Recipe: Maple Clam Chowder
Here’s To Dad
I mulled over an all-encompassing Theory of Everything as I was squeezing a lemon over my filet of flounder for dinner tonight. First I pondered why seafood and lemons go so well together. I figure it has something to do with sailors (I was in New Orleans during Fleet Week, so don’t blame that spectacle for inspiring my theory).
As every schoolboy learns, when sailors of yore discovered that the terrible illness they tended to develop after long months at sea – scurvy – was, essentially, Vitamin C deficiency, they took to sucking on lemons and limes. The Brits must have been early adapters of this health regimen, since we still slur them as “limeys.” I imagine it wasn’t long before some sailors got sick of that silly “pucker” face one makes when sucking a lemon and got the bright idea of squeezing the citrus fruit over the catch of the day. They must have taken this bright idea to shore, and the corporate Red Lobster chain was born!
That mystery solved, I got to wondering why I love seafood so much. For this, as most things, there’s a woman to thank. A number of years ago I began dating one of my favorite ex-girlfriends, a pesco-vegeterian who was on a curious shellfish kick, and ignited my own love affair with the creatures of the deep (Come to think of it, she also had a charmingly kooky tendency to suck on lemons and cackle that it was to “prevent scurvy”). Day after day, week after week, we gobbled up mussels, clams, lobsters and shrimps together. Naturally, as I taught myself to cook, these were my chosen quarry.
The more I think about it, though, she unlocked a hidden desire for the fishies that was planted there by my father. The enthusiasm that dear old Dad showed on those rare occasions when Ma (ever the paranoiac about food poisoning) would cook up some scallops or prawns clearly inspired some insatiable desire inside me. (I realize now that I am practically inspiring Ma, the eternal lurker, to register on this Blarg, or at least sign up for the Live Journal feed.)
So where did my Dad’s love of seafood come from? This, I am fairly confident, can be attributed to his foster Mom, much like my dependable tendency to shout out “Svigna!” when someone belches or farts in my proximity. Like every frugal eastern European immigrant, Grandma sought to enroll her kids in the Clean Plate Club. Grandma was a particularly effective brainwasher when it came to convincing her charges that the ugliest, nastiest bits of leftovers and gristle were, in fact, delicacies. Why, you should see my father drool over the turkey’s asshole at Thanksgiving!
So, of course it would follow that Dad considers the ugly creatures of the deep to be a rare treat, and that opinion has rubbed off on your narrator. Let this post serve as my Father’s Day tribute. Cheers, Dad, and thanks for all the fish.
Lawnguyland
Long Island is full of surprises. I’ve been doing house visits for a certain union on Long Island. I’ve been working in Lindenhurst, a town that is mostly known to me from those hypnotic station announcements on the Long Island Railroad (“Making station stops at…Wantaugh, Seaford, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copiague, Lindenhurst and Babylon; Change at Babylon for the train to Montauk…”), which are stored in the same place in my brain as parts of the Nicene Creed and the pledge of allegiance. I’m not in the habit of spending time in Suffolk county, and it’s easy to forget that we live on an actual island that’s surrounded by water and docks. Lindenhurst feels like one of Maine’s lobster towns, but without all that pesky tourism.
When you get far enough south, these modest, working class houses have dock slips for backyards. When I don’t get an answer at the front door, I nervously look around back to be sure that no one’s escaping by sea. After all, in my rolled-up shirt-sleeves and tie I look a fair bit like a Jehovah’s Witness, and who wouldn’t take the opportunity to put some ocean between themselves and evangelicals at the door?
The great thing about working in a seaport town is the ready availability of fresh, delicious seafood. I finally satisfied my summertime hankering for fried clam strips at Southside Fish and Clam on the Montauk Highway. I momentarily disregarded concerns about a “red tide” and enjoyed the thick, meaty and delicious strips found there. I also enjoyed the terrific, honest-to-goodness oldies radio station heard there. B-103 is now the last oldies station in the New York Metro region after CBS101 was switched to the hated “Jack” format by its evil corporate parent. Unfortunately, its signal won’t even reach to Queens.
What I’ve noticed most often are the strange living situations that Long Islanders are forced into by low wages and high housing costs. Brothers, sisters, cousins, great aunts, grandmas and in-laws all under the same roofs (actually, some are in the garage, others the basement; more, I bet, are living on those boats in the backyard). Most of the Islanders that I meet who are in their 20’s plan to leave New York entirely. This jives with the experience of most of the people I grew up with on the edge of the world, and other people I’ve met along the way.
Long Island, as a housing development and a society, is scarcely 50 years old. Any society that cannot provide jobs, homes and schools for its young is a failed society. If only narrow-minded voters realize this as they vote down school budgets and lobby against apartment developments.
Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart
The Wake Up Wal-Mart campaign is taking the opportunity this Mother’s Day to highlight Wal-Mart’s discrimination against women in their employ. Of course, I should have posted this story weeks ago, but who ever does anything early for Mother’s Day?
Visit the site, sign a pledge that you will not buy any Mother’s Day gifts at Wal-Mart while they discriminate against all the moms who work for them, forward to everyone you know and then buy your mom some flowers.
I’m not buying any gifts. I’m cooking my mom a nice dinner. Crab-stuffed mushrooms and calamari in a red wine sauce (I may post that recipe later).
Once again, I’m organizing a few people to help the Wal-Mart Free NYC Coalition leaflet at the Staten Island ferry during rush hour on Thursday. Let me know if you can join us. The Wal-Mart Free people will be leafletting during rush hour every Tuesday in May, on the Manhattan side of the SI ferry, and every Thursday in May on the SI side, so try to help out at least once.