic and peperone that dissolved to nothing in your mouth. The ricci, or sea urchins, were another taste again, salty and exotic and rich. It was hard to believe that he had once thought they could be an austerity measure. After that they were brought without being asked a dish of baby octopus, cooked with tomatoes and wine mixed with the rich, gamey ink of a squid. For dessert the owner brought them two peaches. Their skins were wrinkled and almost bruised, but the flesh, when James cut into it with his knife, was unspoiled and perfectly ripe, so dark it was almost black. He was about to put a slice into his mouth when Livia stopped him. "Not like that. This is how we eat peaches here." She cut a chunk from the peach into her wine, then held the glass to his lips. He took it, tipping the wine and fruit together into his mouth. It was a delicious, sensual cascade of sensations, the sweet wine and the sweet peach rolling around his mouth before finally, he had to bite it, releasing the fruit's sugary juices. It was like the oyster all over again, a completely undreamt-of experience, and one that he found stirringly sexual, in some strange way that he couldn't have defined.

The sound of trumpets rang out, signaling the arrival of the first course. A parade of glittering slaves trotted forward, some carrying decorations of the sea, statues made of shells, ribbons of blue and silver, or wearing costumes turning them into fish or mermaids. These slaves wandered among the diners as they ate, entertaining them with music or dances reminiscent of the sea. In the midst of these spectacles were the slaves carrying the food on massive trays covered in snow from the mountains, topped with stuffed mussels, lobster mince wrapped in grape leaves, and sea urchins boiled, honeyed, and served open in their own spiny husks.

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.

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.

Thus a dish of tench and eel was arranged so that the pointed head of the eels, gills splayed, thrust through a sea of delicate yellow sauce (toasted breadcrumbs, red wine and vinegar, more red wine reduced to defrutum, long pepper, grains of paradise, cloves, all passed through a sieve and tinted with saffron) towards the gaping lips of the tench. A plate of grilled partridges was presented with the birds still spitted from arsenal to beak, the spits radiating out from a magnificent cockerel, skinned, roasted and recloaked in its feathers, tail and red-combed head; the whole arranged on an armature so that it raised one leg and crowed at the ceiling. Inside the hollow body of the cockerel I had arranged a small silver alembic, its narrow end, no wider than a stalk of grass (I had borrowed it from an alchemist I knew through the Academy) protruding from the beak, and below it a tiny spirit lamp, which I lit as the serving men were already taking the dish away. The alembic was filled with Greco wine tinted with the milk of almonds, and I calculated that the wine would boil more or less when the dish was set on the table, and jet from the proud cock, showering the skewered partridges in aromatic white sauce. There were the ripest figs, all splitting, of course, served with boiled crayfish- as eager, these bright red fellows, to explore the figs as the eels had been curious about the tench- and torte of rucola and pine nuts, liberally spiced with garlic and cloves.

The Challons' cook and kitchen staff had outdone themselves with a variety of dishes featuring spring vegetables and local fish and game. Although the cook back home at Eversby Priory was excellent, the food at Heron's Point was a cut above. There were colorful vegetables cut into tiny julienne strips, tender artichoke hearts roasted with butter, steaming crayfish in a sauce of white burgundy and truffles, and delicate filets of sole coated with crisp breadcrumbs. Pheasant covered with strips of boiled potatoes that had been whipped with cream and butter into savory melting fluff. Beef roasts with peppery crackled hides were brought out on massive platters, along with golden-crusted miniature game pies, and macaroni baked with Gruyère cheese in clever little tart dishes.

The cloudy-eyed heads of the fish were stoically averted from the bare fronds of their ribs. The baby octopus wasn't moving, but the few he'd seen looked perfect, purple and white beneath a yellow haystack of frizzled ginger.

