St Luke of the Blizzard?
Only in Cleveland, kids, only in Cleveland.
After the radical ice storm that threatened the Ohio Presidential Primary on Tuesday, a wild snowstorm created chaos along the North Coast on this Friday of Lent. But hey, what's a foot of snow when there are yet-untried Fish Frys to be explored?
By about 4:30pm, I think Sarah and I had each called St Luke's about 10 times to inquire as to whether or not their fish fry was still "on" for the evening (since everything ELSE on earth had been called off in honor of Mother Nature.) We believe we are thus personally responsible for their deciding to move ahead with the Fish Fry--after all of those calls, they probably thought they had a huge throng of people just YEARNING to come there and decided not to let us down, right?
Thankfully, we were not the only ones there! The parking lot was surprisingly full even in the crazy weather.
This was the fabulous week for Tom K to experience a church lenten fish fry for the FIRST TIME EVER! (Brigid, I can't remember if this was your first one too?)
We did have to observe, just for the record, that if those darned kids on That Seventies Show had been churchgoers, THIS would have been the basement where they had their youth group. (What IS it with churches still looking like it is 1970-something?)
Fab features of this particular fry included
*Live music by a guy on a guitar with a really rather extensive playlist. We had to wonder: when he was a teenager with a guitar, jamming and learning all of these songs, did he secretly dream of growing up to be Fish Fry Guitar Guy?
*Cheese pizza for $2.50--and it turned out to be an actual Domino's Personal Cheese pizza, box and all. For some reason we found this to be sorta hilarious.
*Extraordinarily on-task table bussers!
*Beer and wine available for a "free will offering". (I opted out 'cause i was gonna be driving people I love in a blizzard, for pete's sake, and had some wine when we got back home for late nite gaming....)
*A secret, hidden dessert table where you EARN that dessert by going on a treacherous, nearly impossible journey to find the hidden delicacies. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. Here's the thing: we saw CHILDREN with dessert (one of these kids was actually seriously too young even to WALK yet), but we didn't see the dessert table or anywhere that people were GETTING cookies. So we pretended that there was an insurmountable task of some sort that kept us from the dessert, and instead gloried in the dessert that Eric made and brought to my house afterward. It's just a better story to say that there was some epic journey involved that to admit that none of us could figure out where the cookies were. The fact is this: none of us could figure out where the cookies were. And we were too embarrassed to ask the little children.
One more week.....but that's getting ahead of ourselves, isn't it?
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Week 4: Dr. Martin Luther Evangelical Lutheran
Okay, I've been a little distracted and haven't kept up with the Fish Fry blog.....sorry!
So February 29 found us at Dr Martin Luther Evangelical Lutheran Church on Ridge Road in Brooklyn.
The atmosphere TOTALLY reminded me of the dinners at the protestant churches of my childhood in Ashtabula county, where the same spaces are used for all sorts of different gatherings. The room where we had dinner is clearly usually divided (by those collapsible walls I somehow associate with 1974) into little Sunday School classrooms, with blackboards hanging lower on the walls than I've ever seen anywhere else and little-kid-Sunday-School crafts hanging on the walls and even from the light fixtures!
On this day, though, the walls were pushed back as far as they could go to allow for the tables to be set up; the hallway was full of bake sales/chocolate candy sales/etc; and a wonderfully friendly and helpful woman welcomed us, explaining the many options on the plentiful menu.
All told, the food was TERRIFIC. I somehow ended up with the double-slaw Matt created when he emptied one container into another because he wanted the paper cup to carry tartar sauce back to the table (?!?)....ridiculous on both of our parts, probably, huh? :)
We loved the homemade kolache so much that it didn't really matter all that much what the purple stuff OR the yellow stuff was (blueberry and pineapple, it turns out. Some darling woman kept running back to the kitchen to get answers to our ludicrous queries.)
Bonus fun of the Fry: t-shirt reading. We took in quite a lot of t-shirt "literature" this time around (have I already mentioned the 70s?)
