The perfect reading spot.

While I haven’t had a job, I have been editing for the magazine I worked at in Raleigh, NC, and studying for the FL real estate exam. (Which I passed on the first try, unlike 72 percent of the people who took it last month. I knew being a nerd who did extra homework for fun in school would pay off!)

I know I’ll be working a lot in the future, so that’s why I’m savoring the days Chef and I relax on the beach doing nothing. Well, I do nothing; he catches dinner.

Sheepshead look creepily human.

Since he catches, cleans and cuts the fish, I take care of the cooking. Fresh fish is absolutely perfect for two things: ceviche and fish tacos. And in keeping with a lazy beach day, both are easy to make.

Ceviche

-1 lb fresh fish

-juice from a bag of limes (We reserved a few for margaritas. I suggest you do the same.)

-1/2 onion, thinly sliced

-2 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 large clove)

-1 jalapeno, habanero or serrano, thinly sliced

-1 tomato

-cilantro

-salt

1. Cut your fish into chunks or slices. If it’s a delicate fish, go for larger pieces so it doesn’t completely fall apart.

2. Remove the seeds from the tomato, then chop it.

3. Add your fish to the lime juice. Season it well. Then add the garlic, onions and chile.

4. Seal tightly and let it marinade in the fridge for about two-three hours. (It will turn white when it’s “cooked.”)

5. Add the tomatoes and cilantro and let it marinade in the fridge for another 30 minutes.

You can eat it on crackers, like my mom does, (that’s how they eat it in Veracruz, Mexico) but it’s also delicious on tostadas, tortilla chips and lettuce.

Let me tell you a secret: if you order fish tacos at a restaurant and it comes with some crazy, complex batter, that fish is probably not so fresh. If you’re using a quality product, why would you want to cover it up? You can’t do much better than just-caught when it comes to fish, so to enhance the fish, not hide it, I only used three ingredients in my “batter.”

Fish Tacos

-1 lb fresh fish

-seasoning salt (I use Lawry’s)

-1 lime

-flour for dredging

-hot oil for frying

1. Season both sides of the fish with seasoning salt, then squeeze lime over it.

2. Let it marinade in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

3. Dip each piece of fish in flour directly before placing it in the hot oil.

4. Fry briefly on each side, making sure not to overcook the fish. Drain on paper towels.

Golden brown and delicious.

Fish tacos are best on corn tortillas. Flour tortillas are too gummy and get tough and hard to chew when they get cold. We topped our tacos with avocado, salsa and coleslaw — made with Duke’s Mayo, of course.

Having lived in two resort towns and been a Maitre D’ in one, I can tell you life at the beach is annoying and exhausting as hell for the majority of the year. From November to May, there’s one big wave of sweaty, sun-burned people undulating from the beaches to the restaurants. But hey, you can’t blame them. After being in Florida for a year, I can also tell you there is no better way to unwind than spending the day at the beach bathing in the sun, then watching it set on the ocean.

The perfect end to any day.

The one upside to this is I can get away with a few lazy dinners during the week. This is a nice perk because I’m usually so engrossed in a book I forget to eat, bathe and sleep.

This week’s haul.

I’ve always loved reading. When your dad gets you and your siblings library cards and book-of-the-month subscriptions instead of video games and toys and your closest neighbors are cows and cornstalks, you have to find a way to entertain yourself. Every Saturday morning after cereal and cartoons, my dad would drive us to the library and we’d check out a stack of books for the week. Sometimes we’d have to make emergency mid-week trips because I couldn’t wait until Saturday to see what Ramona Quimby was up to next.

Not much has changed. Books are still my best friends, and I still get annoyed when I have to put my book down to cook or clean. So for those days when I can’t spare more than 15 minutes to make dinner, I just toss some pasta with fresh pesto.

Killed your basil plant and don’t keep pine nuts on hand? Don’t fret. If you have Italian parsley and walnuts, you have pesto. And more cash in your wallet, since parsley and walnuts are significantly cheaper than basil and pine nuts.

Parsley Pesto

-2 cups fresh Italian parsley

-1/4 to 1/2 cup walnuts

-3 cloves garlic

-1/2 cup olive oil (you can always use more if you want)

-1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (optional)

-salt and pepper to taste

1. Get all your ingredients together

2. Wash the parsley and pluck the leaves. Crack the walnuts.

3. Throw everything into the food processor and puree.

You can use it as a spread, put it on protein or toss it with whatever noodles you like.

I like to make it with shrimp and casarecce noodles. First, I get salty water going for my pasta. While I’m waiting for that to boil, I peel and de-vein the shrimp. Note: de-veining is not optional!

Once your water reaches a boil, throw in the pasta and cook it for 2-3 minutes less than the instructions suggest. (Make sure to reserve some of the starchy cooking water.) Heat a pan with olive oil, add a small pat of butter and cook the shrimp for three minutes. Add the cooked pasta, a little bit of pasta water, a lot of pesto and toss for two more minutes over heat. Then, as Emeril would say, “BAM!” You have a delicious homemade meal in less than 15 minutes.

Now you see why this has become my go-to recipe during season. It’s fast, which means more time for reading, and cheap, which means more money for books.

Milk Dud in the dryer. I don’t know why; I don’t know how.

I’m familiar with her quirks and have learned to never be surprised by what she does, but it didn’t start out that way. To say I was unprepared for a pet, even one that was less than a pound when I got her, is being modest. I didn’t have a blanket or toys for her the day we picked her up, so my scarf had to serve as both. (When we got home, I noticed she had used it as a puppy pad, too.) Chef had a sweet senior Rottweiler named Linus at the time, but he was reluctant to welcome what looked like a squirrel into the house.

Milk Dud in her first sweater, a sock.

