RejectReality

(with apologies to Douglas Adams…)

As Daniel from Red Sweater has stated in a post elegantly titled “No More Excuses”,

“… if you want to be a significant member of the Mac developer community, you need to have a blog. In fact, you need a blog even if you’re not a Mac developer. It’s good for your business, it’s good for your social life, and it can even be good for your ego. You don’t have to use MarsEdit to write it, but you need to have one. Case closed.”

I’m not a member of the Mac developer community (as a Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, Windows sysadmin, I’m pretty platform agnostic — munging things together that really shouldn’t see the light of day in Perl is more my thing), nor do I have a business, but I sure do like a social life and having my ego stroked.

Just not in public. *ahem*

So, on that note, here’s the first of many.

I received a gift from the neighbours yesterday; a couple of whole (nice looking, but otherwise unidentified) fresh fish. It was promised “Good to cook, good for soup!”, no less.

I’m usually a pretty decent cook. I haven’t killed anyone yet, and people come back for another dose of what I can serve up, so it’s generally classed as a win. Given the fact I don’t mind a little culinary experimentation, “Good to cook” sounded good to me.

With a nod to Jamie Oliver, ingredients were added; rosemary, lemon, pepper, salt and garlic (insert some “it’s pukka tukka!” or “they’re great mates!” comments here). Dutifully wrapped in foil to steam, it was sent to the oven for it to work it’s magic.

Ten to fifteen minutes later with a pile of enthusiasm and anticipation, the foil was peeled back to see a visually appealing dinner.

I should note that this was the first time I have cooked whole fish, let alone unidentified “good to cook” fish. This was a good thing.

As for the taste?

I’d be lying if I had anything other than “bland at best” to describe it.

Actually, “meh” also works.

I managed to learn a few valuable life lessons here tonight.

Consider these:

- While one should not look a gift horse in the mouth, a gift fish is another matter.
- If fish is described as “good to cook, good for soup”, go by the latter. There’s probably a reason why turning it into soup was specifically mentioned.
- Jamie Oliver may make some decent stuff, but his two minute fish recipe sucks with unidentified fish.

I hope others can learn from my mistake

PS - Daniel: On the off chance you ever read this, yes, I am using MarsEdit. And yes, it rocks. I just won’t offer you an unidentified fish in return - you’ll have to settle for the ten bucks I sent your way for a MarsEdit upgrade