Wet Dreams

I’ve been told, by my wife no less, that I worry about things that wouldn’t occur to many others to worry about. I blame my faith; she blames my mother.

This was evidenced this past week when I was awakened at 3:30 one morning wondering why there don’t seem to be any aquariums in doctors’ offices anymore. What had changed? And, why? Was this some kind of dream?

When I was a kid every doctor and dentist had fish tanks in their waiting rooms, just as every barber shop had a myna bird that whistled at the women who walked past. Obviously, the #MeToo movement is responsible for the myna bird becoming extinct. But that’s another story because we have bigger fish to fry. So to speak.

While the aquarium enigma might invite dark-state conspiracy theories, I prefer to simply allege foul play on the part of Big Pharm and Moscow Mitch.

Elaborate aquariums—many of them salt-water—were installed to help patients pass the wait with calm visions of angel fish, red cap orandas and other colorful denizens of the miniature deep rather than reading three-year-old editions of National Geographic or Readers’ Digest.

These installations were extravagant and far more interesting than the one or two goldfish or black mollies that lived in bowls with fake flora and a ceramic castle that were on every kid’s dresser. The aerated aquariums featured exotic flora that shimmied in the backlit tank; fish swam around the plants, seeking to hide from the predatory baby barracudas and hammerhead sharks that were an inch or so longer than their prey. Frequently, there were scenes of the Miami skyline painted across the back of the tank.

These tanks helped regulate people’s blood pressure while they nervously awaited their appointments during a more innocent age that had far fewer diseases than we do now. Nobody was gluten-free, for instance. Like the fish, Big Pharm helped regulate people’s blood pressure but with little pills that cost a lot. To protect its profits and build an audience of hypertense men who would soon need Viagra, Big Pharm replaced the fish tanks with television sets that broadcast Fox News, which Big Pharm owned until selling out to Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media magnate.

It’s only appropriate to note here that the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mike Royko, Chicago’s Voice of Irreverence for more than 30 years, once noted that “no self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper.”

See how that all connects? Fish, Beta-blockers, Big Pharm, Murdoch, Fish…

My father sold goldfish and I, as the dutiful son, fished the little fry out of the big tank at the back of his store, dropping them into plastic bags that fit perfectly inside the same kind of box used for fried rice at Chinese take-out places.

I should note here that Dad wasn’t really a pet fishmonger. He owned a few Ben Franklin stores. It was at his flagship store that he had a large tank stocked with fan-tailed mollies in three colors: gold, black and mottled. “Mottled molly” was always fun to say out loud when some kid chose that as a pet. They cost 35 cents each; or, maybe it was 15 cents. It wasn’t much. And it cost a lot less than trying to win one by tossing a ping pong ball into a little bowl at a carnival. Dad also sold fishbowls in three sizes, ceramic castles, tiny chips of stone in four colors for the bowl’s floor, and several kinds of plastic flora. We also had fish food that came in little orange boxes. Everyday after school, I’d fish out the dead fish with a little net and flush them down the toilet in the employee’s rest room.

For a very brief time, my father also sold birds. Parakeets, canaries and myna birds, all of which created a horrible mess as they eyed the fish tank hungrily. They were also loud, what with their constant chirping and the myna’s high-pitched whistle. (My grandmother was gifted with the store’s last bird, which outlived her. She had taught it to swear in Bohemian.)

He also got into the turtle trade. We sold a lot of them because their life expectancy could best be measured in hours (usually due to over-handling or dropping them), whereas fish could survive for several days in stagnant water. In retail terms, the turnaround was pretty quick, the margins high.

Though nobody knows why, turtles were popular in the 1950s, maybe even later. I had lost interest in pet turtles by the time The Beatles arrived in 1964 because, when you think about it, turtles make really lousy pets. They lived in plastic, dish-like things that had a water pond and a curving staircase leading up to a platform decorated with a plastic palm tree. Every now and again they’d amble down to the water and climb back out. That took about an hour or two in a bowl the size of a dessert plate. The rest of the time they seemed content to hide inside their shells dreaming about catching insects or something. I really don’t know what turtles dream about.