So at one point Matt, who btw was raised as a Lutheran, reads the word YMBALI emblazoned on the t-shirt of a person walking toward him and wonders what African language the word is from, and what it might mean. Not wanting to stare, I don't turn around to see this person, as I'm facing the other way and it's a small space.
Moments later, I turn and we both read the back of a t-shirt of someone sitting with their back to us; this t-shirt hybridizes Letterman's Top Ten List with Foxworthy's pre-5th grade antic, listing top ten ways to complete the sentence "You might be a Lutheran if..."
Neither of us can read the top ten list without getting uncomfortably close to the wearer, of course.
What I learned, however, is that YMBALI is not African for anything. It is Lutheran for "You might be a Lutheran if...."
These little cultural tidbits are a really important part of the Fish Fry Foray experience. We learn a lot of weird, random, cool stuff by going on this annual pilgrimage. Aren't you glad you're along for the ride?
:)
So February 29 found us at Dr Martin Luther Evangelical Lutheran Church on Ridge Road in Brooklyn.
The atmosphere TOTALLY reminded me of the dinners at the protestant churches of my childhood in Ashtabula county, where the same spaces are used for all sorts of different gatherings. The room where we had dinner is clearly usually divided (by those collapsible walls I somehow associate with 1974) into little Sunday School classrooms, with blackboards hanging lower on the walls than I've ever seen anywhere else and little-kid-Sunday-School crafts hanging on the walls and even from the light fixtures!
On this day, though, the walls were pushed back as far as they could go to allow for the tables to be set up; the hallway was full of bake sales/chocolate candy sales/etc; and a wonderfully friendly and helpful woman welcomed us, explaining the many options on the plentiful menu.
All told, the food was TERRIFIC. I somehow ended up with the double-slaw Matt created when he emptied one container into another because he wanted the paper cup to carry tartar sauce back to the table (?!?)....ridiculous on both of our parts, probably, huh? :)
We loved the homemade kolache so much that it didn't really matter all that much what the purple stuff OR the yellow stuff was (blueberry and pineapple, it turns out. Some darling woman kept running back to the kitchen to get answers to our ludicrous queries.)
Bonus fun of the Fry: t-shirt reading. We took in quite a lot of t-shirt "literature" this time around (have I already mentioned the 70s?)
So at one point Matt, who btw was raised as a Lutheran, reads the word YMBALI emblazoned on the t-shirt of a person walking toward him and wonders what African language the word is from, and what it might mean. Not wanting to stare, I don't turn around to see this person, as I'm facing the other way and it's a small space.
Moments later, I turn and we both read the back of a t-shirt of someone sitting with their back to us; this t-shirt hybridizes Letterman's Top Ten List with Foxworthy's pre-5th grade antic, listing top ten ways to complete the sentence "You might be a Lutheran if..."
Neither of us can read the top ten list without getting uncomfortably close to the wearer, of course.
What I learned, however, is that YMBALI is not African for anything. It is Lutheran for "You might be a Lutheran if...."
These little cultural tidbits are a really important part of the Fish Fry Foray experience. We learn a lot of weird, random, cool stuff by going on this annual pilgrimage. Aren't you glad you're along for the ride?
:)
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Week 3: The Catholic Worker Storefront
So this is the week that's probably most challenging.
For one thing, there are tasks involved: we're organizing and cooking and serving a meal instead of just going, paying up and enjoying the food and each other's company.
We're also going to meet a whole bunch of people and enjoy the company of people we don't usually dine with: the guests of the Catholic Worker Storefront.
The Storefront--sometimes referred to by some of the regulars as "the drop"--has been functioning since the mid-80s, as I recall. It's pulled together and supervised by the Catholic Worker Community of Cleveland, based at Whitman House. (For those of us familiar with the 'hood, Whitman House is the large house behind the St Patrick's Club Building at W.38th and Bridge.)
