Every now and then one member of the family manages to visit a proclivity on the rest of us, and before you know it, we’re all loving or doing the same thing. Hey, I never used to be a HUGE fan of fish. I mean, I liked fish just fine. I cooked it occasionally. But it was never one of my big things.
Back when Monkey still lived on big cups of milk and butter-slathered bread crusts and turned up his nose at nearly everything else, he refused to eat beef. Or pork. Or chicken. Or anything with any protein at all, which caused me to fret that he would forever be just three feet tall and spindly. And one day I made some fish and put some on his plate and then had a small myocardial infarction when he shoveled it all into his mouth and asked for more. Thus a fish-lover was born, and although he is now three-and-a-HALF feet tall and spindly, we consume a lot of fish.
It also gives our family an awesome party trick; ask the kids what they’d like to eat RIGHT NOW if they could have anything at all, and Chickadee will start rattling off “Cake! Ice cream! CAAAAANDY!” while Monkey’s eye glaze over with longing and he sighs, “Saaaaaaaalmon!”
(Hey, I never said my kids were NORMAL.)
Now we eat fish all the time. Broiled fish! Grilled fish! Baked fish! All kinds of fish! And SHRIMP, oh how we love shrimp! Monkey is still waxing nostalgic about the time I bought some shark because it was on sale. He LOVED it. (Me, I found it a little too chewy for my taste. Lesson learned.) We could be doing our own Dr. Seuss book over here, is my point.
I would like fish on a plate.
I would love fish on our date.
I’m a pescetarian!
Say, what’s that in your aquarium?
So here I am, cooking up all sorts of fish in all sorts of different ways, and yet every time we get take-out from our local hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint, what do I get? Fish tacos. The kids always used to get quesadillas, but then Chickadee moved on to beef tacos and then one day I let Monkey taste my food and now he, too, harbors a deep love for the fish taco.
I’d only overpaid for those fish tacos about four hundred times before it occurred to me that I could probably, you know, make them here at home. DUH.
So that’s what I did. I had GRAND PLANS for fish tacos for last night, and the entire family was ALL EXCITED, because our lives are boring and we love us some fish tacos.
Anyway. There was just a couple of little problems.
First of all, yesterday sucked hairy donkey balls for various reasons and I’d gotten very little sleep the night before and was busy—as I noted in yesterday’s post—hating everyone and everything.
Second, I was having a small problem of the female variety. (You’re welcome!)
See, the great thing about having a total hysterectomy is no more mood swings! No more bleeding! Life is easy and predictable!
The bad thing about having a total hysterectomy, though, is that I still require estrogen to function without feasting on the spleen of every annoying human I encounter. And that wouldn’t be a problem except that my insurance sucks and my body sucks.
See, I used to use hormone patches. And that was fine—great, even—for a while. Then I started getting all itchy from the adhesive and I had to stop using them. I tried a couple of other things before settling on estrogen gel, which comes in a pump container and gets rubbed into your legs each morning. (It puts the hormones on its skin!) The pump containers are OPAQUE and it is, therefore, impossible to tell when you’re running low.
A smarter person would just put renewal dates on her calendar. Ahem.
ANYWAY, I realized I was running low, and I also realized that I wanted to switch pharmacies, because once upon a time I picked a pharmacy across town because it’s next door to a place with good bagels. (Hey, I have priorities; sue me.) I reasoned at the time that I was likely to want a nice bagel once a month, and this would work out just fine. And it did, for a while, but then gas went up to a hundred dollars a gallon and frankly, I DON’T NEED A BAGEL THAT BADLY.
So I called both pharmacies, I transferred the prescription, and then I ran out on the day I was to pick it up. Perfect timing! Except not, because the new pharmacy hadn’t actually filled my prescription. “It’s discontinued,” the pharmacist told me, when I showed up to get it.
My first thought: Must. Control. Fists. Of. Death.
My second thought: Oh, didn’t this happen before? I think it did.
My third thought: WTF? These people called and told me to come pick it up and they don’t even HAVE it?
My fourth thought: Damn, I haven’t used the fists of death in a LONG TIME.
“It is NOT discontinued,” I informed the pharmacist. “It is merely written for a SIZE that is discontinued. Instead of one large one you have to order two small ones. Um, I am completely out of my medication, when do you think you can get this in?”
“Maybe by tomorrow afternoon.”