Sometimes you do something really stupid as a child that you only remember because it’s become a part of the family lore and you’ve been reminded of it for most of your life. According to my family’s lore, when I was about two, I took the family’s turtle apart. It was alive when I started, so I’m told, its legs and head next found floating lazily in a small bowl of milk I had procured for what I can only assume was to be a two-year-old’s version of cream of turtle soup. It didn’t get that far.

My sister screamed hysterically, which eventually caught the attention of my father whose job it was to deal with this reptilian crime scene. I don’t remember anybody talking about any punishment I might have received, but I do know that the turtle pieces were swaddled in Kleenex and placed in a Barnum’s Animals Crackers box that was buried with great ceremony under the juniper bushes next to our front stoop. There were prayers and songs, and the whole neighborhood seemed to have gathered to mourn this tragic death and pay their respects.

Apparently, I was so impressed by this new-found ritual that I suggested we get another turtle, kill it, and have another funeral.

Geri doesn’t like fish. That’s not completely accurate. She likes halibut—provided it is grilled after marinating in mayonnaise, Worcestershire, teriyaki and soy sauces. She likes fish and chips, provided there is malt vinegar and we happen to be in England. She also likes Pepperidge Farms Goldfish® Baked Crackers which, by the way, smile…but only about 40 percent of them. Isn’t that interesting?

But Geri’s had bad experiences with fish during two noble efforts at trying it. At a restaurant in Burbank she once ordered trout. It was served with its head still on. At first contact with the trout’s cloudy gray eye, she was done. At an ocean-side restaurant in Kona, Hawaii, she ordered a fish garnished with almonds. One of the almonds bore a striking resemblance to a cockroach which, in fact, it was.

And then there was Paris. Ah, Paris. The corner hamburger joint in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine was packed and we were a hungry group of six. A little restaurant on a quaint side street offered, as its plat du jour, petit friture poisson avec frites, or, as it was explained, fish and chips. France is pretty close to England so we ordered the fish. Of course, we had no choice because that was the only thing on the menu. That’s a very French thing, by the way. And why, for even a moment, would I think that French and English food had anything remotely in common?

Our lunch consisted of fried blanchaille, which, roughly translated, means “shiny guppies with eyes.” They were served whole. We were each given a large bowl of about a hundred of them. I heard people at the table utter the word “bait.”

Lunch that day ushered in a whole flood of memories about doctor’s offices and goldfish and turtles and my father, who was a dealer in pet fish, yet so much more. Lo these many years I had managed to suppress those memories until awakened that recent morning I mentioned earlier.

And then I began wondering what kept me from having turtle soup while we were in France. After all, turtle soup in France would have to have cream. Right? I knew that when I was two.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Soupe de tortue (Turtle Soup)

1/3 cup grape seed oil
2 pounds turtle meat, diced
2 shallots, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 leek, diced (white part only)
1 Tbs. Kosher salt
1 Tbs. onion powder
1 tsp. ground white pepper
1 tsp. celery seed
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. dried thyme
6-8 c. chicken stock
2 russet potatoes, diced
2 carrots, diced
5 Tbs. butter
4 Tbs. cornstarch
3/4 cup cream sherry
1 cup heavy cream

Season turtle meat with salt and pepper.
In a large soup pot, heat the oil, over medium high heat and add the turtle meat.
Brown the turtle meat for 5 minutes or so, then add the shallots, minced garlic and leeks, and sauté 5 minutes longer.
Add chicken stock, kosher salt, onion powder, white pepper, celery seed, cayenne pepper, bay leaf, and thyme.
Bring to a boil, then turn down to very low heat and simmer for about an hour, until the turtle begins to soften.
Melt the butter in a large frying pan, over medium heat and add the diced potatoes and carrots, and sauté for about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the vegetables with the corn starch and stir. Add the sherry and stir until the cornstarch is dissolved.
Add mixture to the stock pot and stir until the soup is thickened, and bring to a medium simmer.
Once the potatoes and carrots are fork tender (7-10 minutes), turn heat to low and add the cream.
Serve hot.