I wish there were time to give everyone a tutorial of sorts about the entire Catholic Worker "thing," but instead I guess we're going to sorta treat this week's foray as a sort of starting point; if we wanna learn more, we'll do that somewhere along the line. For the moment, I guess I'd just say this: Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker movement, was this incredibly humble, strong, wild, wonderful woman who I hold up as a personal hero. I wish like crazy that I'd had the chance to meet her in person....and one of the highest compliments of my life was when a priest-activist from Colombia told someone that I seemed a lot like Dorothy Day, to him....truly a startling and stunning moment, which I'm pretty sure I've never lived up to for more than about ten seconds at a time....still, it was nice to hear, and seems to strike me as a sort of calling....
ANYWAY: At the Storefront, we don't stand across a table at a distance from the 50 or so people who come in to get a hot meal and hang out for the evening. We do serve the meal and do the dishes--but we also fix a plate and sit down at the table with our guests, engaging in whatever conversations we discover, hearing each other's stories and maybe playing a card game or checkers or something.
I think we'll do most of the cooking ahead of time. We're planning on doing meatless rigatoni with lotsa cheese, probably some bread (maybe garlic bread?), maybe some green beans and something for dessert. There was a ton of pop/soda leftover from the NWTBenefit cast party, so we'll probably bring that along.
Anybody wanna cook at my house around 5:30/6:00pm? We'll need to be at the Storefront around 6:30pm, I hope, to have a little "introduction" by Peter Quilligan (I hope), then the doors open from 7pm till 9pm.
I'm hoping that afterward we can come back to my house for some wine, beer, hangout time and maybe play some board games or something fun....whaddaya think?
Lemme know if you're up for this week's fun.....I think it'll give us stuff to think about and talk about for a good long time, my friends. :)
Love ya! Can't wait!
Paula
For one thing, there are tasks involved: we're organizing and cooking and serving a meal instead of just going, paying up and enjoying the food and each other's company.
We're also going to meet a whole bunch of people and enjoy the company of people we don't usually dine with: the guests of the Catholic Worker Storefront.
The Storefront--sometimes referred to by some of the regulars as "the drop"--has been functioning since the mid-80s, as I recall. It's pulled together and supervised by the Catholic Worker Community of Cleveland, based at Whitman House. (For those of us familiar with the 'hood, Whitman House is the large house behind the St Patrick's Club Building at W.38th and Bridge.)
I wish there were time to give everyone a tutorial of sorts about the entire Catholic Worker "thing," but instead I guess we're going to sorta treat this week's foray as a sort of starting point; if we wanna learn more, we'll do that somewhere along the line. For the moment, I guess I'd just say this: Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker movement, was this incredibly humble, strong, wild, wonderful woman who I hold up as a personal hero. I wish like crazy that I'd had the chance to meet her in person....and one of the highest compliments of my life was when a priest-activist from Colombia told someone that I seemed a lot like Dorothy Day, to him....truly a startling and stunning moment, which I'm pretty sure I've never lived up to for more than about ten seconds at a time....still, it was nice to hear, and seems to strike me as a sort of calling....
ANYWAY: At the Storefront, we don't stand across a table at a distance from the 50 or so people who come in to get a hot meal and hang out for the evening. We do serve the meal and do the dishes--but we also fix a plate and sit down at the table with our guests, engaging in whatever conversations we discover, hearing each other's stories and maybe playing a card game or checkers or something.
I think we'll do most of the cooking ahead of time. We're planning on doing meatless rigatoni with lotsa cheese, probably some bread (maybe garlic bread?), maybe some green beans and something for dessert. There was a ton of pop/soda leftover from the NWTBenefit cast party, so we'll probably bring that along.
Anybody wanna cook at my house around 5:30/6:00pm? We'll need to be at the Storefront around 6:30pm, I hope, to have a little "introduction" by Peter Quilligan (I hope), then the doors open from 7pm till 9pm.
