Q&A with Chefs Jewels and Jill Elmore

SS: I'm actually glad you brought the fish thing up. Do you have suggestions for first-timers? Should they start with a tilapia or a salmon? What would you suggest?

Jill: I would say the very first thing, first and foremost, is that you have to make sure what you're getting is fresh.
 
Jewels: I think it's off-putting to a lot of people because they have a very strong fish smell. I mean, that's what they think of when they think of fish. ... I think that is such a big reason for people not liking fish is because they're unable to have access to really fresh fish.

Jill: It's hard to say, "Well, if you're going to start, you should start with tilapia," because if we tell people that, they might go to fish store and actually, the tilapia doesn't look fresh but something else does. You need to look at it yourself and decide, "Does it look fresh?" If it doesn't look good and it doesn't smell good, it probably ain't good.
 
Jewels: If you like shellfish, I do think that you could start incorporating even shrimp into your meal. Shrimp is actually something that you can get frozen and that if it was frozen fresh—again you still have to know where it came from—it still needs to be fresh. You could do that if you didn't have access. But we really believe in wild, fresh seafood. Wild and fresh-caught is really a priority. ...

I do think it will make a huge difference if you're trying to become more fit. I think that makes it. And there's obviously so many other great nutritional reasons to why you should eat fish. I mean, we feed fish to our children, and they love it. I have 14-month-old, and he cannot get enough of the fish. It's a beautiful texture for him; it's easy for him. He only has like four teeth. He ate half of Jill's Mother's Day lunch, poor thing.

Try Jewels' Fantastic Fish Marinade!