I’m not a fish eater. I’ve kept that from you for a long time. I would have gone to culinary school and been a chef if I could eat fish. My mother swore that I ate fish until I was 2 years old and before I turned 3 I refused every bite.
I want to like fish. I want to be able to eat fish without gagging or tossing my cookies afterward but it hasn’t happened. I can eat shrimp or prawns if I need to and I can eat fish if the fish taste is masked with other stuff like a salad with a lot of mayonnaise or a casserole.
My mother said that my favorite aunt who adored the ground I walked on didn’t eat fish and that’s why I don’t. “It’s all in your head, Maureen!” she’d tell me. That’s probably true and I don’t doubt her one bit but while it’s in my head, the gagging and barfing is downright embarrassing.
One thing I did learn to eat when I was about 10 was this salmon salad which is really potato salad (which I love) and a bit of salmon tossed in to prove I can eat fish. When I was young, I used to take a small spoonful of this salad, plop it on top of a potato chip and eat it. My mother would roll her eyes and wonder where she got a daughter as nutty as me. I will confess that I can still be found eating it this way if nobody is looking.
…and now you know why you don’t see fish dishes on Orgasmic Chef unless someone else made it or it was at a restaurant.
- 500 grams (about a pound) of potatoes, cooked, cut to size and cool
- 1 can salmon drained (I used red but anything will do and I pick out the bones)
- ½ red onion finely diced
- 1 stalk celery finely diced
- 1 tablespoon baby capers rinsed and drained
- ½ teaspoon prepared horseradish
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise (or as much as you like)
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- ¼ teaspoon mustard powder
- 1 teaspoon white balsamic vinegar
- Lightly toss all the ingredients together but one hard-boiled egg and a teaspoon of chopped parsley
- Whisk all ingredients together
- Add dressing to salad and lightly toss to combine. Garnish with wedges of hard-boiled egg and a sprinkling of parsley
Finally, it was haircut week at the Shaw household and I’ll leave you with a photo of the cute dog. When he comes home he’ll be nearly naked with dark brown circles around his eyes and he’ll look at me with a face that says, “WHY????”
Then he’ll run around the house like a lunatic and then he’ll be okay. He swims in the pool or ocean every day of the year so he needs his hair cut or he has trouble in the water. I much prefer a fuzzy dog.