I'm hoping that afterward we can come back to my house for some wine, beer, hangout time and maybe play some board games or something fun....whaddaya think?
Lemme know if you're up for this week's fun.....I think it'll give us stuff to think about and talk about for a good long time, my friends. :)
Love ya! Can't wait!
Paula
Week 2: Sagrada Familia!
WOW--this is one of the most interesting fish frys we've been to, sez me!
It started at 3pm and we didn't really get there till about 6pm (except the fabulous and timely Matthew, who attests that most of the tables were full when he arrived). They actually completely ran out of food around the time of our arrival, of all crazy things--so they ended up closing down early and everyone EXCEPT us (as we were en route to NWT rehearsal) moved into the church space for the Stations of the Cross (which we accidentally interrupted with our usual over-loud laughter a few rooms away....d'oh!)
So we didn't get the full effect of the presumably large, milling and fascinating crowd, since most of us showed up late. I'm sorry to have missed it, and would like to go back again sometime, earlier, just to check out the entire scene of this particular fish fry.
When I came in and sat down by Matt, an older gentleman came over to welcome me--his hospitality and sense of welcome were so dear and engaging that even though I was coming down with the flu and couldn't really eat anything, he convinced me to get one of the pierogi meals--and the one pierogi I did eat was AMAZING! Huge, handmade, beautiful pierogies--woo hoo! (I took the other two to Sarah--she can comment for herself later on how they were cold, during rehearsal, I suppose....)
There were definitely varying views on the menu amongst our group--because this is one of those fish frys where they actually start with pieces of fish, not some pre-cut, pre-shaped, pre-processed stuff, but real fish that they bread themselves on site (and as far as we could tell, made the breading themselves, too). The side dishes COULD include pierogies, but there was also a beautiful hispanic/spanish style rice with beans that looked awesome and COMPLETELY different from anything we usually encounter at any of the Lenten fish frys, so even though I didn't get to eat any of that stuff, I think this one is well worth checking out just for the adventure and homey-ness and hospitality of it all....
Anybody else got any thoughts? (Post your comments below!)
NEXT UP: We cook and share a meal at The Catholic Worker Storefront on Friday, February 22. Details TBA ASAP!
It started at 3pm and we didn't really get there till about 6pm (except the fabulous and timely Matthew, who attests that most of the tables were full when he arrived). They actually completely ran out of food around the time of our arrival, of all crazy things--so they ended up closing down early and everyone EXCEPT us (as we were en route to NWT rehearsal) moved into the church space for the Stations of the Cross (which we accidentally interrupted with our usual over-loud laughter a few rooms away....d'oh!)
So we didn't get the full effect of the presumably large, milling and fascinating crowd, since most of us showed up late. I'm sorry to have missed it, and would like to go back again sometime, earlier, just to check out the entire scene of this particular fish fry.
When I came in and sat down by Matt, an older gentleman came over to welcome me--his hospitality and sense of welcome were so dear and engaging that even though I was coming down with the flu and couldn't really eat anything, he convinced me to get one of the pierogi meals--and the one pierogi I did eat was AMAZING! Huge, handmade, beautiful pierogies--woo hoo! (I took the other two to Sarah--she can comment for herself later on how they were cold, during rehearsal, I suppose....)
There were definitely varying views on the menu amongst our group--because this is one of those fish frys where they actually start with pieces of fish, not some pre-cut, pre-shaped, pre-processed stuff, but real fish that they bread themselves on site (and as far as we could tell, made the breading themselves, too). The side dishes COULD include pierogies, but there was also a beautiful hispanic/spanish style rice with beans that looked awesome and COMPLETELY different from anything we usually encounter at any of the Lenten fish frys, so even though I didn't get to eat any of that stuff, I think this one is well worth checking out just for the adventure and homey-ness and hospitality of it all....
Anybody else got any thoughts? (Post your comments below!)
