Last night, for dinner, I baked a whole bluefish and served it with roasted fingerlings and brussels sprouts, aioli, and arugula. For dessert we had apple brown betty. (As you can see, lowercased proper nouns abounded in this meal.) Tonight may be a reprise: bluefish and sprout-potato hash cakes, with aioli on top.

I hadn't made aioli for a while, and somehow I had forgotten how excellent it is with both fish and vegetables. I decided to do it the old-fashioned way--with mortar and pestle and whisk--rather than in the food processor, and the texture was much more velvety than machine-made mayonnaises are. And it was very gratifying to feel the sauce cohere under my hands . . . though a cook needs a supple wrist for all that pounding and whisking. Violin playing, bread kneading, and goat milking are good training for the emulsification marathon.

And now Monday: back to the books.