Eduardo and the red snapper

The Avalon's chef, Eduardo, with the grilled red snapper I'd caught just a few hours earlier. Photo by David Lansing.

I mentioned yesterday how, while fishing for tarpon, I ended up catching a 15 pound red snapper. We threw it in the hold on top of the ice cooling down our beers and brought it back to the Avalon and gave it to the cook, Eduardo, who looks like he’s not old enough to shave yet alone be a great cook. You know, when we fished from the Halcon I always thought our cook on that boat, Pichi, was a fine cook but Eduardo puts him to shame. So far on this trip we’ve had the best meals we’ve ever had anywhere in Cuba. Lobster every night, sometimes cooked simply with a little garlic butter, sometimes in a curry sauce, and always there is some whole grilled fish, and we have had excellent soups and sashimi and a marvelous roasted lentil dish in a spicy red sauce.

Anyway, when we got back to the Avalon the other night all the other boys were topside drinking their gin and tonics and talking about the day’s fishing. I came up the stairs carrying the large red snapper by one hand, holding it up for them to see. “Look what I brought us back for dinner,” I said. Everyone got their cameras out to take some shots of me holding the snapper and then I gave it to Suliet to take down to the galley to Eduardo.

A couple of hours later, Suliet announced that dinner was ready and we headed for the large teak table where we take our meals and then Eduardo came out carrying a silver platter with my grilled red snapper on it. I can’t tell you how pleased I was. I cut into it and took the first filet and then passed it around. Suliet poured us all a glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and Fletch made a toast to the great day of fishing we had and then everyone dove in to the red snapper. It was, without a doubt, the finest fish I’d ever tasted in my life. Perhaps because I’d caught it myself just a few hours earlier, perhaps because Eduardo really does know his way around seafood. Anyway, it was a most memorable meal following a most memorable day of fishing.