How to Make a Seven Fish Feast in Three Easy Lessons

Or How I Learned to Prepare La Vigilia…, My Way

 As lore goes, the Feast of the Seven Fishes – commonly referred to as La Vigilia – began centuries ago in southern Italy and today has grown into a custom celebrated by Italians throughout the world.  Now my parents were Sicilian and so if that isn’t southern Italian I don’t know what is, and eating fish, Catholic or not (of course we were), was standard operating procedure.  For me it didn’t matter, I liked fish, but apparently (one learns this as they grow up) others are not so accepting or, heaven forbid, they don’t cook it the same way and this can lead to trouble or at least the age old question; how do you like your baccala?

Many people have either a limited cooking ability or a narrow list of seafood favorites and you will find those with Seven Fish Feast that includes lobster…, and nothing else.  Of course lobster isn’t a fish, but that isn’t the real issue here anyway.  This issue is really; how many fish can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck fish.  In other words, the art of home maintenance, (read: kitchen acumen) is dying.  Very few these days can do more than take the package out of the freezer and throw it into the microwave.  Lucky for my wife, I am not one of those.  I like to cook, and since at one point in time I was a scientist too, I liked to experiment while I cooked. 

Like most scientific efforts, the experiments are used to write papers, whether they worked or not, and so when it came to a major holiday event, like La Vigilia, well sometimes pragmatic husband overrode mad scientist and so I opted to get help in preparing the wonderful meal that was to include seven.

First there was baccala.  Not much help really needed here; after all it is just salted cod, right?  And everyone knows what to do with salted cod.  I mean heck, there are millions of ways one can prepare salted cod, each as easy as the last style you tried once before, and wrote a paper on the results.   You can put it in a stew or soup, a salad or heck; you can even toss it in a casserole or two.  Most people will soak the dried fish in water for a few days to lose the sea salt, so again, this is easy, you just take out a big pan, fill it with water, through in the salted beast and start soaking.  I usually start this process on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Then there are those ‘others’, the ones who like it salted, or dry as a bone, we won’t talk about them here. 

Of course there is a dish that I do not think I will ever again see done as well as my mother’s version and that is ‘Pasta con le Sarde’.  Forgive me a moment of fond reflection.  I’m back, and I have to say that was a wonderful dish full of fresh sardines and.., PASTA.  In fact I liked it so much I use it in chapter XXXI (Sardines, Anchovies or Cannolies) in my book By Any Means.  I will not even attempt this dish for it is too hard to cook memories.

Now, even without the sardines the list of fish resources to use in one feast is enormous and that is where help is needed, I mean what if you select, calamari, scungulli, clams, muscles, octopus, eel, shrimp, oh did I mention gefilte fish and lox (we are a mixed marriage after all), and you haven’t even gotten to the main course yet.  How can one prepare all of these treats in a manner that will bring out the best of each and, while multitasking, still have time to press the grapes and ferment the extract for brandy (I’ll get to that in another blog).  For me, this is where I sought help and in so doing I learned how to prepare Sushi, from an expert.

Now, he said he was an expert, and not being trained in the art, and living out in the wilds of New Jersey, how was I to know.  He did work in the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thia, Brazilian fast food diner near where I live.  He also renders dead animals for the county in his spare time.  “The trick,” he said, “is to know your Wasabi.” 

I wasn’t really sure which religious denomination Wasabi falls into, I have enough trouble keeping all the holidays my wife and I have melded together in any semblance of order, but not wishing to offend the cook I just nodded my head in the affirmative and the lesson continued.  He then showed me how to cut sirloin and quarter-loins from the stock.  Now, I don’t really know much about fish, but this one must have been flown in from the pacific because it had four legs and a tail, but once we got the flow going the stuff was cut up in a hurry and thrown in the pot.  A few hours later we had baccala stew, or so he told me and this brings us back to the start…, there are millions of ways people will cook baccala to get you to eat it.  Try some, you’ll like it.

With a smile I return to my favorite quote:

“Don’t worry,” says Jim Gaffigan, “there is a bunny.”

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, he is  attempting is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion.  You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.

University Costs 101

Too Much News, Too Little Time

Too much news, too little time.  What to do.  What to do. What to do.  Await the coffee is always accounted for in my daily schedule, can’t really do anything without that, but then with cup in hand, which page do I start on?

