Well, I Did Pay for the Whole Thing...

Here's the fish I bought for Monday night's dinner party.

Now, I didn't have to cut it myself, though I could have. If I knew how. Or had the right knife.

But the man at the supermarket fish counter was more than happy to do it for me, and who was I to argue? He weighed it, gutted it and sliced it into some nice yellowfin tuna steaks for me, then stuffed everything into a plastic bag, sealed it up and handed it over.

Needless to say, Shelly was less than impressed when I brought the head home.

"You could have left that behind, you know," she told me.

"Sure I could have, but it's a fish head," I replied, as if that would explain why the head was now sitting on the counter, looking at her.

"I thought Mister Tanaka might like it," I added helpfully.

Turns out Mister Tanaka wants nothing to do with raw fish. He's an indoor cat, after all, with refined tastes. (He did do his little begging act at dinner once the tuna was grilled. The way he was pawing at everyone, our guests must have thought we never feed the poor cat.)

Actually, I just wanted to poke around inside the fish head to see what it was like. I discovered I don't have a knife sharp enough to slice through tuna skin, so my autopsy was short-lived.

Buying meat in the Philippines can be interesting. Depending on where you're doing your shopping, you'll find all manner of packaging. At PriceSmart, it's all prepackaged in styrofoam trays. At ShopWise, the meat is all behind a counter, and you're expected to point at the piece you want so the clerk can put it in a bag for you. At the Makati Supermarket, the meat is all out in the open (in a refrigerator case, but still out in the open). You can pick it up -- tongs and cross-contamination optional -- and bag it yourself, or you can have the clerk do it for you.

Or, if you're downtown, you can go to the meat market, where I unfortunately did not take any photos.

"Never buy our meat at this place," Shelly warned me, as we walked past row after row of stalls, each showcasing a different hunk of meat, sometimes on ice, sometimes not.

"Do you realize how much bacteria is on that cutting board?" she asked, as we watched a butcher pick up a hunk of beef and plop it onto a well-used wooden cutting board. This is the kind of conversation you have when you're married to someone in the meat business.

"Millions of people buy their meat this way every day without getting sick," I pointed out.

"Not me," Shelly said. "And not you. And if you do, don't tell me."

And with that, we walked past a stall selling fresh pig entrails. You know, I don't think she has much to worry about.