I recently ate a wonderful dish of mussels in tomato shallot broth at the seafood bar in the Ferry Building. I decided to recreate the dish at home, which is notable only because I have a fear of cooking shellfish, based on nothing in particular — I’ve just never done it. (You can add rolling pastry dough and baking yeasted breads to that list).

So I took out my trusty “Joy of Cooking”, read up on cleaning and cooking mussels (scrub and steam), and went to my local fishmonger to buy some.

“It’s not mussel season”, the fishmonger says.

Perhaps it’s obvious to most people, but I didn’t know mussels had a season. Now I do.

Though I really wanted to eat mussels last night, there’s also some good that comes with not being able to eat what you want when you want it. Just another reminder that we humans still have a place within nature’s web, and gratification sometimes has to wait until nature is ready to give it.