Uh, oh, mama is cookin’ that fish that showed up eons ago in Scandinavia in such quantities that they had to figure out lots of ways to preserve it and so dried it, salted it, ate it fresh and in short, became addicted to what is known here as morue and stoccafissa and baccalá in Italy and all sorts of other names wherever it is eaten and I am drooling—I mean literally dripping little cat drips of saliva down my adorable tiny muzzle, but I just know she’s not gonna give me ANY of it (deep-fried in a tasty beer batter and served with lemon—forget the lemon, I can’t have lemon anyway because it’s one of those weird “don’t give this to your cat” things like chocolate, garlic, wine, you name it and I love ALL THREE of those even if I only sniff the vino to let mama and papa know if it’s drinkable, what vintage, etc. But fried morue—oh, boy, let me at it.
There it goes!!! Into the hot oil, sizzling and puffing up a little (there’s yeast in the batter, too) and now mama’s taking roast potatoes and broccoli flowerettes out of the oven, all crispy and brown and toasty with rosemary and sage leaves out of our garden and I think I’m gonna faint. Note the use of ‘our’ garden—it’s really mama’s project most of the time except when papa takes a little tour through the July tomatoes and make the appropriate comments about his future bowls of fresh tomato soup, pappa al pomodoro, homemade Mexican salsa for burritos, tomatoes with mozzarella and so on, because he is NOT a gardener, but he is a very, very good eater and has a golden palate (mama says) and can tell in a bite if there is even a tiny bit of some odd ingredient in a dish mama has put together. So they make a great pair—she cooks, he eats. How many couple do YOU know who just love going to the supermarket together as if it were the hottest date spot in town? That’s what I call luv.
Besides, they’re going there for that cat food with my picture on it (it’s all I’ll eat—Purina knows where to hit a lady—there I am, right on the package, except I think I’m a bit cuter than that model and maybe next time they’ll let me know about the cats-ing call).
Now I’ve got a tiny piece of that battered cod on my plate and man, that would make the phone book taste good!
You know those fish and chips they used to serve in merry olde England that are so hard to find now because they use hake instead of cod and don’t even pay attention to the batter—well, this cod and batter and chips taste like the old days, the fish and chips mama had with her friend, Nan, when they were staying at the Dorchester for a month in the days of the Beatles. But that’s another story.
