Tonight I made dinner for my family.

It wasn’t the first time I had done so (I think), but it was the first time that I prepared fish before.

Let me give a background of the whole me vs. fish thing.

Growing up, my mom used to make me eat catfish, and I absolutely HATED it, because not only did it have a fishy taste (which was disgusting), but I kept getting bones stuck in my throat. So once I got old enough to have a say in what I wanted to eat, I immediately eliminated all fish from my diet. During that period of time I tried to be brave and have some salmon… I think it was from Red Lobster… and that too tasted fishy, and I thought I had given up fish forever.

One day, I think during some time in college, my dad cooked some tilapia in the fryer and wanted me to just taste a piece. It took a lot of pleading and reassuring that tilapia did not have a fishy taste for me to try the littlest piece… and I actually kind of liked it.

From then on out, I ate tilapia with mustard and baked beans. That was the only way they could get me to eat fish for a while (to this day I eat tilapia like that). Now, I’ve retried salmon, which if prepared correctly doesn’t taste fishy. There’s one more type of fish that I can eat… Bossa? I can’t quite remember it exactly but that type is my favorite type of fish to eat.

So anyways, I decided to give my momma a break and prepare dinner for everyone. I made panko-fried tilapia with baked beans and the infamous fried corn (which really isn’t fried at all). It was my first time EVER cooking fish, and according to everyone, it was really good! My dad’s exact words were, “it was just right”. Not too salty or flaky. Just right.

I was so happy and proud. I’m getting more and more comfortable cooking for others and I’m steadily building my repertoire of things I can cook. Next thing I want to get down: cabbage or collard greens. Or both.

Aw! I feel all… domestic :).