This week I went way outside of my cooking comfort zone and cooked a whole fish! Nothing huge - just a 1.5 pound snapper but it still barely fit in my biggest pan. I think I like the idea of cooking whole fish more than actually doing it. People used to cook whole fish more in the previous generation so it has a cool, retro quality to it. And it looked really pretty (as pretty as a dead fish can look) in the pan before I cooked it. I placed the fish on a bed of sliced lemon, fennel bulb, and carrots and then I stuffed the cavity with lemon thyme and garlic, drizzled it with olive oil and white wine and roasted it at 475 degrees. As usual, I overcooked it. It was really hard to tell when it was done. Plus I spent about 10 minutes after removing it from the oven trying to figure out how to carve and serve it so I’m sure that helped to make it even more overcooked. It tasted fine but I don’t think it was really worth the trouble. I guess I’m a little squeamish when it comes to carcasses - I didn’t like the way the eyes turned white as it cooked and how these teeth came out and stuck to my pan. If I try this again, I think I’ll have them take the head off for sure. All in all, it was a pretty fun experiment but, until I find myself catching my own trout in the woods, I think I’ll stick to neat, pre-cut fish fillets.