Fresh Fish

Some restaurants have a maitre d'. Others have a hostess at the door. At Seafoods Unlimited, diners are greeted by a dead tuna on the rocks. But then, the seafood restaurant at 270 S. 20th St. is also a neighborhood fish market for Rittenhouse Square residents. So while one customer is in the back of the tiny storefront with a plate of broiled scallops, another is buying her own fresh fish to cook at home. Not much has changed since he opened Seafoods Unlimited 17 years ago, says Fred Schwartz, the owner.

You don't see curried skate wing, barbecued eel, chili made with fish, or red snapper with blood orange-habanero sauce on many Philadelphia menus. I found all four at BLT's Cobblefish, where the fare is adventurous. Manayunk's newest restaurant is not on Main Street, so prices are low and likely to stay that way. It's tucked inside a cobblestone courtyard on Shurs Lane; there's free parking in the courtyard. The 40-seat, no-smoking dining room has a funky, fin-in-cheek decor that includes a fish tank, assorted fish bibelots, and shelves lined with hot sauces from around the world.

Anyone who vacations at the shore every year has favorite spots for everything from sand buckets to sauteed soft shells. And visiting the same places, year after year, is part of what makes a family vacation at the Jersey shore memorable. For my family it was breakfast, including cinnamon buns that my mother swore she could smell as soon as we crossed the 9th Street bridge, at Sims on the Ocean City boardwalk. Even though Sims has been closed for years, there are still certain things without which no summer season would be complete.

Tuna fish bears as much resemblance to fresh tuna as a cherry lollipop bears to a cherry. Salmon out of the can seems quite a different species from salmon from the sea, and herring needs no pickling to be palatable. None of us would ever serve a spinach salad sodden with spinach from a can, yet we condemn tuna salads to the same unpalatable fate, by thinking that canned fish is the way they should be made, rather than as a convenient substitute for the real ingredient. Once you have tasted a fresh tuna salad, you will realize that the term "chicken of the sea" has relevance as more than as a brand name.

You've almost certainly heard about the drought in Brazil and the strike of fishermen in New Bedford, Mass. The details may have wafted only briefly through your consciousness, but the net result is likely to make a strong impression on your grocery bill. Think fondly of the days of August, when you could find an eight-ounce jar of instant coffee priced at $2.99 and a pound of ground for under $2. Treasure the jars you stocked earlier this month when instant was $4.19, with sale prices as low as $3.39 available.

Everyone loves an easy meal, something that goes together in minutes and yet tastes fresh and bold. That's the appeal of many seafood soups. Just soften a few vegetables in a trace of olive oil, add fish stock, simmer with fresh seafood until it's done, and dinner is ready in minutes. You also have something brimming with nutrition without a lot of unhealthy fat or wasted calories. To get started, you need to select the freshest fish you can find. If you don't like the color of a fillet, ask to smell it. Fresh fish doesn't smell fishy.

When it comes to fish, Bobby's Seafood seems to have a head start over everyone else, for the restaurant at Edgmont near Newtown Square offers an unparalleled variety of choices. Unfortunately, the culinary execution is not inspired, although the food was the best part of a recent visit; unfortunately, a new executive chef has not left her mark and the emphasis seems to be on the bar rather than the restaurant trade. Oyster crackers, soggy despite their cellophane wrappings, await you at the table, along with a crock of spicy horseradish; a lukewarm loaf of poppy seed bread lacked texture or flavor and came with a ramekin of whipped butter.

Looking for fresh fish? Easy, you say. Just board Capt. Bill's or Bob's 7 a.m. party-boat excursions from the Jersey shore to the Baltimore Canyon. The drawbacks, of course, are that you have to keep your fingers crossed that you catch something, and that when you eventually get home you won't be too tired to prepare it. Want the sure and easy way to savor fresh seafood? Make a trip to Darigo's Fish Market, along the city's riverfront in South Philadelphia. This accessible spot offers one of the finest selections of fish and seafood in the city.

The New Jersey State Aquarium opened three years ago with a clearly defined educational mandate: to teach about New Jersey fish. Unfortunately, New Jersey fish are, by and large, dull fish. It didn't take visitors long to catch on. Each year, crowds at the $52 million Camden aquarium declined, from a high of more than 1 million to about half that last year. "It's not that it hasn't been successful," Judith L. Wellington, aquarium president and chief executive officer, insisted in a recent interview.

Forget the overbreaded frozen fish sticks with watery stewed tomatoes and the pasty macaroni thick with neon-yellow processed cheese. Such familiar past Friday foods seem all the more like penance when compared to the wealth of fresh fish and vegetables and other food options now open to cooks through Lent. While Catholics are required to abstain from meat only today (Ash Wednesday) and on Good Friday, many Christians are guided or tend toward meatless meals each Friday of the six-week Lenten period that started at midnight.

