Grouper Sandwich

Clockwise from upper left: tomatoes from Jason and Laura's garden, homemade tartar sauce (mayonnaise, lime juice, pickle relish, and New Mexican chile powder), a tempura-fried slab of perfect grouper, and a toasted whole wheat bun.

My iPhone is good at just about everything except taking decent food photos.

There's finally a place in town to get decent fish: The Old Timey Meat Market on Rosewood gets fresh fish in every Thursday. So I bought this gloriously fresh one-pound chunk of grouper, and Lawson mixed up some tempura batter and fried it so we could have fish sandwiches.

He became enamored of fried fish on our Alaska trip, where he ordered halibut and chips at least three different times.

As a first-time home experiment, this was pretty successful. He surveyed a bunch of different tempura batter recipes. He combined the common elements, which were wheat flour and water and egg. And then he cut the fish in half and fried it in a bit of peanut oil. It was not the least bit greasy.

Patty wanted some.