My sister, Amy, and I thought that I should come and visit her in Dallas before my baby turned two, since kids under two can fly free. Plus, she dangled a “my husband has some points to burn on American” carrot, and I decided, possibly against my better judgement, to brave the airport alone with my toddler. It would be worth it, of course, for many reasons. Actually, I could count about five million reasons, and they’re all lining the shelves of my place of worship – Central Market. (And the seeing family and loved ones – that would be nice too.)

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When I visit my sister, she asks what I want to do, but always adds “…besides go to Central Market, that is.” Because, really, that is all I want to do. I go to her house to do four things: 1) chat and catch up with her and her family, 2) Loll about, 3) Go to Central Market, 4) Eat. Not necessarily in that order.

So Johnny and I made it to Dallas, just a little worse for the wear. Our plane was delayed several hours so we were tired little pups when we actually crawled in bed at 1:00 in the morning. But I was up bright and early the next morning, putting on my shoes and asking when we leave for The Market while everyone else was still munching breakfast and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.

You see, Central Market is (and as much as I abhor this word, I’m going to use it in this one instance) a foodie’s paradise. Central Market has eight locations, all in Texas (dammit). The stores are huge. Like, each store is over 75,000 square feet. That, my friends, is big.

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I’d say that Central Market is a grocery store, but that would be the grossest understatement of my life. Yes, you can buy groceries there, but they aren’t your run-of-the-mill groceries. The items on their shelves are specialties. I’m pretty sure you cannot purchase a Coke at Central Market. But you can purchase the freshest meats from trained professionals at the meat counter that stretches for what seems like a country mile. You can purchase any imagineable bread or baked good.

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You can pick from a myriad of fresh cheeses, a seafood counter to rival Pike’s, and a produce section that brings me to tears. Once, I think I counted over twenty different varietals of apples alone. And there are tasting stations EVERYWHERE.

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Central Market also boasts a deli of inventive food made to order. There is a giant counter of prepared foods, or “home meal replacements”, as I like to call them. You can buy fresh ingredients already chopped and measured in “kits” so you can just go home and throw them in the pot for soup. Gelato, homemade pizza, several aisles of bulk grains, candy, and — get this — salts are among the offerings. Oh, and there’s a liquor store in there, with experts standing by to help you select the right wine or beer for the meal you’ve just shopped for.

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It’s dizzying.

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And I want each thing more than I wanted the last thing we saw. I’m sure it has nothing to do with their fabulous signage.

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On this particular trip, I’d been lollygagging through the produce, popping bites of pineapple and fresh orange into Johnny’s mouth, and then I rounded the corner to the fish counter. The Market happened to be celebrating it’s annual Hatch Chili Festival, so behind me was a woman handing out samples of pork stuffed with hatch chili stuffing and hatch chili crab cakes. Yes, please. Oh, and some of that dip, too.

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Meanwhile, Amy was standing at the fish counter, wide-eyed over the bargain price of a whole red snapper. She pointed at the prices. “Wha?”

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“Well,” I said, “It won’t be filleted or cleaned or anything. You just get that giant fish.” I figured we’d have to take it home and have our brother clean it, but just then this man, I’ll call him a fish monger, because I can, said “No, no. I’ll do it for you.”

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“Wha??”

So Amy selected a fish, and this nice man deboned it (no extra charge), and cut it just right so that we could fill it full of herbs and whatnot, and roast that sucker for dinner. We were planning on beef fajitas, and we figured it wouldn’t be bad to add a little fish to the mix. Red snapper fajita? Yes, please.

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I managed to get out of there this time without any baggies of salt infused with chilis, or any little pots of jam or even a jar of Texas salsa. I was too busy staring at the fish package, and shooting photos to bother with actually making a purchase. You see, that’s the thing about Central Market. Yes, you can make fabulous things at home with the wares you purchase, but 90 percent of the draw is the experience of being there in and of itself. It’s electrifying, at least, if you are a dork like me and you’d rather pick out a snapper than a new dress.

We came home and dressed that fish. It’s easy, as it turns out. The fish monger had pulled out the skeleton, which my sister said looked just like in the cartoons, and he’d made deep cuts horizontally along both sides of the big sucker.

On the advice of the fish monger, we layed the fish out on a cookie sheet with a lip (the only thing big enough to hold him), and stuffed all those slashes with garlic cloves, shallots, and slices of limes.

Then I made a rub, and generously covered the beast first with olive oil, then the spice rub. It was a 6 lb fish, so I needed quite a bit of volume.

Fajita Fish Seasonings

12 slices of lime
12 cloves garlic
1 shallot, thinly sliced

Fajita Fish Rub

4 tablespoon chili powder
2 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper
a pinch of cayenne pepper

Then, I squeezed some lime juice over the whole thing, and popped him in a 350 degree oven for just over an hour – about 15 minutes per pound.

The fish dude had explained to us not to lop off the head and throw it away, since the best meat of all is in the cheeks, so when the fish came out of the oven, we just sort of attacked him and pulled the fish like you would pork – head and all. You’re not going to get a nice giant steak off of a fish cleaned this way. But since we were wrapping it in a fajita tortilla, that was just fine.

I tried to pay my nephew ten bucks to eat the eye, but alas, he’s smarter than all that nonsense.

I will admit that the fish’s face haunted me a little, so if you’re at all squeamish like me, flake that fish out of the body (don’t forget that the best meat is usually in the cheeks, so you really want to save the head) and put it in a bowl to serve on the table, instead of bringing the whole fish to stare at your guests from his position on the platter.

It’s probably just me who makes destinations for vacation out of grocery stores, but I cannot recommend enough this particular experience. If you have the opportunity, visit a Central Market. You can’t really understand unless you’ve been there.