January 29, 2013 — There’s no nice way to say this, no way to spare any feelings. The northern snakehead is one ugly fish.
Seriously, just look at it. Like Lady Gaga says — baby, it was born this way, looking like a weird cross of three animals that strike fear in the heart: a Burmese python, a barracuda and an electric eel.
Also, a new study confirms what millions long knew: High heels may not be comfortable, but they are sexy.
But even the invasive Chesapeake Bay snakehead can be prettied up by an extreme makeover, as a recent charity event featuring Washington Redskins legend John Riggins showed. The downside for the fish: It was dead — and sliced, marinated in a tasty chimichurri sauce, skewered, baked, then arranged on a nice white dinner plate with a sweet potato chorizo flauta.
The presentation had to be just right because, to the event’s organizers at least, the future of the bay was riding on that fish plate. The point of the second annual ProFish Invasive Species Benefit Dinner at Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place in Georgetown’s Washington Harbour was to persuade humans — Earth’s top predators — to develop a taste for the bay’s most fearsome fish.
Five main courses were prepared by what organizers described as “elite, high-end, white table cloth” chefs from restaurants such as the Hotel Monaco’s Poste Moderne Brasserie, the Rockfish in Annapolis and J&G Steakhouse at the W Hotel, near the White House.
Before it was served about 8:30, Rockfish chef Chad Wells’s snakehead dish was the talk of the evening among about 200 people who paid $125 a plate to dine with Riggins, a celebrity guest.
Read the full story in the Washington Post