Two Million Strawberries

Wimbledon led to a strawberry surplus beyond the two million+ strawberries eaten with cream this year at SW19, so the City of London shut down all the nearby Saturday farmers’ markets and held outdoor pop-ups featuring overripe strawberries instead. 

I didn’t eat any strawberries, but my sister and I did make a pilgrimage to a place that, in 2019, had THE best fries I’ve ever had. And I needed those after last night’s fry fail. 

Unfortunately, they no longer make those fries. They make different ones now. Not as good, but that didn’t stop us from ordering two rounds. They call these “skinny fries”. 

They’re not skinny, but they’re much thinner than their predecessors, which were thick and uniform like Jenga blocks, constructed from paper-thin potato slices, confited in beef tallow, and fried until shatteringly crisp.

Dinner at Chicama with my dad. Coastal Peruvian. 

Todays fish.

“Vodka, Umami, Sake, Olive”

Whole Dover sole grilled over charcoal.

Salmon ceviche with tiger’s milk. At home, I make a pleasant but prosaic salad of avocado, cherry tomato, and slivered red onion for lunch at least four times a week. 

It was nice to taste those flavors here.  

Grilled sourdough.

Popped corn monkfish cheeks with aji amarillo mayo.

Ají planca, jalapeño and avocado purée, and mango & ají limo sauces for the fish. 

Round two of grilled sourdough. 

We eviscerated the fish, including the sweet band of fat where the tail is attached, but somehow we forgot to eat its little charred head until we were ready to walk out the door. For old times’ sake, I asked my dad to filet the cheek with the eyeball attached for me, like he used to do when I was little. 

It was really dark, so he accidentally gave me the entire sclerotic ring, which contains more treacherous bones than Wimbledon has strawberries. 

Accidentally biting down on one feels like having your mouth filled with fingernail clippings. 

Anyway, it was great and I survived.