Gefilte Fish?

First post, I'm going to tell you about how totally worth it is to make gefilte fish from scratch.
I'm half Jewish. Which means I can eat about half a piece of gefilte fish from the jar before giving up and moving on to something tastier. The only thing about Passover worse than gefilte fish is Manischewitz- which at least gets you drunk (a better state for eating gefilte fish, except for the possibility of a heightened gag reflex).
I'm not a picky eater. I like seafood. I like tuna from the can. I like fishes that aren't salmon. I like sashimi. But I do try to avoid cat food. Gefilte fish though, so full of potential. So constantly a letdown.
Remember that kids' story about the carp in the bathtub and, well, I don't remember, but the gist is that it gets butchered by no nonsense beefy Jewish grandma and made into gefilte fish.
That's how it should be. Really really fresh.
Unfortunately I didn't have a live carp (next year in Jerusalem- with a fish in the tub!) But I did go to Tokyo Fish Market and browse their selection of super fresh and delicious white fleshed fish. I bought cod, sole and catfish. Honestly at this point my self doubt was high enough that I was going based on price, I'll admit that I wasn't trying to be exotic by choosing the catfish. (But it was a good idea because if I do say so myself, my gefilte fish was so damn delicious.)
Well, I looked around at various recipes, using them for advice. I credit mainly a story and recipe on Chow about Firefly Restaurant chef Brad Levy and his gefilte fish process. He had some good advice.
At the end of the day though, it was my battle to keep the dog off the counter, get all the bones out of the fish, get the spices right, and keep the kitchen stink to a minimum. (Also, as it turned out, to keep my mother off the counter. She ate much more than the dog, having both thumbs and wits)
My conclusion, was that making your own g-fish is more than worth it. The 15 month twins we ate passover with even managed to get more in their mouths than their hair or the floor, that's how good it was. For the adults, with a generous heaping of fresh homemade beet horseradish, and a little lemon, it was the highlight of the night. And my koogle ain't too shabby.
-S