Fish Stick Supper

The cold settled in for a serious run — single digits at night and teens during the day for the better part of the week — and the house and I settled into the kind of cold-weather rhythm that is comfortable to me in a way that is hard to explain to people who did not grow up wood-heated. The temperature outside becomes, in this kind of week, less an enemy than an audience, the cold watching to see whether you are going to keep the stove fed and the pipes from freezing and the kitchen warm and the dog walked, and the satisfaction of doing all those things in the face of the cold is one of the small unrecognized pleasures of a Vermont life. The cold does not care if you succeed. But you know whether you did. And on a week like this, with the stove fed and the pipes drained at the back room and the dog walked twice in his coat (which he tolerates with the dignified disdain of a working dog being asked to wear a sweater), I succeeded, and the success has a flavor.

Made chowder Tuesday — the New England clam chowder, made the way I make it, which is the way Helen made it, which is essentially the way Helen's mother made it: salt pork rendered in the bottom of the heavy pot, onion sweated in the rendered fat, potatoes cubed and added with their water, then the canned clams and their broth, then the milk and cream brought up gently to a steam (never a boil, the milk will break), and a finishing knob of butter and a heavy crack of black pepper. The chowder is white and forgiving and smells of the ocean even five hundred miles inland, and a bowl of it on a single-digit night is the kind of supper that justifies the entire institution of supper. I ate two bowls. The dog watched. He got nothing. Clam chowder is not for dogs.

The Friday vets coffee was canceled because of the cold — Phil sent a text Thursday night saying the heat at the Legion was acting up and the room would not be warm enough for the gathering, and would we reconvene the following Friday assuming the furnace cooperated. I texted back: agreed. The brevity of the exchange is the entire texture of those Friday gatherings translated into the medium of a phone screen. We will see each other next week or the week after and pick up exactly where we left off, which is almost nowhere because we never go anywhere in particular in the conversation. We just sit together. We just are together. Phil has called this once, when I asked him what he thought we were doing in those Friday mornings, and he said: we are veterans of a war we do not discuss who are still alive in a town that mostly does not remember what we were. That is the entire description of the gathering. I have not improved on it.

James called Thursday evening from Burlington. He had a question about a recipe that did not require a recipe — could he scramble eggs for his partner Sam without breaking them too soft, since Sam likes them firmer than James does. I walked him through it on the phone — low heat, steady stir, take them off when they look slightly underdone because they will continue to set in the pan, salt at the end — and he reported back on Friday that the eggs had been a success and Sam had been pleased. James is the grandchild who calls me about food more than the others, despite working in IT and despite having historically eaten more frozen pizza than anyone in the family, and the calls have been increasing in the past year, since he and Sam moved in together. A man who is suddenly cooking for someone else discovers that the cooking matters. James has discovered this. He will keep discovering it for the rest of his life, the way I did.

The chowder was Tuesday’s triumph, but the week had more cold nights in it than one pot of soup can answer for, and on the nights when the stove was fed and the dog was walked and I did not have the energy for a full production, I turned to what Helen used to call a “no-argument supper” — something that got warm food on the table without requiring a committee meeting. Fish stick supper is that: it keeps the ocean in the kitchen without demanding much in return, and after a week of single-digit temperatures and canceled gatherings and the quiet satisfaction of simply holding the house together, a no-argument supper felt exactly right.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 package (about 24 oz) frozen fish sticks
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 can (15 oz) corn, drained
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sour cream (for serving, optional)
Lemon wedges (for serving)
Malt vinegar or tartar sauce (for serving)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet with foil or parchment.
Season the potatoes. Toss potato wedges with olive oil, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper until evenly coated. Spread in a single layer on one half of the prepared baking sheet.
Roast the potatoes. Place potatoes in the oven and roast for 10 minutes before adding the fish.
Add the fish sticks. Arrange frozen fish sticks in a single layer on the other half of the baking sheet. Return to oven and bake 15–18 minutes more, turning fish sticks once halfway through, until golden and crispy and potatoes are tender and browned at the edges.
Warm the corn. While the fish and potatoes finish, heat corn in a small saucepan over medium-low heat with butter, a pinch of salt, and a crack of black pepper. Stir occasionally until heated through, about 5 minutes.
Plate and serve. Divide fish sticks, potato wedges, and buttered corn among four plates. Serve with lemon wedges and malt vinegar or tartar sauce alongside. Sour cream on the potatoes is optional but no-argument good.

Nutrition (per serving)

Fish Stick Supper — When the Ocean Finds You Five Hundred Miles Inland