Kate hit up Trader Joe’s last week and returned with fish.  She found some frozen Sockeye Salmon, which we had early in the week; and also Mahi-Mahi, aka Dolphin Fish.  I find Dorado tasteless and bland; seeing the frozen filets hinted no different.  They appeared as they probably were going to taste.  Perfect rectangles of an impossible gray that defied metaphor.  I knew they would need a rich sauce, and a spicy side.  I had a deli cup of clarified lobster butter (thanks Chef,) begging for hollandaise. Our sausage guy had hooked me up with some smoked Chorizo awhile back, I stumbled upon that in the freezer searching for fat.  A deli cup of rice pilaf from the fridge smelled good.  Dinner was upon us!!  I sliced the Chorizo and rendered it on a silpat the oven.  Conviently, I had cooked bacon on this same pan for breakfast; I had a ton of delicious grease to cook with.  When the sausage was hot and oozing fat, I removed them form the pan and replaced them with halved pearl onions which then roasted, filling the house with a sweet and spicy smell.  I knew shellfish and chorizo were money together, and figured since mahi doesn’t really taste like anything, the lobster hollandaise and smoked sausage could lift up this lackluster fish.  I knocked together the sauce; volumized yolks, whisked in fat, seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar.  I heated up the rice in the pot that I warmed the lobster butter in, much to my fiancee’s chagrin.  I reheated my sausage bits with the almost-done onions.  The fish hit a screaming hot pan with a searing sizzle and when flipped hit the oven.  After waiting four minutes I threw in two empty plates.  Steaming food hit warm plates 3 minutes later.  Hollandaise oozed.  Lips smacked.  Hunger: at bay once more.

So I finished Page 4 and I think I’m getting better with each page I draw.  You can really see how I pirated my own images here to get that montage feel.  Hopefully the next page in the strip will be the ending,  and I can get that web comic plug-in working.  I’d like to set it up as issues, where you can do the whole web comic “previous/first/last/next” thing.  Baby steps I guess.  I’m also now trying to learn HTML and CSS so that I might be a little better at this whole thing.  Anyway, enjoy the page, and also check out my new Foodie Blogroll in the footer of every page at mrjeffmccarthy.com.

  If there’s one good thing that has come out of this broken arm, it has been learning Photoshop.  The past few weeks I’ve spent countless sunny hours sucking up this program like a blood starved creature of the night.  When I wasn’t drawing or compositing, I’ve been reading web comics, which inspired me to start drawing my own.  Now I have another way to express my love of food; by chronicling the misadventures of a hero whose head is made of butter.  I’ve posted the second page here on mrjeffmccarthy.com for my loyal readers to enjoy.  Maybe one day I’ll enough content to start another site exclusively for all my cool drawings.  With this cast coming off on Wedsnesday, and me hopefully going back to work, I’ll only be able to play around with the computer alot less.

Remember the clarified butter that Jaybill and I made to poach pork loin?  Well,  when we got some ultra-delicious looking lamb sausage from New Seasons, so did we.  After poaching about twenty minutes in 140 degree butter these babies were bursting with  buttery goodness.   So we lightly browned them, then devoured them.  This is the first time we made sausage that Jaybill was only able to eat one.  I on the other hand, ate two, and then butter poached bacon the following morning.  When I die way too young from massive heart failure, it will be with a big smile on my face.