how to bake a fennel

so, the cousin had me over for dinner last night and wouldn't you know it, he doesn't just cook you spaghetti like a normal boy would. no, no, we had baked halibut with fennel and asparagus, and in the process of helping him cook it, i learned the difference between peeling and "supreming" an orange (ok, really there is no difference, except for one you just peel it, and for the other, you use a big fancy knife to do the same thing that is accomplished by peeling and you call it some fancy word like "supreme"), and that you can actually put parchment paper in the oven. who knew? i thought you wrote illuminated manuscripts on parchment, so i'm happy to learn that you can also bake fish with it. we also made real live mashed potatoes, not the kind you get from a box that you mix with milk, and it makes all the difference in the world. but the fennel was a completely different story. what is a fennel, anyway? it looks sort of like an onion, but has this big scary celery looking arms coming out of the top of them, and the recipe is just all like, slice the fennel, but uh, i sorta need detailed directions on how to do that...so we just did our best. needless to say, i sliced that damn fennel and we made a bed of it in parchment paper to put that halibut to sleep on. then we covered it up with a blanket of asparagus and supremely supremed oranges and some salt, pepper and butter. it definitely came out much better than i'd imagined (i tend to cause disasters in the kitchen), but most of the fun was in the actual putting together of the meal. so, thank you, cousin, for making me make an out of the ordinary dinner. it was much better than the mac and cheese i would have eaten had i stayed home. i am still scared of fennel, though...