Issue Seven: Fish

editor’s note

F​​​ish in the desert. Sounds wrong. Must be a typo. Must be a metaphor.

Yet they are all around us, scales shimmering. Hiding in plain sight, behind the grocer’s counter and freezer door, coiled around capers in tiny jars, eluding our lures in our rivers and lakes, and staring up at us from menus across the state. Sliding past public attention like they slide on the deck of the boat, caught but hard to grasp, slippery and a little difficult to look at.

And what do we see when we decide to meet the desert fish in the eye? An ocean in trouble, a world connected like a net, strange possibilities for beautiful meals. A perfect bite, poignant because it may be fleeting. This is what makes the fish eye worth a deeper stare—it’s a glimpse into a sea worth contemplating, a sea worth savoring, wherever you happen to come across its bounty.

That’s a taste of the story behind the issue, the salty breeze that ruffles these pages: they hold a small survey, a sampling, a beached boatful of the local catch. They’re for the desert-fish-curious, the river lovers, and the mariners at heart; for the cloud watchers and the homesick beachcombers; for those who can’t make the trip to Baja or Hilo or Tokyo or even LA; and for anyone else with a bit of surf in their high-desert soul.