roly poly fish heads

Most of the time i try not to think of Semilong Road. The basement flat with the everlasting smell of damp where we first got burgled and i almost bled to death. Where we first learnt that toilet paper does not magically appear and that life without mum can be be pretty damn strange.
It's also where i first started to cook, skittishly at first. A salmon steak, purchased at Sainsbury's and stared at for hours before being 'pan fried' and eaten with iceberg lettuce. Mild food poisoning became frequent and completely indistinguishable from the near permanet hangovers that come part and parcel of being in your early 20's in a small town with nothing to do but drink yourself into having fun.
Then i received 'Rick Stein's Seafood'. A seemingly huge hardback, that lost its slip cover to grease early on, it's become a staple in my kitchen even if i rarely cook fish anymore. It maintains it's lure with beautiful pictures and clear instructions on how to do anything with fish, i read this book while cooking, i may now be waiting for the 'wakame and vegatable stew' to cook but i'm making a mental note on how to prepare elongated fish for griddling.
Some of the recipes (which start on page 98, before that you get techiniques for anything you can think of) seem over long, the list of ingredients particularly seem enough to send people running to the nearest chip shop but they shouldn't. It's all stuff you've heard of or can get easily.
This book has survived 2 household moves, and i know i'll still be letting pots of god only knows what boil over several moves from now due to re reading the instructions on how to skin freshwater eel for stir frying long after Semilong Road has become a faded black and white memory.