Full Circle Fish
Today was an early March Friday at the tail end of this strangely no-so-cold winter in my little town. It was warmer than normal today, by a handful of degrees, which seemed to be the norm for this winter. I've seen people remark about our crazy winter fairly often over the past few months, but I haven't seen anyone break down and start sobbing that they've really, really missed the freezing temperatures, icy roadways or mountains of snow we've had in the past. Believe me when I say I've enjoyed this warm winter a lot. I'm enough a believer in karma and what goes around, comes around to figure we'll probably pay for our good luck down the road, but that'll be a subject for another blog.
Since it was Friday there were certain things that I did which were habit for me on the last day of the work week. First off I visited my gym and went through the last of my thrice-weekly efforts of raising a sweat, breathing hard and working muscles that are reticent about having to do those tasks. I finished my hour amongst my fellow huffing and puffing oldies and then sat to dry the sweat. It was then 11:30, so I changed my shoes to go outside to the car. Next stop was the library where I perused the DVD's and eyed the rack of new books. After making some selections I ambled upstairs to grab a magazine and page through it to kill some time while I waited for the noon hour to arrive. At that point I would walk across the street to our “Friday” restaurant and meet my wife for lunch.
As I sat there eying the magazine, my mind wandered here and there and finally settled on the topic of my upcoming lunch. I think my stomach was instrumental in my mind's decision to go there as it was reminding me that it had been simply AGES since we'd had anything pass our lips that resembled food. I reminded my stomach that it had been less than four hours and that he could just tough it out for another dozen minutes or so. He rumbled his noisy acceptance and I again thought about my upcoming lunch.
I've mentioned in previous blogs about my wife's and my Friday inclination to eat at a particular restaurant and my specific inclination to partake of that institution's normally memorable fried fish dinner. I'd also previously mentioned on how darn great that meal usually was, how the fish was fried to perfection, golden and crunchy with cornmeal on the outside with flaky, hot and juicy meat inside. How you could pick up one of the fillets and dip in into the creamy tartar sauce and how the hot oil would run down your chin as you savored the delicious bite.
I always considered those fish lunches as something special.
I also mentioned earlier that sometime last summer the toothsomeness of the fish dinner had begun to decline and, unfortunately it wasn't a gradual diminishing of tastiness. It was a precipitous decline, a veritable fall-off-the-cliff decline in the aforementioned fish's “yum” factor.
It's quality had gone from either the best fish in town or, at worst, equal to the best in town to a definite also-ran.
It was sad and I had mentioned it to the owner. He stated that he was aware of the problem and was diligently working toward a resolution. Of course he neither had the time during the noon rush nor the inclination to go into details to his customers as to the reason for the fishy failures. I assumed he was apparently working toward a solution and let it go at that.
For a number of Fridays after that I ordered from other parts of the menu. The food was good but the fish, which I occasionally retried, simply wasn't. From some conversations during that period I found that I wasn't the only person who'd noticed the difference. It was all so sad.
I suppose I should state for the record that I'm not a gourmet or a gourmand. Apparently there is a difference. Nor am I a professional food critic although I watch 'em on TV and enjoy their antics.
I am, perhaps, in the food-judging arena, more like Popeye the Sailor Man – I yam what I yam. Or, in my case, I know what I like.
And I didn't like the fish anymore. Dammit!
I still liked the other stuff on the menu. The sandwiches, the breakfast stuff, the soups and salads. I still liked the staff and the owners. My wife's and my comfort level there was still quite high, so we still frequented the establishment most Fridays.
But the fish... Dammit!
We would occasionally sneak off on a Friday and partake of other restaurant's offerings and I would try their fish. It was generally good, some even quite good. But it wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same. I toyed with the idea of abandoning our fav and staking out another but never quite did.
Then, a couple weeks ago, the owner of our Friday place flagged me down as I was leaving his restaurant and told me to try the fish again on my next visit. “Just tell the waitress to give ya a free piece on me,” he'd said.
I'd looked at him askance as if to say that we'd gone down that road before and things hadn't improved much. If at all.
He again told me to give it another shot.
I agreed to take him up on his offer and headed out the door.
The next week I decided to go ahead and give 'er another try, so I ordered the fish special. I was a little apprehensive as the owner's last effort(s) to “fix” things had come up bust. But much to my delight, much to the satisfaction of my happy-again taste buds, the fish THIS time was GOOD. Doggone good! It was again moist and flaky on the inside and wonderfully golden and crunchy on the outside. It was just the same as I had remembered. We'd come full circle!
HURRAH!
I savored each bite and, when finished, mopped my oily lips in sated satisfaction as I smiled and smiled.
So today when I walked across the street to my again favorite Friday restaurant there was a bit of an unaccustomed spring in my step and a bit of an unaccustomed gleam in my eye that had nothing to do with the weather. I was going to eat fish again and it was going to be good
And you know what?
It was!
