Sashimi at Home

For dinner, I had some swordfish sashimi, a baked potato with butter, brown sugar ice cream, and a fuyu persimmon. And lambrusco, god help me.

Trader Joe's claims their frozen fish is sashimi-grade (which I am fully aware means close to nothing), so I took them up on it. Again. Turns out, swordfish doesn't make very good sashimi. It was certainly an easy meal, but it had a bitter aftertaste and a slightly soggy constitution. The texture was so varied from one side of the swordfish steak to the other that Jon (already skeeved out by raw fish outside of a legit sushi restaurant) refused to eat it. He has finals right now, and thinks that my recent raw fish propensities are some kind of sabotage mechanism. I have to agree with him about the texture issues, but portions were edible.

The potato was unobjectionable. The brown sugar ice cream was not homemade, but tasty nonetheless. In case you haven't noticed, I love anything browned- brown butter, brown sugar. Penuche fudge is the quantum singularity of awesome browned foods in my world.

The persimmon was the result of my afternoon venture to Whole Foods. I sort of felt like I was cheating on Trader Joe's, and their prices look particularly insane after months of TJ's shopping, so I didn't buy a ton. But their persimmons were very ripe and on a huge sale, so I bought a bunch. I'd never had a ripe persimmon before. Bitter ones, yes. Dried ones, yes. My grandfather's much maligned and much missed holiday persimmon pudding, yes. But fresh? Never.

Oh MY GOD, I have a new favorite fruit. It's like apricot meets medjool date, with amazing textures- the skin, the little segments inside...I can't even describe it. Just go find one. I ate all three, and plan on going back for more tomorrow.

The lambrusco was likewise experimental. My mother doesn't really drink, but she occasionally orders sweet lambrusco out at Italian restaurants. I saw some at TJ's, and wondered if "real" lambrusco was like that. Sort of. It's carbonated, not as sweet, but still not dry. I caught a lot of pear flavors, and a little raspberry. Not bad, and I can definitely see how it could be popular with pizza or at a summer barbecue, but it's really not for me. I might consider using it to make sangria. Maybe. But I like Spanish wines much better.