The last meal aboard the Titanic was remarkable. It was a celebration of cuisine that would have impressed the most jaded palate. There were ten courses in all, beginning with oysters and a choice of Consommé Olga, a beef and port wine broth served with glazed vegetables and julienned gherkins, or Cream of Barley Soup. Then there were plate after plate of main courses- Poached Salmon and Cucumbers with Mousseline Sauce, a hollandaise enriched with whipped cream; Filet Mignon Lili, steaks fried in butter, hen topped with an artichoke bottom, foie gras and truffle and served with a Périgueux sauce, a sauté of Chicken Lyonnaise; Lamb with Mint Sauce; Roast Duckling with Apple Sauce; Roast Squash with Cress and Sirloin Beef. There were also a garden's worth of vegetables, prepared both hot and cold. And several potatoes- Château Potatoes, cut to the shape of olives and cooked gently in clarified butter until golden and Parmentier Potatoes, a pureed potato mash garnished with crouton and chervil. And, of course, pâté de foie gras. To cleanse the palate, there was a sixth course of Punch à la Romaine, dry champagne, simple sugar syrup, the juice of two oranges and two lemons, and a bit of their zest. The mixture was steeped, strained, fortified with rum, frozen, topped with a sweet meringue and served like a sorbet. For dessert there was a choice of Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, Chocolate and Vanilla Èclairs and French ice cream.

The meal begins the way all kaiseki meals begin, with hassun, a mixed plate of small bites- fish and vegetables, usually- used to set the tone for the feast to come. In a bowl of pine needles and fallen leaves he hides smoky slices of bonito topped with slow-cooked seaweed, gingko nuts grilled until just tender, a summer roll packed with foraged herbs, and juicy wedges of persimmon dressed with ground sesame and sansho flowers. Autumn resonates in every bite. While the rice simmers away, the meal marches forward: sashimi decorated with a thicket of mountain vegetables and wildflowers; a thick slab of Kyoto-style mackerel sushi, fermented for a year, with the big, heady funk of a washed cheese; mountain fruit blanketed in white miso and speckled with black sesame and bee larvae.

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.

There is no such creature as a “farm animal,” except human beings, who have spent considerable time farming down through history. Other species, such as turkeys and pigs, are exploited on farms, by humans. As such, they are “farmed” animals. Similarly, there is no such thing as a “veal calf” or a “lab animal,” though there are millions of calves and mice who are systematically exploited by ranchers, experimenters, and consumers. There is also no such thing as seafood, only sea creatures who are exploited by others for food or profit.

The variety of wares was staggering: stacks of brown haddock fried in batter, pea soup crowded with chunks of salt pork, smoking-hot potatoes split and doused with butter, oysters roasted in the shell, pickled whelks, and egg-sized suet dumplings heaped in wide shallow bowls. Meat pasties had been made in half-circle shapes convenient for hand carrying. Dried red saveloy and polony sausages, cured tongue, and cuts of ham seared with white fat were made into sandwiches called trotters. Farther along the rows, there was an abundance of sweets: puddings, pastries, buns crossed with fat white lines of sugar, citron cakes, chewy gingerbread nuts dabbed with crackled icing, and tarts made with currants, gooseberries, rhubarbs, or cherries. Ransom guided Garrett from one stand to the next, buying whatever caught her interest: a paper cone filled with hot green peas and bacon, and a nugget of plum dough. He coaxed her to taste a spicy Italian veal stew called stuffata, which was so delicious that she ate an entire cup of it.

To our surprise and delight, dinner was stupendous. Served in our room at the low polished wood table, it exuded a freshness and artistry we had not seen since leaving Kyoto. The sashimi- sea bream, squid, and skipjack- tasted as clean as a freshly sliced apple. Rusty-red miso soup had a meaty fortifying flavor enhanced with cubes of tofu and slithery ribbons of seaweed. The tempura, served in a basket of woven bamboo, shattered to pieces like a well-made croissant. Hiding inside the golden shell was a slice of Japanese pumpkin, a chunk of tender white fish, an okra pod, a shiitake mushroom cap, and a zingy shiso leaf. Pale yellow chawan-mushi also appeared in a lidded glass custard cup. With a tiny wooden spoon we scooped up the ethereal egg and dashi custard cradling chunks of shrimp, sweet lily buds, and waxy-green ginkgo nuts. In a black lacquer bowl came a superb seafood consommé, along with a knuckle of white fish, tuft of spinach, mushroom cap, and a tiny yellow diamond of yuzu zest. A small lacquer bucket held several servings of sticky white rice to eat with crunchy radish pickles and shredded pressed cabbage. A small wedge of honeydew melon concluded the meal.

