booyah.

hai der.

Yes.

A whole. Fish. Head, everything intact.

Sam's Club. (AKA Costco)

No, seriously.



*****

I was headed to a new members' meeting for the National Speech, Language, and Hearing Association yesterday. It was my first time going to the SLP building after hours at 7:30.

I go to open the door, and I find it locked. I swipe my student ID card. Not working despite my grad student status. I can see the students, TONS of undergrads (HOW did they get in?) pooled in the lobby about 20 feet away through glass front door. I bang on the door, ring the doorbell, wave, dance, and finally get it that I'm just not supposed to be at this meeting for some reason.

So I run errands instead. I head to the giant strip mall (lol) near my house, walk into Sam's Club, and find these babies.

God loves me. 

Rainbow trout. They came loosely wrapped in packets of twos, but they looked amazing. All for $5. I was swooning. My grandmother always told me to check for two things: bright eyes (never cloudy) tinged with red; and firm flesh. In hindsight, I should have tried to find an employee to bring me to the back so I could pick some out that they hadn't wrapped yet, touched them, and given them a sniff (I have weirded out many a teenaged employee stuck working at the fish counter at random grocery stores by asking if I can smell the fresh seafood to check for freshness lol), but dude, I was SO EXCITED I ran off to the cash and the man in front of me remarked with a chuckle "Hey, whaddaya know-she found REAL FISH, hehehehhe."

Within 15 minutes, these babies were rinsed, marinated in olive oil, salt, pepper, minced fresh ginger, the juice of 1 lime, sliced fresh garlic, and lots of green onions, and in my oven on broil.

Must devise a plan to get all the rest of the whole fish from Sam's Club before the Missourians do...

The fish were each about half a pound. I don't think my oven is as hot as it should be, because it took a good 10 minutes for the fish to be ready to be turned over to the other side (for a 1 pound fish, it should start to get charred and skin bubbly in 5 minutes, then you know it's ready to turn).

The fish turned out pretty nicely! I'm sure if I had marinated it for at least 2-4 hours, or even better, overnight, it would have turned out differently. I made more fish later in the week for Matt--this time, the fish was even JUICIER! Huzzah!