Fish Dinner Aftermath

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    We are trying to eat better/healthier....On Thursday I decided to make fish for dinner...I was in the seafood department and couldn't decide so a called my husband. He asked if they had whiting fish..I looked around and luckily they did and it was on sale. I bought some beautiful fillets and returned home to cook.


Anyways.....the one thing that I will tell you about myself is that touching raw fish makes me kind of gag. I have always had this reaction to handling raw fish, and even though I love sushi I could never watch it being prepared. So I made all the sides and My Hubby prepared the whiting. I noticed  that it had a very strong odor as it was cooking, I realized very quickly that it was one of those very oily stinky fish...a lot more that cod ... I am used to less stinky fish like salmon and monk fish.  Fast forward to a great meal and the clean up.


 Even with the windows opened the smell lingered and stuck to everything. I mean the smell of fish permeated the house and every fabric covered item with that pungent scent. Now another tidbit about me....I am obsessed with smells. I can't stand it when I go to someone's home and even though it looks clean it smells like their dog or litter box or .......FISH from dinner the night before. or even when I go to the mall and have to go into the candle store...Migraine Alert! I am always airing out the house, spritzing lightly with air freshener and replacing and washing the slipcovers to make sure the house smells fresh. I cannot live without my febreze.


 That night as I was making my last OCD rounds of the house the smell of dinner was hanging heavy and ever present in the air.....What the ... I could hardly sleep it was everywhere!. the next morning I got up early, opened more windows, sprayed air freshener and went out; when I came back I opened my front door and was slapped by the smell...WTF? I mean people I couldn't believe it was still there! I mean what the hell ...it would have been better if we had flung chum (old stinky fish parts fishermen use to attract sharks) on the walls.

I had to cancel a getogether, because I couldn't invite anyone into this disaster of Moby Dick proportions. OK THIS IS WAR!!!! I scrubbed the floors, febrezed the curtains and sofa. I washed the slipcovers and sprayed extra industrial odor neutralizer in the air and NOTHING....my daughter came home from school on Friday afternoon and said
"Ohhh it smells like Fish in here , did you reheat last nights dinner?"


The freakin' smell was still there! clinging to the walls and air like some invisible sludge. Since then I have dedicated my weekend to virtually throwing everything and the kitchen sink in the wash. I cleaned the cupboards and rewashed plates on the shelves. I even washed curtains and all bed linens again. Sunday came and went and the smell is slowly disappearing to whatever dark hell place it came from. I vow to never cook that dish ever ever again.

Since then I have found that boiling 3 to 4 cups of water with a couple of capfuls of distilled vinegar will supposedly rid a place of fish dinner smell. I doubt it would have gotten rid of this seafood monster stench. Scrubbing and washing was the only way to subdue this creature. Today my husband took out leftovers that he was going to reheat  for lunch. I literally screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!"  it felt like I was running in slow motion (like an old episode of Baywatch, but instead of a sexy red bathing suit I was wearing his t-shirt, old sweats and mismatched socks) to grab the Tupperware away from his hands.


"Are you crazy????? I just sterilized the whole house to get rid of that smell!!!!"


"Is that what you have been doing all weekend?"  he said "I thought you were just spring cleaning!"