steamed thai-style sea bass and rice & crisp zucchini flowers

My new shopping tactic is to make a sort of list for shopping, but leave a few blanks and see what's going on at the farmer's market. We usually get our fruit and veg from Perry Court Farm on the basis the ladies like the milo's sassitude and always have some chopped pears and apples for him, and then we tend to either go to the duck pond or the park on the way home.

This week controversy looms and I return home with a whole sea bass, a tub of crab, a punnet of gooseberries and a bag of courgette flowers. It takes a day for the anas to get used to the idea of a whole fish in the fridge and an experimental father's day dawns. Doubly so as *somebody* has to put some sort of lawn onto the muddy field i've excavated...

Having been to Homebase to collect the turf, and before our neighbour Des comes back to help us in the garden I rustle up a 'hearty' lunch of crisp courgette flowers. Rather than deep-frying, this recipe calls for a much more handy shallow-fry and they turn out much better than I expected, even if they don't alleviate the memory of discovering my calculations are two turfs short.

One hearty day laying lawns later we're faced with the experimental fish dinner and a possible sad ending to my special day - but DOUBLE-WHAMMY, it's bloody marvellous! The only down point is I don't think my filleting technique really took advantage of one of the most expensive of fish - Davisss, you're going to have to show me in a couple of weeks. Still, we're hearting the thai bass!

And just for Sarah, here's a picture of the anas in the almost-complete jardin:


Food of the Milos
He's definitely teething as there has been a lot of drooling, and he's started waking up at stupid o'clock, consequently his appetite has dropped off; he ate most of the left-over risotto for lunch, but having spent the afternoon in the paddling pool in the park with Layla, eating snacks, his Ella's tomato pasta ends up mainly in my stomach.

sources
crisp zucchini flowers - Bill Granger, Holiday, p29
steamed thai-style bass & rice - Jamie Oliver, Cook With Jamie, p229