On a warm day last fall, I found myself standing in a crooked line with about 20 other people, each of us armed with empty coolers and insulated bags. "Have you had jumping mullet before?" the woman next to me asked.
"Never," I said. "I have no idea what it looks like, and I have no idea how to cook it. I'm glad they're giving us recipes."
In fact, I had never even heard of jumping mullet until I received an e-mail message the day before, yet there I was, standing in a parking lot on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina, eager to take it home and throw it on the grill.
The message also informed me that although mullet is rarely found in local stores or restaurants, it's actually a common fish along the Carolina coastline. But what I most enjoyed was learning that this mullet had been caught by Ron Sparks, a fisherman a few hours away who landed his bounty with gillnets strung from his 24-foot boat. I conjured up an image of Ron the fisherman — my fisherman — landing that night's dinner. I liked it.