Fish fry…

Where I grew up in Elizabeth, NJ, in the late 60s to mid-70s, most of the families were Italian and Irish. I grew up in a strict Catholic Irish family.

My Nana was the family’s matriarch and a very old-school Irish Catholic. My dad called her the sergeant.

Nana’s parents came to America straight from Ireland. She was very religious and had a deep faith. Even though I attended a Catholic school, I spent most of the Holy Days with her.

I’ve written about my Nana often and spent a lot of time with her. She went blind when I was four years old, so I was her helping eyes at her apartment, a light green building in downtown Elizabeth.

The sergeant.

I stayed over almost every other Saturday night and spent the other Saturday nights at my other grandmother, Mema’s house. I love both of my grandmothers, who were polar opposites, making me a well-rounded kid.

Our family ate no meat on Fridays, not just during Lent, but every Friday. I didn’t have school on Good Fridays but spent them with Nana. This was when she really was the sergeant.

We would kneel on her hard floor, which only had a thin rug over it, from noon until three, which was the time Christ hung on the cross. We would say the Rosary with all the Mysteries. It took at least three hours.

There was no sitting back on your feet; oh no, we knelt like soldiers. When I would complain that my knees hurt, she would tell me to think of how much pain Jesus was in while he hung on the cross. Like my dad said, she was tough.

The sergeant with my grandpop, my mother is the short one, and my Aunt Claire.
Why didn’t people ever smile for photos, then?

So what did we eat on Fridays, especially during Lent? We ate pizza, pepper and egg subs, and fish. My mother never cooked fish, so we either went out to eat, ate fish sticks, or Gordon’s Fishermen fish filets at home.

I didn’t mind and liked what we ate on Fridays, especially Gordon’s fish with lots of tartar sauce. Mmmmm! I also liked the Filet o Fish at McDonalds. It was a perfect fish sandwich. Now I make my own.

I stopped practicing Catholicism when my boys were young due to a lot of reasons. I’m not going to bash the Catholic religion, but being an extremely spiritual person, I have a very close relationship with God and didn’t need man-made rules for myself or my boys.

I self-churched my boys and taught them that instead of making sacrifices they could easily fail at and hate, I made them do extra good deeds during Lent.

We still didn’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent, probably out of habit, but I never made it a big deal, or they again would hate whatever we were having.

I would make mac and cheese, fish sticks, pizza, grilled cheese, and a few other non-meat kid-friendly dishes. My son Noah was a very picky eater, making it sound like the meal was a punishment, which would have only added to the problem.

After the kids grew up and moved out, I would still make shrimp or something like pasta with clam sauce or garlic and oil during Lent. I wasn’t doing it on purpose since we ate meat for lunch but for nostalgic memories.

Marty would always ask if we weren’t eating meat during Lent. I guess my answer should be yes and no. I’m not doing it because someone told me I had to abstain from eating meat; I’m doing it because I want to.

The funny (ok, not funny) part of not eating meat on Fridays during Lent is that my mother would take me out to a hotdog place for lunch. On the way home, she would cry, “Oh shit, we ate a hotdog!” I would laugh but also HAD to tell the priest during confession I sinned by eating meat.

That’s me, the sinner, on Easter Sundays.
When I was growing up, I loved wearing Mary Jane shoes with fancy lace leotards. I still have Mary Janes.

Yes, I sinned. Must I say more about the church? I had to say 10 Hail Marys and 5 Our Fathers because my mother forgot and bought me a fucking hotdog? Sorry God, please forgive me, but I think not.

I remembered I had some frozen flounder and decided to make an old-school fish fry for dinner on Friday night. I fried the flounder and made french fries, homemade tartar sauce, and coleslaw. It was delicious. I have to remember to make it more often.

My reference to my fish fry was a recipe like this one: https://www.sipandfeast.com/fried-flounder/ .

I added old bay to all three breading components along with garlic, onion powder, and a pinch of kosher salt. I skipped the parsley and oregano.

I put the breaded fish on a rack over a sheet pan and popped it into the fridge for an hour. I heated up 1/8 inch of canola in a pan and fried the flounder until golden brown and crunchy on both sides.

Refrigerating the fish before frying keeps it cold long enough so it doesn’t dry out when it’s golden brown and crunchy. I drained the fish on paper towels; I was really how happy and easy it was to make.

I served the fish with lemon wedges to cut through the taste of frying by making it bright. Restaurants and seafood shacks give lemons with your meal for this purpose; they aren’t there just as a garnish.

Will I make seafood again next Friday? I may not, or then again, maybe I will. If not, we will likely make pizza like we do most Fridays, but sometimes with pepperoni.

One of my favorite photos from our wedding was this one with Mema and Nana. This was the last day I saw my Nana alive. When she was buried, she wore the same outfit at our wedding, and she loved it, along with her mink stole. The once robust sergeant diminished to a frail, sweet woman who still had a lot of faith in God.

Yes, I am crying and miss them both so much. ♥️ ♥️