Of course the Wikileaky guy is in the news, always is these days, he and the Kardashians make the headlines all the time.  Which one was it on the red carpet again telling the world their wedding cake had dangerous stones on it, and which one is hiding in a bunker in Switzerland?  Hell, I had stones in my kidneys and only the doctors took my picture, and no, I do not have a Swiss army knife.  I digress….  

There is a new virus running around that some fear will be the end of all computer traffic known to man, or just delay the nuclear development in Iran, whichever comes first.  Oh heaven forbid, back to the dark ages we go? 

And then there is that interesting bit about college football.  No, it is not the selection of teams to play in holiday bowl games.  It is that preposterous idea making the rounds that someone in college sports is being paid to make money for the ‘not for profit’ group to which he/she is under contract (or is that enrolled?).

While I ponder all of these extremely important issues of the day the dog sits nearby with her leash in her mouth, staring at me in a manner similar to the wife whenever I have neglected my household chores.

So off we go on this rather brisk morning (read: cold enough to make me put on two pairs of pants) for a jaunt through the neighborhood and as we walk past the intersection separating our cloister from the rest of the world one thing comes to mind.  I forgot “my proper cup of coffee made in a proper copper coffee pot.”  Merde!

For the dog, the colder the better, after all she is a Labrador Retriever.  For me, all I can do is curse the wife for leaving me behind with the animal while she is off at work earning money to keep me fed.  What nerve!

After a half mile or so of vetching to myself I turn to the dog, once her nose is up out of the pile of deer excrement, and ask, “What do you want to talk about?”  The dog chews on that for a while as she finishes her mouthful and as I drag her along to greener pastures I get the idea that she, like most, wants to discuss the Kardashians. 

“Again,” I shout?  “PLEASE!  Of all the headlines that is the one I do not have a twitter on, (I forget if it is Cim or Kloe who doesn't like me) so how the heck can I be up to date?  I mean if Kourtney Kardashian is wearing an outfit bought at the mall I've got to know.  Like, can you believe a Kardash shops at a mall (or is that 'like a Moll')?  But if no one in the paparazzi is there to photograph her, well; did the bear shit or not?  Hard to tell when the question rings philosophical, eh?”

The dog raises her head and sniffs the air around us, letting me know that to air is divine, and to critique, well..., that is common now isn’t it.  Then she licks her lips letting me know that I should have had my cuppa joe.

So to appease her I got off of the Kardash subject and looked around hoping to find a neighbor, or two, outside on such a frigid day who would be happy enough to pet the dog while I stomped my feet, but alas, no one seemed to want to be out on such a morning and this brought me back to wondering how my daughter was doing at college and this of course led to the issues with paying those who play football in college (minor league anyone) and then on to the more important issue; how can an average Joe without his cuppa Joe pay for college itself.  (One sentence, can you believe it?).

If colleges want to work in a ‘non profit’ environment how is it that their rates go up every year even in a down economy where recession is rampant?  How is it that they have placed their product outside the realm of middle class citizens and yet demand payment?  How is it that those who purport themselves to be bastions of intellect and the advancement of the human condition allow for the collapse of the middle class at a rate that exceeds any other threat?  If they are a non profit why is it those who run each and every institution are making, on average, 15 to twenty times the salary of the parents they are driving to the poor house.  That is right, college presidents are making 1MM plus..., are you?  Don’t worry they say, there are loans.  Of course the entire country’s recession is based upon people borrowing money at a rate that exceeds their income potential, but the intelligent ones in the Ivory towers tell you to borrow, borrow, borrow!  We saved money to send our kids to school.  We saved a lot of money for our kids education, roughly twenty times what it took to send us to college way back when.  The totals we saved, saved per child, is more than a years' salary for us.  So it is not like we did not try, but all of this money pays for less than one half of a four year college tuition. 

Now, a large number of universities have rather large endowments.  Why cannot the money in those endowments be placed in the proper investment vehicles that will return a sum of money each year (not for profit) that can be used to cut the tuition rate to allow people to enter college?  Who wants to end their time in college with the stigma of 100,000 dollar plus in loans that will be due.  Of course those wonderful Universities also have that side industry known as college football right? How much money is made each year from the college football program?  Answer that, then tell us you are 'not for profit'.  Oh, by the way, Go Auburn, your guys are above that mess, right?

Isn’t it time for the U.S. to get off the money laundering habit of University tuition and redirect our institutions of higher learning to be more along the lines of those found in Canada and Europe.  Then the government can afford to step back in and help the middle class.

Sometimes its funny and sometimes it hits home too hard to be funny.

In this case, no matter what Jim Gaffigan says, there is no bunny.

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.  You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.