I’m a girlie-girl and I make no apology for it.

I wasn’t raised in the country. I never killed my own food. I had a career in business.

My father fished about once a year. The fish magically appeared completely cooked on my plate at dinner time. Just like it did on Friday nights when we’d go out for a “fish fry.”

Today, fish that I cook comes nicely cleaned, fileted and pan-ready at a market. I speak with the fishmonger and he hands me a carefully wrapped package that I take home and prepare.

We were out to dinner the other night with our neighbors here on the Kirkmont commune and I had an especially tasty rainbow trout. My favorite.

Neighbor took note. “A friend’s returning from a fishing trip with some fresh trout in a few days, and since you love it so much, I’m going to share it with you,” he said.

So when he appeared at our front door with a plastic bag of freshly-caught trout with heads and fins, eyeballs staring blindly into the universe, I was a bit nonplussed.

“What do we do with the heads?” I asked M. “How do we get the bones out?”

“I’ve never been fishing in my life,” he said. “I’m a lawyer.”

Off to the trusty internet we went, and using Youtube instructions as a guide, M. was able to behead the fish for cooking and I learned that bones come out after cooking.

So first, the beheading. It was pretty traumatic. Thank God the fish was already dead.

Hot olive oil on the burner –a splatter screen is a MUST if your maids only come once every two weeks. What, you think I clean? You are clearly a new friend.

Then I made a simple dredging mixture of flour, lemon pepper, oregano and freshly ground black pepper.

And M dredged the fish.

After dredging, the headless fish hit the hot oil.

Guess who smelled something good?

After a few minutes of cooking on each side and a squeeze of lemon–voila! A delicious trout dinner.

How I felt: “If I have to, I can do anything!”

(video first, then keep reading)

“I know there’s something good in here…”