Another date with lutefisk.
Today at the coffee shop, my buddy Craig, a Norwegian bachelor farmer*, let on that today was the day they were serving lutefisk up at West Emmanuel Lutheran Church, in Star Prairie. I hadn't been planning on it, but we decided to make a run up there.
I always like the West Emmanuel because they serve rutabaga. Craig can’t eat the stuff; makes his throat close up, just like the shellfish does. But it does lend a dash of color to an otherwise monochromatic meal.
The fisk was really good today, nice and flaky, looking more like it used to be fish, and less like fish jello. The Tabasco is a good idea, one that has occurred to me before. More usual is some hot prepared mustard, but we didn’t bring any today, and nobody at the table had any.
We usually bring a bigger group, and can command a whole table to ourselves. Today, with no prior warning, it was just the two of us, but the rest of the table was congenial. Sitting directly across from me, a rather attractive matron was sporting an unusual and unruly haircut. It wasn’t spiky like punk hair, but looked more like ruffled chicken feathers. In retrospect, I should have asked her about it, or not.
That is about it for my lutefisk season this year, but in a couple of weeks we will go down to New Trier to St.Mary’s for a German sausage dinner, with fresh homemade sausage, German potato salad, some sauerkraut and other good stuff. They tap a keg of beer, have some games of chance, and put the Vikings game on the TV, stuff you would never see the Lutherans do.
My stepfather was a pretty sophisticated cook, so I used to scoff when he would sing the praises of church basement suppers, which I always associated with jello-and-marshmallow desserts. But I have come to appreciate his wisdom in such matters.
