Last night, instead of soft-shell crabs, I cooked skate cheeks, which look and feel a bit like chunks of chicken breast, but with a much lighter texture . . . you could think of them as really-smart-poor-man's scallops. I had some homemade kombu broth in the freezer, so I thawed it out and precooked some ramen. Then I quickly sauteed the skate cheeks in grapeseed oil, salt, and cayenne, finishing them with a thin glaze of tamari, grated ginger, and sesame oil. I soaked the ramen in the boiling broth and split it between the soup plates, topped the ramen with the skate, and sprinkled everything with chopped cilantro. You should make this because it was really, really, really tasty. And if you don't have skate cheeks (I never did before discovering the Harbor Fish Market), you could adjust for chicken breast or scallops or chunks of firm-fleshed fin fish.

Today we're going to go somewhere or another on a picnic--probably a coastal beach because the blackflies are out in force inland. When I think about Harmony, those flies are one of the few things I don't pine over. Here, by the urban sea, there seem to be zero black flies and mosquitoes. A person can actually sit outside on a bench in the springtime. Who knew that such luxury was possible?