Tonight’s dinner was supposed to be fish with fruit salsa. I headed to the coop thinking “tilapia, or maybe salmon…” but was confronted with the Fish Counter Conundrum… The COOP does a good job labeling the origins of fish and seafood, giving information on how the seafood was caught (farmed, netted, hooked, etc) and how sustainable the seafood is: green for good, red for unsustainable. So, yes, I want to do my soft-hearted liberal best to make sure that I Save the World with my purchases… but at the same time, I was confronted with ASTRONOMICAL price differences. Eating sustainable seafood is really damn expensive. This is the Fish Counter Conundrum.

The exception is always shrimp. They’re bioaccumulating biofilters from the bottom of the food chain that live darn near everywhere, can be caught and farmed sustainably, and don’t require a second mortgage to eat. They’re the pigeons of the sea, or the rats of the sea, or something like that… I was able to get 16 shrimp at 12-16 count weight for around $6. They were listed as “sustainable” and had a big green sign saying that I was going to Save the World if I bought shrimp instead of salmon or tilapia.

I cooked them under the broiler (we can’t grill at our apartment) with a big sprinkle of paprika, basil and some cayenne. The fruit salsa was peach and avocado with green onion. Underneath was pilaf with almonds – unremarkable and not quite in line with the dish, but hey… I’m a home cook, not a chef. I get to make-do and write it off as a resources problem.