Mussel Man

One of the culinary frontiers I hadn’t explored until today was shellfish. I don’t mean eating (I’m an old pro at that one), I mean preparing in my own kitchen.

I doubt I would’ve made it there, had I not possessed an excess of wine in the fridge that needed to be cooked with.

(Wine that went off with surprising regularity in our slightly-too-hot apartment in the pre-wine-fridge days.)

The man loves mussels, I’m pretty fond of them, and allrecipes.com said they were fantastically simple. So why not?

Well the recipe was right, they were DEAD easy. Dead, as in, I killed 1/3 of them by leaving them in the bag too long. Did you know mussels need to breathe? Yah. I didn’t either. In fact, there was a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t know about cleaning mussels.

No matter. It was all done in fairly short order, and the recipe we used was easy and tasty.

Unfortunately, the mussels were just a bit too… real.

The flesh of these fresh sea-treats was huge & meaty. Much more so than from any restaurant I’ve had them at. And while I usually enjoy mussels, the texture of these ones turned me off a little.

Ok, a lot.

The rule has generally been that I prefer food I’ve made in my own kitchen. It’s somewhat disappointing to form a new relationship with an ingredient, only to find out that the ingredient is “not that into you.”

Have I just been subjected to shitty mussels all these years? Did I inadvertently happen to get some juiced up “kitsilano meathead” mussels – all bulk and no substance? Could I have done something differently?

In any case, I’ll probably try shellfish again someday (especially if you, gentle readers, leave some tips or advice for me), but not until I’ve soothed my poor, brokenhearted, disappointed palate with some tea and girlguide cookies.

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