By Monday morning I walked into my kitchen at Hodge Elementary and Shirley from the front office was already standing by the steam table with that look on her face. You know that look. The one that means something has changed and you are the last to know and there is nothing you can do about it but you are expected to handle it. Twelve new transfer students, she said. From a school over in Chatham County that’s being renovated. Twelve more children sitting down to lunch today, same budget as Friday.
I said, “Shirley, did anybody think to call me before this morning?”
She gave me the other look. The one that means no.
So I did what my mama Hattie Pearl would have done, which is what I always do: I looked at what I had and I figured out what it could become. The menu said baked chicken with green beans and rolls. The chicken was not going to stretch to four hundred and twelve trays without getting embarrassing about it — you know what I mean, those thin little slivers of chicken that look like they’re apologizing for existing. I will not serve food that apologizes. So I pulled every piece of chicken I had off the bone, mixed it with cream of mushroom and some peas from the back freezer, and turned it into pot pie filling. Made biscuits from scratch in forty-five minutes. Ladled the filling right over the top.
Baby, those children ate. The two new brothers — skinny little boys, the kind of skinny that tells a story — came back for seconds and I gave them thirds without waiting to be asked. I have been written up twice in thirty-one years for exceeding the food budget and I wear both of those write-ups like a medal of honor. If somebody wants to fuss at me for feeding a hungry child, they are welcome to come down here and do it to my face.
But that’s school. At home this week it was fish.
Earl’s doctor has been on him about eating more fish since the heart attack. This is not news — it’s been the doctor’s song for thirteen years now and Earl has been humming along with it reluctantly for just as long. What Earl wants for dinner is smothered pork chops. What Earl gets is fish. This is love. This is marriage. This is what thirty-nine years looks like on a Wednesday night.
I made him grilled fish three nights this week and he only complained twice, which I am counting as progress. The third night — Thursday — I made the tilapia with lemon thyme butter sauce, and he didn’t say a word about wanting pork chops. He just ate. He went back for a second piece. And when I asked him how it was, he said, “It’s adequate,” which in this house means the same thing as a standing ovation.
I’ll get back to that recipe in a minute, because I want to tell you something about thyme first.
I have got thyme growing in the raised beds out back, the ones Earl built me years ago, and that thyme has been out there all winter being stubborn and alive. We’ve had some cold snaps this January — nothing like up North, I know, but cold enough for Savannah — and I figured I’d lost it. But I went out Saturday morning before I started the perloo and I crouched down next to the bed, and there it was. Green. Holding on. I stood up and my knees complained about it, and I looked at that little thyme plant and thought: you and me both, baby. You and me both.
I pulled some sprigs for the fish and some for the perloo and I went back inside feeling like I had gotten away with something.
Now, perloo. If you were here last week you already know I’m a Lowcountry woman, so I don’t need to explain myself about the perloo. But in case you wandered in from somewhere else, let me say this: perloo is rice cooked in chicken broth with the chicken pulled right in, onions, celery, herbs, and patience. Some people call it pilau. Some people spell it six different ways. Some people who don’t know better call it “rice casserole” and those people are not invited to my table. It is one of the oldest dishes in this part of the world and it is what I make when I need something that feels like home in a pot.
I made a big batch Saturday in the pot Earl’s mother gave us when we got married — Lord rest her, she could cook — and took a plate next door to Miss Corrine. Miss Corrine is eighty-six years old and lives alone and her children are somewhere down in Florida being useless about it, so I check on her. I knock on her door most Saturdays with whatever I’ve got.
She tasted the perloo and she said it was “adequate.”
Now you see where I get it from. I have been living next to this woman for twelve years and I think she has used the word “adequate” to describe everything from a pot roast to a sunset. From Miss Corrine, adequate means you did good. I have learned to hear it that way.
I sat with her for an hour. She told me about her husband Harold who died in 1979, how he used to bring her gardenias from the yard, how she still grows them because she can’t stop. I told her about James Jr. — my oldest brother, gone from prostate cancer last year — and how I keep reaching for the phone to call him and then remembering. We didn’t cry. Women our age have done most of our crying already. We just sat close in her little front room with the gardenias on the windowsill and let the afternoon go by.
Sometimes that’s the whole meal. The sitting close.
