It’s Ann here today. Andy is over in OurLittleCorner psychoanalyzing cats.
It was Andy who suggested the perfect title, “Trash Talk,” for today’s blog. I had considered “I Can’t Wait to Be an Old Lady.” Or maybe “It’s Salubrious” or “Unexploded Ordnance.” My suggestions are all quotes from the recent NYTimes article that inspired this blog. It’s an article about a group of women in Massachusetts who call themselves “Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage.” Since 2018 this group of about 30 women has retrieved 6000 pounds of trash from ponds in Cape Cod. Members have to be at least 64 years old, able to swim half a mile in under 30 minutes, and “free dive” to eight feet. I’m impressed!
I think we older women – and men- can totally appreciate and take to heart this excerpt from the article about Ms Baur: “And, as leader, she’s had to squelch her proclivity to get anxious and complain about physical discomforts, she said. ‘Now it’s like suck it up, because they are watching,’ Ms. Baur said. ‘I’m going to show them that being old is OK.‘”
And this is possibly the highlight: “Ms. Baur said that the husbands of at least two members had thanked her. Diving for trash offers great stress relief and tends to have a salubrious effect on the mood back home. ‘You don’t really want to live with unexploded ordnance, if you know what I mean,’ Ms. Baur said .”
I wish I could join their group. I’m certainly old enough – but I can’t swim; I obviously don’t dive, and I don’t live near Cape Cod. Clearly, I need to find something equally challenging here in the Sonoma area. After reading the article, I know that my group would need to have three important goals: (1) to bring older women together; (2) to physically strengthen these older women; (3) to help the environment. That’s a pretty perfect list and one to work on!
I love, love, love this quote from Suleika Jaouad (Jon Batiste’s wife): “There are versions of ourselves we only meet by doing things we aren’t sure we can do. Not the prepared version. Not the fearless version. The one who pushes the heavy wheelbarrow. Pulls the stubborn root. Waters at dawn and dusk. Tends to what needs tending. The one who figures it out as she goes. Who dreams of a garden not as it is, but as it will be someday.“
A look at “trash fish” is the perfect finale for this trash-focused blog and also for my recipe. Mind you, “trash fish” is a frowned-upon expression. Read this great article from Nature Conservancy if you want to know more. And this article entitled “Trash Fish Tuesday” – with the photos below- has even more to say about the “PR” problem that these fish have.
It’s almost impossible to find “rough” or trash fish being sold in markets. And Andy didn’t offer to go fishing to help me out here. So I decided to use catfish, even though my ideal catfish is farmed in the U.S., not the gafftopsail or hardhead catfish that are wild and bottom-feeders. But our lovely Oliver’s market in Santa Rosa didn’t have catfish on my shopping day, so we ended up with basa from Vietnam. Though basa are catfish, in 2003 Congress passed a law preventing imported catfish from being called “catfish.” Hence, the term “basa”…or sometimes “swai.” Even with the tariffs that have been applied, I was shocked at how inexpensive the basa was. It’s also low in calories and carbohydrates, yet high in protein.
Mississippi State U did a small study in which researchers did a blind taste test and found that the taste of basa from Vietnam was preferred 3 to 1 over U.S.- raised catfish. Andy and I did our own little home study, and Andy was quite fond of the very-mild basa, while I will never give up my preference for U.S. catfish (once you’ve cut out the too-fishy-flavored red streak down the middle).
According to The Marine Conservation Society, you should know that with “Basa…sustainability varies. It is a whitefish that is farmed in ponds in South East Asia. The Best Choice’s are basa that has been certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), GLOBALG.A.P., or Global Seafood Alliance Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP).”
Lightly-spiced Catfish
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- 1 1/2 tsp Diamond kosher salt
- 3/4 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp dried basil
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- about 1 1/2 lbs catfish fillets
- 2 T melted butter
- 2 T lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Combine the parsley, salt, paprika, thyme, oregano, basil and pepper in a small bowl.
Place the fillets on a baking pan that has been coated with non-stick cooking spray.
Sprinkle the spice-herb mixture over both sides of catfish fillets.
Add the melted butter, lemon juice and garlic powder to a small bowl. Mix well to combine.
Drizzle the butter-lemon-garlic mixture over the fillets.
Bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes or until the fish flakes easily.
The cooking time for baked catfish depends on the thickness of the fillets. A general guideline is 15-20 minutes; however, thinner fillets will cook in about 12 minutes.
Yum! When we are back home, this one is going on my To Try list. You might be amused to learn that my MIL in Oz years ago told me that you should avoid Basa because the people in Vietnam who sell it have to soak it in bleach before selling, because the fish are bottom feeders and the rivers in Vietnam are so polluted that the fish flesh is actually black! Guess who told her that? Yep, her local fishmonger, wanting to sell her local fish!
Andy here: That’s very interesting and a pretty clever fishmonger — even more clever than the Catfish Farmers of America that lobbied to require the fish to be marketed as “Basa” instead of “catfish” (to bolster the price of local catfish farmers). Fortunately our Basa lacked any bleach odor.