And this all may seem very disjointed but my POINT here is that on a busy, sucky day I found myself making fish tacos when I hadn’t had any sanity-granting hormones for a couple of days. The pharmacy did manage to pull their heads out of their asses and my darling husband picked up my estrogen for me, and last night as we enjoyed some delicious fish tacos I was SORELY TEMPTED to top them with estrogen gel, but in the end I settled for some diced avocado and just applying the gel to my skin as usual.
I should be sane again by tomorrow, but I’m afraid we pretty much snarfed up all of the fish tacos. Sorry.
I just started taking on a teeny tiny bit of estrogen twice a week and I can tell you, I’m loving it!
Fish tacos sound yummy.
I have always wanted to try these. What goes in them? Is it breaded fish or marinated? Inquiring minds want to know.
Recipe please?
Your homage to Dr. Seuss was BRILLIANCE, even without properly controlled hormone levels. Having said that, however:
Uh, fish tacos DO NOT sound yummy.
I marinated tilapia in lemon juice (lime would be even better, but I didn’t have any), garlic, salt/pepper/cumin, and chili powder. Then I double-breaded it with buttermilk cornbread mix (coated it once, dipped it in milk, coated it again) and pan-fried the fish in cast iron with a little bit of oil. You can do it with plain grilled/broiled fish, but I like the crunch of the coating.
We ate it in spinach tortillas topped with sweet coleslaw mixed with extra purple cabbage, and salsa (for the husband) and avocado (for Chickie and me).
Yummm! Thanks for the recipe. I love fish tacos. I hope your day is better today.
Hey! The last couple of times I went to that hole-in-the-wall Mexican place they told me they were out of fish tacos! What gives? Oh well, at least now I have a yummy sounding recipe! thanks for sharing. And thanks for not putting your estrogen gel on top of your fish tacos. That just makes me think of those slimy eels and that’s never a good thing!
“It puts the hormones on its skin.” bwahahahaha Scary flashback, but funny nonetheless. Here’s hoping today is WAY better!
Hmm. May have to try the fish tacos–sounds mighty yummy. Glad that the pharmacy pulled their collective heads out of their collecive arse’s and got you the meds–can’t believe that they called to tell you it was ready & then didn’t have it. I would not have been able to control the Fists. Of. Death.
Mmm… fish tacos.
So how long on marinating Mir? I’m guessing not too long, but had to ask. I’ll be on my way to the grocery store tonight so we can make fish tacos as well. :)
I have never cooked fish of any kind and have a phobia about what kind to buy and how to cook it. Help.
Thanks for taking me back to my life in So Cal.. where fish tacos are on every corner… oh yes.
Guess what’s for diner tonight, my people?
sorry to hear about the estrogen problem- maybe next time you could bite the head off a small female??
yummmmmmmmmm. Great, now I gotta clean the drool out of my keyboard. Sounds like those need a margarita to be the perfect Cinco de Mayo meal!
Two words. Punching bag. Seriously-we got our teen/pre-teen boys one and now we even send the little girls out to get their frustrations out when they start stomping around the (very old with wood floors) house!
PS I love how your comment responses are all fancy-like! Makes them easy to locate among a bunch of other folks’ comments.
Oh, man, I’m sure fish tacos are good, but I am nearly certain I will never try one becuase something about “fish taco” sounds like the punchline of every nasty 7th grade locker room joke burned into my brain. I can’t even form the phrase outloud without feeling like I should look around for the teacher…oh wait, that’s me.
Glad they worked out for y’all, though, and yay for meds!
My mom is coming in town from California this afternoon and our dinner menu has just changed! Thanks, Mir! Happy Love Thursday!
Holy heck, those sound DELICIOUS. Do you use frozen (thawed, of course) tilapia? And I second the request for the amount of time to marinate.
The Crockpot Lady (google it – she has a blogspot blog) has an AMAZING recipe for fish chowder. Give it a shot!
Thank goodness! I was thinking my readers were big perverts.
The only time I posted about fish tacos, they all piled into the comments section to inform me that fish taco is a slang term for p00ntang.
But thanks goodness, julie already brought it up. Now I don’t have to die believing that I spent my entire life in the pervy end of the internet. ;-)
Now I can visit GA. Once, long ago, a lady looked upon me with horror and shrieked, “Fish taco!” when I asked her if there was someplace in town (out of town for this San Diego gal) where I could get one. For the soon-to-be-converted, any firm fish will do but there’s no point in spending top dollar if you are going to bread it.
I’m having a sincronizada for breakfast (which is similar to a quesadilla) but I’m thinking it’s probably not like the ones you get at your mexican place.
