Ms. Kiwi Meets Roasted Peppers

The next great adventure of Ms. Kiwi involves roasted red peppers (see the colorful multitasking in the photo above) and stewed tomatoes, all slow-cooked and whizzed into submission before submitting to my stomach.

On the side, a little peppery salami and a feta-parsley pesto with green garlic over homemade flatbread. And Virgil's cream soda, of course.

Except When You Don't. Because, Sometimes You Won't.

Thanks, Dr. Seuss. It's true even in my exploratorium of a kitchen. Bang-ups and hang-ups happen. Like the miserable parsley and green garlic pesto over leftover potatoes and fusili pasta and peas.

Sure, it looked pretty enough. But it tasted terrible. Like, who wants that much parsley? Especially over old potatoes mixed with pasta. Ugh, and peas! This woman had to have been lying when she called the dish "tasty."

Then there was the near Vita-Mix homicide. So despicable it's embarrassing. And it was dangerous--my dear sweet Vita-Mix almost bit the dust; she smelled of smoking motor and went into overload protection mode... twice. Poor, poor Vita: You're worth more than even the tastiest almond butter. But this one wasn't tasty. It was pure horror, all those waxy fresh almonds whipping themselves into a thick, sticky glob, and not getting any more silken with additions of olive oil, water, peanut butter, Nutella (each added in subsequently desperate attempts to salvage the pricey almonds from total failure). This photo from my trash is frightening:

I swore off cooking for two days after these miserable mishaps. Ordered Chinese takeout, of all the ghastly scenarios possible.

Then I inherited a wok...

Poppa Provides: The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass

Yo. This is massive. So massive that Josiah actually won discounted fishing trips for the rest of his life. Also so massive that we have enough fish to feed us for about a month. We literally made 22 1/3-pound bass fillets from this mother!

Here's dinner number one...

This erases my carbon footprint from those stupid tomatoes I bought earlier this week: A completely sustainable and local meal of wild, line-caught striped bass and peas, potatoes, baby fennel, green garlic and herbs all bought from the farmer's market. 

This was really simple, involving just boiling the fingerlings until they were tender, then sauteeing them up with green garlic and little bits of baby fennel with snap peas thrown in at the last moment to keep them crisp and fresh. Then we chopped up a bunch of dill, cilantro, parsley and fennel fronds while the fish were seared, two minutes a side, in a pan with butter before being finished in the oven for another two minutes. Butter, lemon and herbs were mixed together, then slathered over the fresh, tender, slightly sweet and very mild fish.

Ridiculously delicious.