Bouillabaisse chez Marché

Portland, Oregon, December 7, 2009—

PRINCIPAL MEAL of the day. Most often that's put as an interrogative: we're sitting at a lunch table, as today in the fine restaurant Marché in Eugene, and we look at the menu, and lift our eyes toward one another's: Principle meal of the day? Oh yes, Lindsey usually answers, and we order accordingly.
Bouillabaisse was on the menu. I dearly love it, but usually cannot eat it; all too often it's a shrimped-up version — one day I'll explain that term — with lobster or crab or shrimp themselves, and those I cannot eat. It's a bore to have such a problem, but there it is: I can't eat shellfish with legs. Bivalves are not a problem, as long as they're fresh. It's the arthropods give me trouble, those things with legs, and copper in their blood instead of iron.
But the very capable waitress assured me there would be no pedestrian shellfish in this bouillabaisse, and indeed she was right. Rockfish, mussels, clams, tomato, potatoes, fennel, onions, saffron, garlic, a bit of orange zest and, curiously, lemon juice. Toasts, of course, and rouille, nice spicy aïoli red with cayenne. A delicous thing, a good bouillabaisse! One of the Top 100.

Beaujolais Nouveau: Georges Duboeuf; Joseph Drouhin, both 2009

Then, here in Portland, chez Zivny, the sub-principal meal of the day: polenta with sausage-tomato sauce: onions sweated in olive oil, a pound or so of Italian sausage crumbled in; tomato purée added and all of it cooked down. Green salad, of course.

"2 Copas": Malbec-Tempranillo (20-80%), 2008