I Named Him 'Fred' Because He Was Dead...

What you see here is the remains of the dinner I ordered on Friday night at a fun little restaurant called 'Patsy's'. Let it be known, I've never eaten anything with a face before, especially a face with the eyes intact and teeth, teeth which appeared to be sticking right up through the middle of it's snout (snout? Do fish have snouts?) I'm really not very squeamish when it comes to food. In fact, as an appetizer we had Calamari and because my friend Lori IS squeamish, her daughter, my daughter and I played with the little squid by dangling them by their little rubber band like arms in front of Lori's face until she begged us to stop. I did a lot of dangling and I ate a lot of calamari.

It seemed every meal I sat down to during vacation I had the feeling I was still in the midst of digesting the previous meal I had eaten... Such is the pleasure and the pain of vacation, too much good food, too little time to eat it all. So really when we went to Patsy's I would've been happy to order just a salad or a bowl of soup because I felt full after playing bungee with the calamari but my son said he'd like to try the 'Snapper' if I ordered it... And if my son is willing to eat anything other than chicken fingers, then by God I'll be sure to make it happen. So I ordered the Snapper.

When the waiter set the platter of what I ended up referring to as 'Fred' the whole table (there were 10 of us) took a collective gasp. I think that means I'm the first of the group to have partaken of something with a face looking back at me. I couldn't NOT eat it... Anything on a menu that is listed 'Market Price' instead of a $ figure has got to be expensive and since I'm always busting on my kids about wasting money on food not eaten, I couldn't set a bad example by wasting money on 'Fred.' I also knew there was also absolutely no chance in hell that my son was going to be trying the snapper. I was on my own! So I took a deep breath, tore off the back fin and forked up some meat. It was surprisingly not fishy, though you wouldn't know it by staring into the lifeless eyes of a whole fish upon your plate. In fact, it tasted a lot like the Talapia I make at home. I really thought I was doing pretty good about ignoring the eyes, the teeth, the fins and the mouth as I picked away at the meat but when the waiter stopped by our table and pointed out that I still had a lot of good meat left and said, "There's a lot of meat left in the cheeks." Well, that was all I needed to hear to make me want to set my fork down and not even consider another bite... The fillet? Fine! But start pointing out facial features and I'd had enough. I wasn't even sure at what point up the back I'd be near the brain and I definitely wasn't going there!

Trying to sleep later that night was difficult. Regardless of the Tums I took to settle my stomach, I kept imagining Fred and the squid chasing each other around my insides. I also made a promise to myself that I wouldn't be teasing Lori with calamari ever again.