Fish

SAY THE WORDS "vegan sushi" to your average fine-diner and you're likely to get a blank stare. How, after all, can anything be called sushi without raw fish, the very meaning of the word itself? Actually, the word sushi does not refer to raw fish, but to the key ingredient, vinegared rice. That's what makes sushi, sushi. This comes up now for two reasons: One is that these hot July days are a perfect time to enjoy the cool pleasures of this Japanese staple; the other is that the fish-free-sushi envelope is being pushed in a big way by the appropriately named Beyond Sushi, which opened this month in New York City and is drawing crowds.

On a narrow strip of green dividing the Schuylkill from a waste-processing facility and the remains of a shuttered chemical plant, Edison Crayton reeled in a catfish about 18 inches long on a weekday morning. Crayton had been catching fish in Grays Ferry Crescent park for a few hours and tossing them back, but this time, he took the wriggling fish over to one of his fellow anglers, Darryl McMillian. He had heard McMillian was keeping his fish. "The water's crappy," McMillian said as he looked at the brown depths from which the fish had come.

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. - Thousands of dead fish have been found at Silver Lake along Rehoboth Beach, natural resources officials said Thursday. About 1,500 dead gizzard shad from two to four inches long and 800 white perch were seen Wednesday. As many as 6,000 dead gizzard shad of all sizes and 600 adult white perch, as well as adult bluegills and largemouth bass, were found Thursday. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials blamed high temperatures and an excessive microscopic algae bloom, resulting in low oxygen levels in shallow water.

Her father's work ethic contributed to his death in the lashing storm that swept South Jersey over the weekend, a mourning Ye Chen said Monday. The owner of two busy Ventnor restaurants, Ming Zhen Chen did not have time most days to relax and enjoy the summer, so he made plans to go night fishing on Friday. Caught in ferocious winds early Saturday, Ming Zhen Chen never made it back to shore. State police released his name Monday. After putting in a long shift, the 48-year-old Chinese immigrant, who moved to Ventnor 20 years ago and opened Tsui's Garden and Tsui's Garden II, ventured out on Absecon Bay in a 20-foot skiff with his brother and another relative, according to his daughter.

Monday morning at the back end of Reading Terminal Market, Rick Nichols pinballed through a crowd of admirers, accepting and delivering hugs, kisses, and handshakes while an old-timey band oompahed and strummed. Nichols, who retired in 2011 after 33 years at The Inquirer, was being honored for his loyalty and love for the market, which he once helped save from nearly certain death. Behind him, brown curtains covered a yet-to-be revealed exhibit — a collection of photographs and text chronicling the market's 120-year history.

Blocked by industrial buildings, the Schuylkill has long lived up to its Dutch name — hidden river — for the communities that border it. Monday, one segment of the river officially comes out of hiding with the new Grays Ferry Crescent park, opening up a once-polluted tract to walkers, bicyclers, fishermen, and wildlife enthusiasts. The park has cost city and state agencies and private donors $2.85 million to construct. It is the latest phase of an ongoing effort to line the length of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia, from Fairmount Park to Fort Mifflin by Philadelphia International Airport, with trails.

Just downstream from an industrial recycling operation and a stone's throw from a sewage treatment plant, a fisherman casts his line toward the passing barge traffic and watches it drop into the Delaware River. A couple eating lunch watch curiously. "No way would I ever eat anything from there," the woman says. The fishers who frequent the pier in Camden's Waterfront South neighborhood have heard it all before. That they're crazy, that they're going to grow an extra head or get sick from eating what they catch.

At Thursday's 12th annual Centenarian Celebration luncheon, Roxborough resident Daniel Rendine, age 102, answered a few questions, with help from his son. Question: Why do you think you've lived so long? Rendine: I've lived a life of moderation … and genes I guess. Q: Do you have any siblings and if so have they also reached 100? Rendine: I had five sisters and one brother. All lived to their early 90s. Q: What kind of technology do you use? Twitter, Facebook, cellphone?

Wayne P. Weddington Jr. was a dedicated ear, nose and throat specialist and teacher, but he also had another passion: Fishing. He would take his 38-foot boat out of the Trump Marina in Atlantic City, meet up with other guys with the same passion, and off they'd go in a flotilla of camaraderie. Some of his more dramatic catches, like an occasional barracuda, he had stuffed and mounted to keep fresh the memories of the fights they put up. Wayne Weddington, an otolaryngologist with a former practice in Mount Airy, who also was chairman of the otolaryngology department at Germantown Hospital, an Air Force veteran and a man gifted with a rich sense of humor and fine tenor singing voice, died of cancer Sunday.