Kayla called Thursday, between the fish dinner and the nightly news. She’s got midterms and she sounds tired. Not the bad kind of tired — the kind of tired that means you’re in the middle of something. Running toward something. I remember that tired from — well, I don’t know if I remember it exactly. I went from the shrimp plant to marriage to babies without much space for running toward anything. But I know what it sounds like, and I like hearing it in her voice. Means she’s going somewhere.
I told her to eat something besides ramen noodles and she said, “Grandma, nobody calls them ramen noodles anymore.”
I said, “I don’t care what they call them, they’re not food.”
She laughed. I sent her twenty dollars through that phone app Denise showed me. She’ll probably buy ramen with it but at least she’ll know I was thinking about her. That’s what the twenty dollars is really for.
Earl walked to the end of the driveway and back on Wednesday. Didn’t stop, didn’t need to rest. I watched him from the kitchen window and I didn’t say anything when he came back in because I didn’t want to make too much of it and embarrass him. But I said a quiet thank-you to the Lord and I made him a piece of that tilapia that night with extra butter in the sauce, because the doctor says less butter and I say occasionally the doctor can mind his own business.
Not often. But occasionally.
Here’s the thing about cooking for a man who’s supposed to eat healthy: you have to make the healthy thing so good that he forgets what he’s missing. That is the whole game. Earl knows his body needs fish. Earl also knows his soul wants pork chops. My job is to make the fish taste close enough to joy that his soul gets quiet. Lemon does that. Butter does that. Fresh thyme from the garden does that. A hot cast iron skillet and four minutes on each side and a sauce you make right in the pan while the fish rests — that does that.
He ate it without complaining. I’m writing it down so I remember.
That night, after Earl went to bed without a word of complaint, I wrote the recipe down — every step, every measurement — because a small victory like that deserves to be remembered and repeated. This is the fish that made a stubborn man quiet in the best possible way, and I’ve made it enough times now to know exactly what it needs. Here’s how I do it.
Pan Fried Tilapia with Lemon Thyme Butter Sauce
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 4 tilapia fillets (about 6 oz each), patted dry
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/3 cup chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1 large lemon)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried, but fresh is better if you have it)
- 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped, for finishing
- Lemon slices, for serving
Instructions
- Season the fish. Mix the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika together in a small bowl. Pat your tilapia fillets completely dry with paper towels — this is not optional, this is how you get a good sear. Season both sides of each fillet with the spice mix.
- Heat the skillet. Set your cast iron or heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter. Let that butter melt and get a little foamy. You want the pan hot enough that the fish sizzles the second it touches it.
- Sear the fillets. Lay the tilapia in the pan and do not touch it. Not for four minutes. I know you want to lift it and check. Don’t. Let it build its crust. After four minutes, flip it gently and cook the other side for three to four minutes, until it flakes easily with a fork. Remove the fish to a plate and tent loosely with foil to rest.
- Build the sauce. Turn the heat down to medium. Add the minced garlic to the same pan and cook it for thirty seconds, stirring, until it smells good. Pour in the chicken broth and lemon juice. Let it bubble and reduce for about two minutes, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan — that’s flavor, don’t waste it.
- Finish with butter and herbs. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter to the sauce one tablespoon at a time, stirring until it melts in and the sauce looks glossy and smooth. Stir in the lemon zest and fresh thyme leaves. Taste it. Adjust salt and pepper if needed.
- Plate and serve. Lay your tilapia fillets on plates, spoon that sauce generously over the top, scatter the fresh parsley over everything, and add a lemon slice on the side. Serve with whatever vegetable the doctor told your husband he needs to eat more of. In this house, that’s usually roasted broccoli or green beans. Earl eats them without too much editorial comment.
Notes from my kitchen: You can use any mild white fish here — flounder, cod, or catfish all work. The thyme is what makes it taste like something growing instead of something processed, so use fresh if you have it. If your husband looks at his plate and says “where’s the pork?”, remind him that his doctor said his numbers are improving and so is his walking, and that butter and lemon are not rabbit food, they are French cooking, and the French have been enjoying themselves for centuries. That usually settles it.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 298 | Protein: 36g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 3g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 390mg
Now go on and feed somebody.