Teach a Man To Fish

So I was thinking about partisan politics and I was getting myself all worked up. The left is center, the right is nuts, and I seem to be the only one that thinks like me. Obama fights terror by ignoring the borders of sovereign countries and droning a missile into some guys ass. You may even be thinking, " What's the big deal? He snuffed a terrorist, get over it." OK, if you are cool with that would you have been cool with the British air force bombing South Boston back in the 70's. WTF are you talking about Blue Collar? I'm talking about terrorists, murderous muslim IRA terrorists, living with their peeps in a sovereign nation that was not at war with the nation that had been victimized by their murderous activities. I'm talking about that victimized nation saying, "Wanted Dead or Alive" then blowing the living crap out of them and too bad if you happened to be living on D Street when it happened. I'm not talking Apples and Oranges, I'm talking Apples and Apples and as you know from my last post I know my apples. I am sick to death of honor-less slaughter and justified criminality. Obama assassinates people the government has deemed a risk ( and how could that ever go wrong) while the anti-government right wing frets that W's torture of prisoners doesn't get the proper credit it deserves. What happened to us?

So then I'm sitting at Al's diner enjoying a humungous barnyard sandwich (ham, sausage, bacon, Mmm bacon! 3 eggs over on a Piro's Italian stick with plenty of black pepper and tabasco. My butt hates me almost as much as my arteries do). When I saw an interesting article on the front page of the Sunday Globe. Seems the intrepid Globe spotlight reporters went to over 70 restaurants, copped some of their fish, and had it tested in a lab. Over 40% of the samples weren't the species that were listed on the menu.

Now you might not even care as long as it tastes good, or you might be angry at the government for not regulating the restaurant industry properly ( although regulation is bad as any talk radio listener can tell you and the government is too busy blowing people up to check the local sushi bar) but me? My take on reading the story is that the Globe got bored. There is no mention of people calling to complain about getting substitute fish. No mention of the heartbreak of finding Mrs Paul's fish sticks under your burre blanc sauce instead of chilean sea bass. Not a word from the aficionados of the food network, who revel in the purchase of the "proper ingredients" for an "authentic" dining experience. $32 dollars for pan seared Dover soul? The best is worth extra of course! Why didn't anyone complain? Because a nation of Dumb asses revel in appearance and perception while never bothering to actually think or learn.

Looks like a democrat, thinks like a republican, fancies himself an independent.

How are we ever going to get our priorities straight on the world stage when can't even eat diner without getting our heads stuck up our asses? "That's not me!" you say? Of course it is. We're all too willing to be ridiculous food snobs, or music snobs, or designer snobs, braying about the value of something authentic, high quality, it's worth the money, blah, blah, blah, when we can't actually tell the difference between the silk purse and the sows ear.

I'm telling you it's Louis Vuitton!

Fact: The quality inspectors for Louis Vuitton bags cannot tell the difference between their bags and cheap counterfeit knockoffs. Fact: A study of wine tasting professionals had them rating the same wine differently when they were given different asking prices. ( Surprisingly the higher the price the higher the rating) Fact, walk into your jeweler with a highly polished industrial diamond and he can't tell you, no matter how hard he looks, if it came from a machine or the ground. Fact: the vast majority of people will prefer Mrs Butterworths maple flavored syrup over actual maple syrup. This has nothing to do with the unsophisticated palates of the masses and everything to do with the fact that real maple syrup is much thinner than the fake stuff and also has a distinct tree taste underneath the maple. Fact: that Dover sole you paid $25 a pound for could have been $7 a pound flounder and if you were a good cook ( actually if you were a bad cook too) it wouldn't make a particle of difference as far as your enjoyment of your dinner was concerned. Now the Globe is saying there was a 50/50 chance it was flounder, still glad you paid $25 per pound? Don't even get me started on art, or jazz, or pop culture. Get over yourselves.

The easiest way to do that is to eat something wicked good and by wicked good I don't mean expensive I mean cooked well, the right method for the right ingredients. It's fall, the weather is getting colder, which makes me think I might skip Al's this Sunday for Maggie's out on Plum Island. They have fish cakes for breakfast, Mmmm fish cakes. New England cold weather food and all you need is whatever flaky fleshed fish is the cheapest.

Now a traditional New England fish cake would actually be a cod cake, but if you read the Globe article the cod you buy is often substituted with cheaper pollock or whiting. So we're going to go right for the pollock to start with. If you want to get extravagant and jazz up your fish cakes buy a pound of Finnan Haddie (smoked haddock for those of you that didn't know) it will cost you $15 or $16 dollars a pound but a third of a pound will add a ton of flavor to your cod cakes and you can put the left overs in a big bucket of fish chowder.

1. Start with a pot of well salted water, it should taste like the ocean. Poach a pound of Pollock or Whiting until it breaks easily with a fork. (now to poach you want your water just at a simmer. There should only be a few random bubbles breaking the surface).
2. Set the fresh fish aside then poach the Finnan Haddie if you are using it. When it starts to flake set it aside.
3. Turn the heat up to high. Add 2 potatoes peeled and cut into uniform pieces. The smaller the better because we are trying to capture some of that fishy goodness that we lost to the poaching water.
4. While the potatoes cook flake all the fish.
5. Mash the potatoes with a tablespoon full of butter. Mmmm, butter!
6. Add a tablespoon of sniped chives, a tablespoon of chopped parsley, a finely minced shallot, 2 beaten medium or 1 beaten extra large egg and 2 or 3 shakes of your favorite hot sauce. Tabasco is fine.
7. Mix thoroughly.
8. Add the fish. Fold it in, easy, you want some texture. Mmmm, texture!
9. Dig in with your hands, make 6 or 8 burger sized cakes.
10. Coat the cakes with either seasoned flour (salt, pepper, cayenne) seasoned fine ground corn meal (salt, pepper, cayenne) or bread crumbs.
11. Let the firm up in the fridge for at least an hour, or over-night if you are having them for breakfast.
12. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter (combining them raises the smoke point of the butter) in a non-stick frying pan. (cast iron for the brave, these can be sticky so if you use your cast iron pan the oil has to be shimmering and you have to wait until a crust forms or they will stick).
13. Move them to a 200 degree oven if they need to stay warm while you prepare other stuff.
14. Now I would serve these with homemade baked beans, some over easy eggs, lemon and more hot sauce, or turn them into muffin-less benedict with Canadian bacon on the plate, then the fish cake, then a poached egg, then some hollandaise. Hell yeah you can still have some beans!

I'm not a fool. I know there are a lot of people in this world that want America dead. I also know that playing fair, or being one of the righteous,  does not equal success, or even survival, in this life. Still, doesn't some nation, somebody, have to try if we are ever going to be better. In the 70's South Boston was crawling with IRA and that worked out with no fly overs from the British. Shouldn't we at least be thinking about it? Are we just a bunch of shallow dumb-asses? Or am I just a damn dirty hippy? A hippy with delicious fish cakes.