That's so 2003

A few weeks ago I was food shopping with the boy. He asked if he could pick the fish and I said sure. The last time I did this we had halibut. At 24 bucks a pound. But whatever. Anyway, one of the choices was orange roughy. He'd never heard of it and asked what it was like. I realized then that I hadn't seen orange roughy in years. It was one of those hot menu items back in the late 80's though. Remember? Every piece of fish slapped on a plate was either orange roughy or red snapper. Blackened. And then it was gone. Weird how that happens no? As it turns out we did get the roughy, and as it turns out the boy prefers halibut. Naturally. Not that I blame him, I've had tastier fish sticks.

Today I read Garrett at Vanilla Garlic describe theRockstar Ingredient Theory, the comments are interesting - seems everyone agrees that ROCKSTARS exist but no one really knows how something gets to be a ROCKSTAR to begin with. Like ramps. Seriously.

Of course sometimes things are popular and trendy because they just taste so damn good. Like beets and goat cheese. I do so love the two tastes together. (Even the beet hating boy agrees!) If beet and goat cheese salad hadn't achieved ROCKSTAR status I'd probably never tried it on my own. I suppose the same could be said for ramps, but did anyone ever really think orange roughy was good?



1. steak, rare
2. *'burnt potatoes'
3. vanilla yogurt with blackberries
4. retro salad with beets, goat cheese and walnuts with, wait for it, balsamic vinaigrette on the side

*burnt potatoes aren't really burned, it's just what we call them to differentiate between other kinds of fried potatoes. They are sort of pan fried with onions, but not really messed with so the bottom gets brown and crispy and the middle steams.