"Great Caesar's Ghost!" Superman's boss Perry White at Clark Kent's newsroom used to say that all the time. "Holy ..." Robin would say to Batman, with many subsequent key words, like "Holy Bat Trap!". Inconsequential stuff like that occupies deep storage within our limited brain capacity all our lives. It's a wonder we can still think by the time we are past middle age, but the human brain is a marvelous thing.
Halibut is the high end fish available to most of us run of the mill Americans. A thick white fleshy fish that bakes up nicely, often oggled by bob when it appears in the big box store Costco. Lusted after in a brief walk-by at Whole Foods. Sneak peaked while cruising the fish counter at Wegman's. Once in a while bob just goes for it. The logic is that any trip to a half decent restaurant would way outcost a simple fresh fish ingredient purchase, so why not just do it, once in a while that is, because bob grew up poor and learned how to live within his means early in life, although not fully aware of his status in the economic stratification of America. Even later in life reasonable caution was the name of the game when it came to living conservatively within his relatively comfortable lifestyle.
So we are often having weekend dinner for five with the inlaws at our place where we control the menu. $40 bucks of halibut was the price of admission for this relatively rare fish dinner event. The most we ever spent on a fish, but well worth it—eight bucks a head for this short term gratification was a bargain. Cell phone googling provided a few enticing possibilities read off by Ani, but the foolproof garlic and parmesan approach jumped out at bob driving back from the fish acquisition, so the path was set. Some orange mashed potatoes (white, polluted by a big sweet potato tuber) and a new twist on asparagus, cooked as usual and served with salt and pepper and a bit of pepperoncino in short pieces with sauteed mushrooms. Some red wine. Simple but effective. An occasional splurge can be a good thing.