Vendors walked among the crowds both inside and out selling the bubbly, cold white wine Tirulia was known for along with savory little treats: bread topped with triangles of cheese and olive oil, paper cones filled with crispy fried baby squid, sticks threaded with honey-preserved chestnuts that glittered in the sunlight.

We had fish fritters to start, juicy and thick, about the size of your hand. We began by cutting them into tiny chunks, administering peanut sauce with the tips of our knives, but soon we just held them between our paws like burgers and dunked. The room smelled of citrus and salt, filled with the wet smack of our mastication. I looked around the room, delighted to see so many women ferociously eating fish. We followed with bouillabaisse. When first suggested, it generated a ripple of controversy. It is not the sort of dish that we would normally want to endorse: a nonfood, lacking the heft and substance we usually favor. Soup seemed the kind of joyless meal women feel they should serve, rather than doing so out of any sense of appetite or desire. In the end the bouillabaisse was served with the fish on the side (as is tradition) and with a little pouring jug of double cream (which is not).

We navigate the produce stands, plucking palms full of cherries from every pile we pass, chewing them and spitting the seeds on the ground. We eat tiny tomatoes with taut skins that snap under gentle pressure, releasing the rabid energy of the Sardinian sun trapped inside. We crack asparagus like twigs and watch the stalks weep chlorophyll tears. We attack anything and everything that grows on trees- oranges, plums, apricots, peaches- leaving pits and peels, seeds and skins in our wake. Downstairs in the seafood section, the heart of the market, the pace quickens. Roberto turns the market into a roving raw seafood bar, passing me pieces of marine life at every stand: brawny, tight-lipped mussels; juicy clams on the half shell with a shocking burst of sweetness; tiny raw shrimp with beads of blue coral clinging to their bodies like gaudy jewelry. We place dominoes of ruby tuna flesh on our tongues like communion wafers, the final act in this sacred procession.

We took a short ride on the Oedo line and surfaced near a sashimi-oriented izakaya called Uoshin. The upstairs counter snaked through the room so everyone could have a seat at the bar, and tucked into nooks at various parts of the arrangement were white-coated chefs, each with a knife and a wooden board full of freshly sliced sashimi. We ordered a few selections from the board, and then Mark, who is apparently one of those wiry guys with a boundless appetite, started calling for cooked food; gesoyaki (grilled squid tentacles, one of my favorites), tamagoyaki (seasoned rolled omelet, and yellow-tail teriyaki, all of which were exceptionally good, especially the meaty broiled yellowtail with its sweet and salty glaze.

While I struggled with the menu, a handsome middle-aged guy from a nearby table came over to help. "You like sashimi? Cooked fish? Sushi?" he asked. His English was excellent. He was originally from Okinawa, he said, and a member of Rotary International. I know nothing about the Rotarians except that it's a service organization; helping befuddled foreigners order food in bars must fall within its definition of charitable service. Our service-oriented neighbor helped us order pressed sweetfish sushi, kisu fish tempura, and butter-sauteed scallops. Dredging up a vague Oishinbo memory, I also ordered broiled sweetfish, a seasonal delicacy said to taste vaguely of melon. While we started in on our sushi, our waitress- the kind of harried diner waitress who would call customers "hon" in an American restaurant- delivered a huge, beautiful steamed flounder with soy sauce, mirin, and chunks of creamy tofu. "From that guy," she said, indicating the Rotarian samaritan. We retaliated with a large bottle of beer for him and his friend (the friend came over to thank us, with much bowing). What would happen at your neighborhood bar if a couple of confused foreigners came in with a child and didn't even know how to order a drink? Would someone send them a free fish? I should add that it's not exactly common to bring children to an izakaya, but it's not frowned upon, either; also, not every izakaya is equally welcoming. Some, I have heard, are more clubby and are skeptical of nonregulars, whatever their nationality. But I didn't encounter any places like that. Oh, how was the food? So much of the seafood we eat in the U.S., even in Seattle, is previously frozen, slightly past its prime, or both. All of the seafood at our local izakaya was jump-up-and-bite-you fresh. This was most obvious in the flounder and the scallops. A mild fish, steamed, lightly seasoned, and served with tofu does not sound like a recipe for memorable eating, but it was. The butter-sauteed scallops, meanwhile, would have been at home at a New England seaside shack. They were served with a lettuce and tomato salad and a dollop of mayo. The shellfish were cooked and seasoned perfectly. I've never had a better scallop.