My first days with both dogs were spent trying to keep them separated while also editing, cooking and cleaning. This meant leaving Milk Dud’s pen in “safe” places like on top of the bed, table, buffet, and fridge while taking care of Linus and carrying her in my hand every other moment because she had separation issues. She still does, actually. When I leave her alone, she always steals my shoe or sock and sleeps with it like a teddy bear.

I cooked dinner holding her, typed holding her, vacuumed holding her, and did laundry holding her, all while being trailed by a 100-pound Rottweiler. But no matter how careful I was, there were still some incidents. Like when she was playing on the bed so hard she rolled off the side and hit her eye on the metal post before falling on the floor. Her eye was only swollen for a few hours, but to this day, I swear it’s still smaller than the other one. Or the time I was taking her outside and dropped her on the pavement. I thought I had broken every bone in her tiny body and called Chef sobbing after Googling all the ways I could have hurt her. But she didn’t even notice. It seems like I was the only one in pain or crying every time something happened to her.

Even though I’m not as protective of her as when she was a puppy, I still do everything I can to keep her safe and happy. I spoil her with love and affection not just because she’s my dog, but because she’s my present from Chef. Whenever I see her, I see the person who gave her to me. When I first met Chef, I was a mess. I had that young and stupid “If it doesn’t make me happy, fuck it” mentality and the irresponsible and selfish personality that comes with it. But even so, he took the time to teach me how to host and expedite, helped me find another job when I left that restaurant, and even offered me a position when he opened his new restaurant. He was always a good friend, confidant and teacher, even before we started dated.

Getting Milk Dud was a big deal for me. Back then, I was having a difficult time trying to get my life together after the dumb mistakes of my youth. So to know that Chef saw me not as the mess I was when we met, but as the responsible and trustworthy person I had become, the person who could love and care for this small puppy, made me feel better. It was exactly what I needed — a sign that I was back on the right track. I think Chef knew that, too.

Milk Dud doing what she loves most, following Chef.

Even though I no longer spend Sundays stretched out on the couch watching cooking shows (I reserve that for every other day of the week), I still love them because they’re the only full day I get with Chef. We usually spend the afternoon at the beach or riding bikes, then come home and put together a simple dinner. We found this great produce store nearby that sells local fruits and vegetables and stocked up on everything, including green tomatoes. As a Southerner, I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never made fried green tomatoes before, and I’m even more embarrassed now that I know they’re so easy.

Fried Green Tomatoes

-2 green tomatoes

-2 eggs, beaten well

-seasoned flour (I used the same blend I use to make Fried Chicken)

-Panko breadcrumbs

-oil for frying

1. Cut the tomato into thick slices.

2. Put your seasoned flour, beaten eggs and Panko into large bowls and line them up in a row. Move each slice down the assembly line, coating it with flour, dunking it into the eggs, then covering it with Panko. Repeat. Note: If you have OCD, you’ll love this step. Getting a uniform crust on each slice sounds easy, but it’s actually a very tedious process.

3. Fry the tomatoes until they’re crisp and brown.

They’re a delicious side for any meal and require such minimal effort your Sunday will still be considered lazy.

I also mixed them with flour, formed them into bean cakes and fried them.

This was actually the tastiest version of the peas because the bits of garlic, chopped onions and leftover Christmas ham I used to originally cook them overpowered the earthy flavor of the peas.  Plus I used a little butter when I was frying them, and love or hate Paula Deen, she is right about butter making everything better.

Something else that makes eating leftover black-eyed peas better? A whole roasted chicken.

To make my chicken, I of course turned to Ferran Adria and his magical picture cookbook, The Family Meal.

Roasted Chicken

-1 whole chicken

-salt

-olive oil

-1 lemon

-2 cloves garlic (unpeeled)

-rosemary

-thyme

-black peppercorns

-bay leaves

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

1. Place the chicken in a roasting pan and season inside and out with salt, then rub with olive oil. Grate lemon zest over the breast, legs and wings.

2. Grind the black peppercorns, rosemary, thyme, and bay leaves into a fine powder. Note 1: He doesn’t give the measurements for just one chicken, so I guessed and used two sprigs of rosemary, five of thyme, a handful of peppercorns, and two bay leaves. Note 2: Bay leaves are hard to grind.

3. Rub the dry herb mixture evenly over the chicken.

4. Cut the lemon into wedges and stuff them inside the chicken, along with the two cloves of garlic.

5. Roast the chicken (breast side down) for 25 minutes, then flip it and bake it for another 35 minutes or until golden brown.

The chicken is so moist and delicious you probably won’t want to bother eating anything else with it. Hell, you probably won’t even want to bother using a plate and will just pluck the meat off the bone. If this is the case, you’ll basically have an hour to chill while the chicken bakes. Use this time to catch up on TV, go for a quick run, teach your dog to high five, take a shower, or whatever else you do during your down time. Though, I don’t recommend painting your nails. It’s nearly impossible to flip a slippery, hot bird using just your palms because your nails are still wet.

But if you do want to throw together a quick side, make some squash and onions! (This recipe also works with zucchini, kale and Swiss chard.)

Squash and Onions

-3 cloves garlic

-1 medium onion

-5 medium yellow squash

-olive oil

-salt

-pepper

1. Peel the garlic and slice the onions and squash.

2. In a hot pan drizzled with olive oil, brown the garlic.

3. Add the onion, season with salt and pepper and cook until translucent.

4. Throw in the squash, adjust the seasonings, cover, and let it cook down until it’s a nice soft mess of vegetables.

I don’t know why I don’t roast whole birds more often. It took no time to prep and was ready in less time than it takes me to decide what toppings I want on a pizza. Well, no more of that! This year I resolve to cook more chickens. And not to eat another black-eyed pea until 2014.