Glad you got your prescription, hope today is way better.
Well, this post and the comments have been an education! I’ll be muttering ‘fish taco’ all day. And, I don’t think they sound tasty, either.
Loved the Seussianism in your post, Mir. And for the hormone-related female rage attacks? I take phytoestrogen* (from soy) about once every 4 days – the bottle says 2 capsules per day. Nah…I take just enough to keep me sane and the folks around me safe. Best of all? Available over the counter! (I use GNC brand.)
*”What? Fido-estrogen?” a friend asked.
“No, p-h-y-t-o, from plants. But, you may be closer, cuz I’m a real bitch if I don’t take it!”
Mmmm, fish tacos. We lived in Denver for a couple of years, and there was this AMAZING place in LoDo (Wahoo’s, I think) that had the MOST AMAZING fish tacos. They were all hot and cheesy and crunchy….ohhhhh I miss Denver. The fish tacos, anyway.
And there was a place in Wheatridge that made the MOST AMAZING lobster burritos (Rubio’s? Baja’s? I can’t recall). Yummm. Almost worth flying back there just for that.
And I loved your rhyme, too – “Say, what’s that in your aquarium?” Bwahahaha! Too funny!
Ummm, yeh, evidently everything today is AMAZING. Sorry about that (720 verbal SATs wha-huh-?).
Just a bit of recipe fun for you — we love fish tacos here, too! Sometimes we add corn straight from the can for a good bit of sweet crunch, sometimes we use cabbage, but the most wonderful thing of all — this amazing chipotle sauce. So EASY and SO GOOD and I want to take a bath in it every time I make it.
Mix 1 small thingie of plain yogurt (drained on a paper towel for about 10 minutes, which happens to be about how long it takes to marinate the fish)(and “small thingie” is a well-known cooking term. it is. stop looking at me like that.) with a dollop or two of mayo (1/4c. maybe?) and then throw in some chipotle seasoning (the stuff must be made of gold as it’s pretty expensive for the bottle, but you don’t need much and it lasts forever and I put it in everything from this sauce to my chili to taco meat etc.) — season to taste and then slather over your taco.
You will like it
So I say
Try it! Try it!
and you may!
Try it and you may, I say!
The post title is vaguely disturbing, but the post itself was funny. Dr. Seuss would be proud!
“It puts the hormones its skin” – what a great flashback. And your fun fact for the day is that the actress (Brooke Smith) who was “It” in Silence of the Lambs (she was such a good screamer)is now Dr. Erica Hahn on Grey’s Anatomy.
Would you like to come over to my house and cook? How about if I say pretty please?
i think this was the funniest damn thing i’ve read in a while.
i, too, have a child who is a fish consumer. i myself am lukewarm about fish and a little tentative about cooking it so it is something we have about once a week. plus my favorite (and hers), salmon, costs more than gold these days so there you go. on the other hand, mussels are cheap and easy to cook, HUZZAH!
but i might have to try the fish taco thing sometime.
Can’t eat fish tacos. I believe they COULD be good, but my school system served them for lunch made of… oh yes… tuna fish. Fromahcan tuna fish. Deeeeelish. So, can’t eat fish tacos.
However! That same set of spices you used? Add a small dash of cinnamon and sprinkle over tilapia then cook with a weency bit of oil in a non-stick pan. Low fat, and oh so good.
Okay. So I was *almost* right with my PMS comment yesterday. Do I get half a Gold Star for at least guessing it was hormone related? Glad you got your gel. You are much prettier today. ;)
My youngest son is the one we do the party tricks with…
Me: Hey (youngest)! If you could have anything for snack tonight what would it be?
Youngest: Ooooh. Steamed brussel sprouts!
Not. Normal.
My 9 year old lurrrrves anything that swims. To the point that he wanted to snatch a feeder fish out of the turtle’s tank and eat it. And when we were catching crawdads in a stream he wanted to cook them.
BTW, congrats on having that cast iron skillet. We may turn you into a Southerner yet!
It puts the hormones on its skin……
….made me snort fizzy water through my nose! And? That is kind of uncomfortable!
I think that recipe sounds delish, and I have tilapia AND limes here so we might just have them tonight as well.
I, too,have a fish fanatic child who will eat leftover salmon for breakfast! (Unless it’s lox on a bagel, that just seems sooooo wrong)A word of warning-don’t ever let your kid try halibut-mine still nags me about it-and that mistake was 2 years ago. If you wanna swoon for a fishy dish try grilling it on a cedar plank-ya soak the cedar plank in water for an hour before grilling and your fish won’t dry out while cooking and it tastes incredible. I read that Costco will soon be carrying these in 6 packs-try it and you’ll be hooked!