With nothing else to do, I sipped my tea and watched the sushi masters. With quick precise strokes, they transformed glistening blocks of fatty tuna and gray mullet into smooth neat rectangles. The morsels shone like jewels, the color, cut, and shape perfectly showcasing the seafood's freshness. The two men snatched handfuls of rice from a wide wooden bowl and shaped them into ovals as if preparing for a snowball fight. They say the most talented sushi masters can form their rice so that every grain points in the same direction.

With six thousand miles separating me from sleep, I stumbled down into the subway at dawn and emerged on the outskirts of the Tsukiji market just as the sun broke across Tokyo Bay. Inside the market, I saw the entire ocean on display: swollen-bellied salmon, dark disks of abalone, vast armies of exotic crustaceans, conger eels so shiny and new they looked to be napping in their Styrofoam boxes. I stumbled onward to a tuna auction, where a man in a trader's cap worked his way through a hundred silver carcasses scattered across the cement floor, using a system of rapid hand motions and guttural noises unintelligible to all but a select group of tuna savants. When the auction ended, I followed one of the bodies back to its buyer's stall, where a man and his son used band saw, katana blade, cleaver, and fillet knife to work the massive fish down into sellable components: sinewy tail meat for the cheap izakaya, ruby loins for hotel restaurants, blocks of marbled belly for the high-end sushi temples. By 8:00 a.m. I was starving. First, a sushi feast, a twelve-piece procession of Tsukiji's finest- fat-frizzled bluefin, chewy surf clam, a custardy slab of Hokkaido uni- washed down with frosty glasses of Kirin. Then a bowl of warm soba from the outer market, crowned at the last second with a golden nest of vegetable tempura.

Seafood is one of my biggest pet peeves.

Waking up Thursday morning to another dreary day and the sense of being physically stuffed, they focused on FISH. While Charlotte interviewed the postmaster about the origin, techniques, and ingredients for his best-in-Maine lobster bakes, Nicole set off to gather recipes for glazed salmon, baked pesto haddock, and cod crusted with marjoram, a minted savory unique to Quinnipeague, and sage.

We began with two buttery sweet edamame and one sugar syrup-soaked shrimp in a crunchy soft shell. A lightly simmered baby octopus practically melted in our mouths, while a tiny cup of clear, lemony soup provided cooling refreshment. The soup held three slices of okra and several slippery cool strands of junsai (water shield), a luxury food that grows in ponds and marshes throughout Asia, Australia, West Africa, and North America. In the late spring the tiny plant develops leafy shoots surrounded by a gelatinous sheath that floats on the water's surface, enabling the Japanese to scoop it up by hand from small boats. The edamame, okra, and water shield represented items from the mountains, while the shrimp and octopus exemplified the ocean. I could tell John was intrigued and amused by this artistic (perhaps puny?) array of exotica. Two pearly pieces of sea bream, several fat triangles of tuna, and sweet shelled raw baby shrimp composed the sashimi course, which arrived on a pale turquoise dish about the size of a bread plate. It was the raw fish portion of the meal, similar to the mukozuke in a tea kaiseki. To counter the beefy richness of the tuna, we wrapped the triangles in pungent shiso leaves , then dunked them in soy. After the sashimi, the waitress brought out the mushimono (steamed dish). In a coal-black ceramic bowl sat an ivory potato dumpling suspended in a clear wiggly broth of dashi thickened with kudzu starch, freckled with glistening orange salmon roe. The steamed dumplings, reminiscent of a white peach, was all at once velvety, sweet, starchy, and feathery and had a center "pit" of ground chicken. The whole dish, served warm and with a little wooden spoon, embodied the young, tender softness of spring.

