Lawyer Likes His Fish Right Out of Ocean

If exuberance were money, James Cooper would rank somewhere between T. Boone Pickens and the Rockefellers.

To say that he enjoys life is like saying Pete Rose gets a little bit of a kick out of the game of baseball.

Cooper, a 41-year-old lawyer, goes through life at a dead run, indulging his passions, which range from the law to physical fitness to the game of cribbage to sportfishing and, yes, to the culinary arts.

He particularly enjoys cooking when the main course is something he has personally hauled from the Pacific.

Cooper is the compleat fisherman; he will go after anything from marlin (one prize catch decorates a wall of his living room) to lingcod. The thrill of the hunt is special to him, but he also admits to being a bit of a trencherman.

“I love food; that’s why half of my life is spent exercising and dieting,” he says.

And if there’s anything that makes him as happy as winning a court case, it’s having one unexpectedly postponed, because that means there is suddenly some free time in which to cook or pursue other interests. For Cooper, nothing fills in those gaps in a daily schedule better than the Pacific Ocean, which conveniently rests below his bluff-top condo in San Clemente.

If the water is tolerably warm, it’s boogie board time. If it’s not--and that’s about eight months of the year--then it’s time for a quick visit to his garage, which looks more like a sportfishing supply shop than a place to park a car.

Then it’s off to a boat, the beach, the pier--anywhere that a line with a hook can be dropped or cast--because somewhere beneath the surface lurks the ingredients of a perfect meal.

But life wasn’t always so idyllic for Cooper. Detroit-born and raised, he worked for a time on an assembly line and “got this sinking feeling the first day on the job and the fervent hope that this wasn’t exactly what the Man Up There had in mind for me.”

He worked his way through law school, and it was during those lean times that “necessity dictated I learn to survive in the kitchen; either that or I’d not only go without meals about half the month, but I’d never have another date, either.”

And Cooper, a bachelor “most of my life,” enjoys both dining and the company of women too much to sacrifice either. So, while he doesn’t claim to have mastered the culinary arts, he certainly has become “more than adequate” in that area.

He not only discovered that he enjoyed cooking but that “most women are intrigued by a man who is self-sufficient in the kitchen.”

Because both the freezer and the fresh meat bin of his refrigerator never lack for a “catch of the day,” he specializes in seafood, preparing dishes that run from the complicated (“for what we call junk fish”) to the sublimely simple (“Never, never doctor up good fish like halibut or albacore with sauces; keep it simple to get all the natural flavor.”).

One of his favorite recipes combines less-preferred fish topped with a combination of flavors and items he enjoys, such as Ortega chilies and artichoke hearts (“Never put something in a dish you don’t like; that doesn’t make any sense.”). The dish, one of his own inventions, is a Mexican-style casserole called Fish Vera Cruz.

Mike Spencer, a cookbook author who enjoys cooking, writes about men who like to cook every Thursday. Readers may send candidates for this column to: Guys & Galleys, Orange County Life, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa 92626.

JAMES COOPER’S FISH VERA CRUZ CASSEROLE

Ingredients

2 pounds fresh fish filets

10 artichoke hearts, canned, packed in water

1/2 cup black pitted olives

1 pint fresh salsa

4 Ortega chili peppers

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese

1 cup grated Monterey jack cheese

Preparation

Cut artichoke hearts in halves and line bottom of 2-quart casserole dish with them. Sprinkle half the olives over the hearts, along with about a quarter of the salsa. Layer the fish over the mixture, then the rest of the salsa.

Cut chili peppers into 1-inch strips and layer across top. Add cheese and remaining olives and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until done.

Remove excess liquid with turkey baster before serving.