Today I really wanted mussels. The garden parsley is high, exuberant, bolting towards flower, so moules, I thought, could be the dish of the hour, of the day the year... with fries. At Costco I bought a blue plastic string bag full. That's how they sell mussels now, which is probably convenient for someone. Just not for me. The problem, you see, is that this way there's no way to tell whether the fish are alive or dead, and with mussels this matters. When, at home, I cut into the holy bag the stink rushed out. The stiffs were high as beached weed. Unsatiated, I tried another store, which sometimes has good fish. Like a fool from Monty Python, I asked the monger, "Good fishperson sir, trot out your choicest molluscs." "You'll like these. Came in yesterday." You've guessed the rest. I got them home, cut the bags. There should have been toe tags, dates of demise, indicating exactly when these hard black beasts last swam with the fishes. Actually, there was: "Harvested May twenty eighth, Vancouver, Canada." After a week of rain, the sun's now out. My fingers reek, but I am calm. I forgive Canada, and wherever else it was that dished me unselfish quantities of veteran fish, but I am thinking that some time tomorrow, maybe I'll mail some back. David Ritchie Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html