I thought I would never get the fish guts out from underneath my fingernails. Or rid my hair of salt and sand. And shoes? Well, I hadn't owned a pair in more than two months, and my feet had the calluses to prove it. But this was life in Paihia, the standard of living for me and the four other crew members who worked on the Rock, the overnight cruise boat based in the Bay of Islands in the amazing country of New Zealand. I went to New Zealand to explore every nook and cranny of the country.

GREG ABRAMS isn't sleeping well these days. Abrams runs a 41-boat fishing operation in the Gulf of Mexico out of Panama City, Fla. Twice a week, his trucks deliver fresh fish to Samuels & Son Seafood Co., a family-owned wholesaler in Philadelphia that supplies most of the city's better restaurants and hotels with pristine seafood. Compared to last year, when his guys brought in 345,000 pounds of fish between April 23 and June 30, the catch this year from April 23 to June 9 is down to 196,000 pounds.

Go local. Eat organic. Buy fresh. Those food mantras continue to make waves among environmentally conscious consumers. But if the motivation is to truly make our diets more Earth-friendly, then perhaps we need a new mantra: Buy frozen. Several years ago, the three of us - two ecological economists and one food system researcher - teamed up in an effort to understand how to develop sustainable systems to feed a planet of nine billion by 2050. As the focus of our study, we chose salmon, an important source of protein around the world and a food that is available nearly anywhere at any time, regardless of season or local supply.

On a delightful, recent visit to Massachusetts, I was charmed by the idyllic setting of an old Nantucket hotel. Sitting on the patio looking out over the white, sandy beach toward the blue of Nantucket Bay, I tasted one of the best fish chowders I've had in a long time. Fresh fish is paramount, along with a hint of smoky ham and cream. New England cooks use quahog clams, but any clam, littleneck or cherrystone, will work in this chowder. Nantucket Fish Chowder Makes 2 servings Heat a medium-size nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat and spray with olive oil spray.

Everyone loves an easy meal, something that goes together in minutes and yet tastes fresh and bold. That's the appeal of many seafood soups. Just soften a few vegetables in a trace of olive oil, add fish stock, simmer with fresh seafood until it's done, and dinner is ready in minutes. You also have something brimming with nutrition without a lot of unhealthy fat or wasted calories. To get started, you need to select the freshest fish you can find. If you don't like the color of a fillet, ask to smell it. Fresh fish doesn't smell fishy.

Fear of fish - of cooking it, that is - is a culinary malady that afflicts many home cooks. The cause, most often, is a lack of experience handling this delicate, even fragile, food. That is to be expected, since many Americans, especially the young, know fish only in its frozen fish-stick form - really more breading than fish. Americans consume, on average, a total of just over 16 pounds of fish and shellfish per person annually. Five pounds of that is fresh or frozen finfish, which breaks down to about one 6-ounce-plus fresh or frozen fish serving a month.

Each Friday, Nancy Viau shares a snapshot of this summer at the Shore. The captain shouts, "Get on board!" The captain is my husband. He's taking his crew - five hungry family members - for a boat ride. We cruise past the wetlands. The scenery is interesting, but nothing is more beautiful than the sunset show in the distance. Ribbons of pink and orange ripple through purple clouds. Fortunately, the WaveRunners have been put to rest. Aside from the hum of our engine, the twilight chorus of a thousand screeching seagulls is the only sound we hear.

The large art-deco lobby clock at the Empire State Building said 8:46 a.m. At that precise moment, when, a year ago, the first airplane had crashed into the first tower, Florence McAllister's eyes began to well. Normally, she would be at her legal work in a sixth-floor office of what is now, once again, New York City's tallest place. But yesterday, she wanted to be among the people in the lobby. "My grandson," she was saying, "who is 4 years old, called me up at 7 a.m. and sang the national anthem.

Dinner is still in the ocean when the Jolly Roger pushes back from its slip at Penna's Marina at 8:40 a.m. Fluke as big as doormats are the objective on this bright, breezy morning, though a couple of sea bass and a skate would be welcome, too. Fred Kouhi, the retired chemical engineer navigating the boat, a 28-foot Grady-White 272 Sailfish, says we'll likely have luck at Little Egg Reef, an artificial reef assembled from sunken Army tanks and...

When residents here go grocery shopping next weekend, they will have another option. They can go to the supermarket and buy goods that have been sitting on shelves for a while. Or they can go to the Collingswood Farmers Market and buy truly fresh fruits and vegetables grown by area farmers and picked less than 24 hours earlier. "Even [though] you can get fresh stuff in the grocery store anytime and from anywhere, you don't really know where it comes from," said Pam Ciervo, director of the farmers market.