In America, some people clean their own fish. Most of them are fishermen, fisherwomen, and their very tolerant spouses. I never felt the need to clean fish. I was always happy to delegate that task to the professionals. This afternoon, by necessity, I learned how to clean fish. They looked like filets when I bought them at the market, but when I got them home I realized they were just extremely flat, skinny-finned, little "yu". What could I do? I took out the (much too dull) cleaver and got to work. Scales flew all over the kitchen, but seven out of eight of my fishies looked pretty good at the end of the day. Don't ask how they tasted. I put them in a chowder, and they were bad, bad, bad! These were not the fish I wanted. Right now you might be thinking, what about the First Amendment? What about all those lofty ideals from the Peer-See's last post? This week I have more practical things on my mind. How will Josh and I learn to cook in this country? The language to food is completely different on the other side of the planet, and we are drafting our own lexicon. Today, our chowder was lost in translation.