Well, I was sure this handsome buck would follow us both out, but when I got back to the kitchen, there he still was picking at some leftover Cajun popcorn in a bowl on the counter. "Oh, don't eat that!" I almost screamed. "It's awful cold. And, besides, you need to dip it in garlic mayonnaise for it to be really good." "I think it's pretty good as is," he said, and suddenly I began to wonder if maybe I looked too heavy in the loose harlequin pants and metallic gold shirt I was wearing. "What's it called?" "Cajun popcorn." "But it's fried shrimp, isn't it?" "Yeah, though over in Louisiana they usually use crawfish." "Why's it called popcorn?" "I have no earthly idea. Maybe 'cause people it fast as popcorn." "What all's in it?" I was now rinsing and drying some platters with a dishcloth and in a hurry to put out some more nutty fingers. "You do ask a lot of questions, Mr. Webster," I kidded him. "Sure you're not some hotshot chef out looking to steal recipes?" He laughed and said, "Jerry. Call me Jerry. And no, I'm no recipe thief. I simply love good food and am always looking for new ideas." "Okay, Jerry, there's everything in that battered popcorn except the kitchen stove." "Like what?" he kept on. "Like garlic and onion and a few hundred herbs and spices- and lots of love." He smiled and asked, "Deep fried?" "Yep, in peanut oil, but not too long- no more than about two minutes. Gotta be crisp on the outside but not overcooked.

We start with a next-generation miso soup: Kyoto's famous sweet white miso whisked with dashi made from lobster shells, with large chunks of tender claw meat and wilted spinach bobbing on the soup's surface. The son takes a cube of topflight Wagyu off the grill, charred on the outside, rare in the center, and swaddles it with green onions and a scoop of melting sea urchin- a surf-and-turf to end all others. The father lays down a gorgeous ceramic plate with a poem painted on its surface. "From the sixteenth century," he tells us, then goes about constructing the dish with his son, piece by piece: First, a chunk of tilefish wrapped around a grilled matsutake mushroom stem. Then a thick triangle of grilled mushroom cap, plus another grilled stem the size of a D-sized battery, topped with mushroom miso. A pickled ginger shoot, a few tender soybeans, and the crowning touch, the tilefish skin, separated from its body and fried into a ripple wave of crunch. The rice course arrives in a small bamboo steamer. The young chef works quickly. He slices curtains of tuna belly from a massive, fat-streaked block, dips it briefly in house-made soy sauce, then lays it on the rice. Over the top he spoons a sauce of seaweed and crushed sesame seeds just as the tuna fat begins to melt into the grains below. A round of tempura comes next: a harvest moon of creamy pumpkin, a gold nugget of blowfish capped with a translucent daikon sauce, and finally a soft, custardy chunk of salmon liver, intensely fatty with a bitter edge, a flavor that I've never tasted before. The last savory course comes in a large ice block carved into the shape of a bowl. Inside, a nest of soba noodles tinted green with powdered matcha floating in a dashi charged with citrus and topped with a false quail egg, the white fashioned from grated daikon.

We wandered the entire length of the street market, stopping to buy the provisions I needed for the lunch dish I wanted to prepare to initiate l'Inglese into the real art of Sicilian cuisine. I took l'Inglese around the best stalls, teaching him how to choose produce, livestock, game, fish, and meat of the highest quality for his dishes. Together we circled among the vegetable sellers, who were praising their heaps of artichokes, zucchini still bearing their yellow flowers, spikes of asparagus, purple-tinged cauliflowers, oyster mushrooms, and vine tomatoes with their customary cries: "Carciofi fresci." "Funghi belli." "Tutto economico." I squeezed and pinched, sniffed, and weighed things in my hands, and having agreed on the goods I would then barter on the price. The stallholders were used to me, but they had never known me to be accompanied by a man. Wild strawberries, cherries, oranges and lemons, quinces and melons were all subject to my scrutiny. The olive sellers, standing behind their huge basins containing all varieties of olives in brine, oil, or vinegar, called out to me: "Hey, Rosa, who's your friend?" We made our way to the meat vendors, where rabbits fresh from the fields, huge sides of beef, whole pigs and sheep were hung up on hooks, and offal and tripe were spread out on marble slabs. I selected some chicken livers, which were wrapped in paper and handed to l'Inglese to carry. I had never had a man to carry my shopping before; it made me feel special. We passed the stalls where whole tuna fish, sardines and oysters, whitebait and octopus were spread out, reflecting the abundant sea surrounding our island. Fish was not on the menu today, but nevertheless I wanted to show l'Inglese where to find the finest tuna, the freshest shrimps, and the most succulent swordfish in the whole market.