AACK! Sneaky movie quote! That one made me LOL.
If you and Monkey visit Wisconsin, I highly recommend the Door County Fish Boil. It is fish at its best. The Door County peninsula is a gorgeous place, too.
You can try a Friday Night Fish Fry, too, almost anywhere in the state, but they’re breaded and deep fried and a wee bit high fat. Of course, Monkey wouldn’t mind that.
Thanks alot Mir! I went to eat Mexican food for lunch (my fav) and all I could think about was fish tacos. Praise the Lord they had them on the menu. I was so relieved and glad i’m not the only one that enjoys this delicacy. And I even got a close parking spot when I returned to work (miracle).
I am so picky about what type of fish I’ll eat. It drives my husband, avid fisherman, crazy. He just may kill me the next time I refuse to eat brown trout. Seriously, anything with “brown” in the name sounds kind of yucky to me. :)
I once saw a recipe for fish tacos and I sort of thought it was kind of gross. I know I’m not normal. ;)
Just seconding Astrogirl’s claim that Wahoo’s has the best fish tacos ever…they so do. And I’m still in CO, so neener! ;)
Ah Mir…Estrogen (or lack thereof) does wacky things to us no?
Mmmmmm!! Estrogen and fish tacos. Go great, together. Well, if you like fish and need a hormone jolt.
I have enjoyed fish tacos for over 30 years now. I first bought them while in a volleyball tournament in Ensenada, Mexico. And where did I purchase these tasty delights? No, not in a restaurant, not in a hotel, not even in a bar, but from the guy with the push cart standing on the corner. We were young and poor and it took about all of our money just to get to the tournament, and those tacos were only 50 cents each! AND, AND, AND…they were the tastiest darn things I had ever eaten. I am not sure I would be brave enough (or stupid enough depending on how you look at it) to do this again, but it is a fun memory. Now I will try fish tacos from almost any restaurant that serves them, but my favorite is Wahoo’s. I am going to make my own now. Thanks Mir…you pretty woman you!
Tilapia tacos with lime and spicy cabbage vinegar-based slaw all wrapped in a corn tortilla with sour cream on top? MMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm! Can also be done with a pineapple salsa. (Droooool…)
My mother also uses the estro-gel stuff and every time she talks about it I think of that SOTL line. Too funny!
Oh, I am taking sooo much estrogen. Fortunately, I’ve found that when I run out, I seem to have a buffer period of a few days before I get stark raving insane. Which IS what happens, eventually.
So, I guess we just get to do this until we’re 60, then consider our alternatives? FUN.
As long as you’re not eating gato tacos, you’re good.
My doc insists on progesterone cream for me, which is stinky. And I’m having the same problem with dosage lately. WTF? I’m switching pharmacies. Is there a compound pharmacy near you? They totally rock.
I had a fish taco for lunch yesterday but at a not so hole in the wall place. THE best fish tacos in town are at a lovely little hole in the wall place near campus. I’m drooling just thinking of it.
fish tacos?
you americans are weird…
*wanders off to eat vegimite sandwich*
Bossy had never heard so much fuss made of Fish Tacos until she crossed the Mason-Dixon line.
I love your writing and I think you are hilarious and wonderful, but fish tacos on spinach tortillas sound like the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of!!! People sure have different tastes! LOL
Spinach torillas? I live in the wrong part of the nation. Darn.
I loves me some shark, but it doesn’t really keep very well (hence the chewiness you mentioned). It is really only worth getting if you are near the coast… like, if you clubbed it to death yourself or if you are at a non-chain restaurant where you can look out the window and see the ocean, then that would be fine.
Mmmm. Salmon. Love it, too. I hate to rain on any parades, since fish IS good for us (or should be, anyway). Just wanted to throw the Mercury issue out there… especially for things at the top of the food chain like Shark. Mercury in fish can cause health/behavior issues in kids that eat it alot (and don’t get me started about fetal brain development when pregnant women eat high-mercury fish- argh). It’s frustrating because the fish oils, etc ARE good, it’s just the mercury that’s not so good. Eating smaller fish can help.
I work in the field of pollution prevention and know WAY too much about it; hence have not eaten anything larger than a sardine since getting pregnant. Now baby’s here, and I will eat some salmon again. Good luck!