While Mrs. Hisa steeped fresh fava beans in sugar syrup, Stephen dry-fried baby chartreuse peppers. I made a salad of crunchy green algae and meaty bonito fish cubes tossed with a bracing blend of soy and ginger juice. Mrs. Hisa created a tiny tumble of Japanese fiddleheads mixed with soy, rice vinegar, and salted baby fish. For the horse mackerel sushi, Stephen skinned and boned several large sardine-like fillets and cut them into thick slices along the bias. I made the vinegared rice and then we all made the nigiri sushi. After forming the rice into triangles, we topped each one with a slice of bamboo grass, as if folding a flag. Last, we made the wanmori, the heart of the tenshin. In the center of a black lacquer bowl we placed a succulent chunk of salmon trout and skinned kabocha pumpkin, both of which we had braised in an aromatic blend of dashi, sake, and sweet cooking wine. Then we slipped in two blanched snow peas and surrounded the ingredients with a bit of dashi, which we had seasoned with soy to attain the perfect whiskey color, then lightly salted to round out the flavor. Using our teacher's finished tenshin as a model, we arranged most of the dishes on three polished black lacquer rectangles, first lightly spraying them with water to suggest spring rain. Then we actually sat down and ate the meal. To my surprise, the leaf-wrapped sushi, the silky charred peppers, candied fava beans, and slippery algae did taste cool and green.

While Nicole drove off in search of recipes for fish hash, clam fritters, and salmon quiche, Charlotte settled in the Chowder House with Dorey Jewett, who, well beyond the assortment of chowders she always brought to Bailey's Brunch, would be as important a figure in the book as any. They sat in the kitchen, though Dorey did little actual sitting. Looking her chef-self in T-shirt, shorts, and apron, if she wasn't dicing veggies, she was clarifying butter or supervising a young boy who was shucking clams dug from the flats hours before. Even this early, the kitchen smelled of chowder bubbling in huge steel pots. Much as Anna Cabot had done for the island in general, Dorey gave a history of restaurants on Quinnipeague, from the first fish stand at the pier, to a primitive burger hut on the bluff, to a short-lived diner on Main Street, to the current Grill and Cafe. Naturally, she spoke at greatest length about the evolution of the Chowder House, whose success she credited to her father, though the man had been dead for nearly twenty years. Everyone knew Dorey was the one who had brought the place into the twenty-first century, but her family loyalty was endearing.

With each new course, he offers up little bites of the ethos that drives his cooking, the tastes and the words playing off each other like a kaiseki echo chamber. Ark shell, a bulging, bright orange clam peeking out of its dark shell, barely cooked, dusted with seaweed salt. "To add things is easy; to take them away is the challenge." Bamboo, cut into wedges, boiled in mountain water and served in a wide, shallow bowl with nothing but the cooking liquid. "How can we make the ingredient taste more like itself?With heat, with water, with knifework." Tempura: a single large clam, cloaked in a pale, soft batter with more chew than crunch. The clam snaps under gentle pressure, releasing a warm ocean of umami. "I want to make a message to the guest: this is the best possible way to cook this ingredient." A meaty fillet of eel wrapped around a thumb of burdock root, glazed with soy and mirin, grilled until crispy: a three-bite explosion that leaves you desperate for more. "The meal must go up and down, following strong flavors with subtle flavors, setting the right tone for the diner." And it does, rising and falling, ebbing and flowing, until the last frothy drop of matcha is gone, signaling the end of the meal.

I love seafood. I'm not a vegetarian but I'm probably a pescetarian.

Like a one eyed cat peepin' in a seafood store.

To save the seas, we can eat sustainably and be conscious of the seafood we eat.