NEXT UP: We cook and share a meal at The Catholic Worker Storefront on Friday, February 22. Details TBA ASAP!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Week 1: St Procop's
We began the 2008 Fabulous Fish Fry Tour of Northeast Ohio on the first Friday of Lent, of course (Feb 8, 2008) at our one and only annual stop: St Procop's Catholic Church.
St Procop's is located at 3181 West 41st Street, Cleveland, OH 44109.
Ten bucks for an adult meal, if I remember correctly.
***
How can you not love the food there? Omigosh, the menu is extensive--I had baked fish, three pierogi (each one weighed the same as my Saturn Ion, I swear) with sauteed onions on top (optional), coleslaw, applesauce, a roll with butter, french fries and a piece of cake.
Giving up meat on Friday has never been so easy! (I think I probably gained four pounds!)
Two of my favorite notes about the night:
a. St Procop's serves a free hot meal to hungry, perhaps generally homeless, people of the neighborhood most of the Fridays during the year. A number of those "regulars" didn't realize that "their" meal had been shifted to Thursday nights during Lent, and were showing up for their usual dinnertime. I wished I'd brought some extra cash to get someone a meal like the rest of us were having.....but was at least glad to be able to share the information that there would be a hot meal at the Catholic Worker Storefront (near 44th and Lorain, so relatively close-by) at 7pm. I would seriously value there being some way for more of the "usual" Friday night crowd at Procop's to be able to share in the Fish Fry extravaganzas there.....I don't know how to make that happen, though....
b. After we'd finished up our own meals, we took a meal over to our friend Mammy--who was one of the instigators and eternal-companions for the Fish Fry Tour--at St Augustine Manor. She was sound asleep when we arrived, but woke with joyful anticipation when she realized that if she couldn't join the Tour, the Tour would come find her!
Anybody else got any thoughts, stories, observations, favorite things, etc, about the Procop Fry that you'd like to share with the rest of us?
Stay tuned for Week 2: Sagrada Familia!
St Procop's is located at 3181 West 41st Street, Cleveland, OH 44109.
Ten bucks for an adult meal, if I remember correctly.
***
How can you not love the food there? Omigosh, the menu is extensive--I had baked fish, three pierogi (each one weighed the same as my Saturn Ion, I swear) with sauteed onions on top (optional), coleslaw, applesauce, a roll with butter, french fries and a piece of cake.
Giving up meat on Friday has never been so easy! (I think I probably gained four pounds!)
Two of my favorite notes about the night:
a. St Procop's serves a free hot meal to hungry, perhaps generally homeless, people of the neighborhood most of the Fridays during the year. A number of those "regulars" didn't realize that "their" meal had been shifted to Thursday nights during Lent, and were showing up for their usual dinnertime. I wished I'd brought some extra cash to get someone a meal like the rest of us were having.....but was at least glad to be able to share the information that there would be a hot meal at the Catholic Worker Storefront (near 44th and Lorain, so relatively close-by) at 7pm. I would seriously value there being some way for more of the "usual" Friday night crowd at Procop's to be able to share in the Fish Fry extravaganzas there.....I don't know how to make that happen, though....
b. After we'd finished up our own meals, we took a meal over to our friend Mammy--who was one of the instigators and eternal-companions for the Fish Fry Tour--at St Augustine Manor. She was sound asleep when we arrived, but woke with joyful anticipation when she realized that if she couldn't join the Tour, the Tour would come find her!
Anybody else got any thoughts, stories, observations, favorite things, etc, about the Procop Fry that you'd like to share with the rest of us?
Stay tuned for Week 2: Sagrada Familia!
Now We Begin
Okay, so for the first five years or so, the Fish Fry Tour was really just something we talked about over coffee.
Then for two years we actually started GOING to fish fries.
The SECOND year, we started talking about blogging our way through this experience.
And now, in our third fantastic year of the Fabulous Fish Fry Tour of Northeast Ohio, we're doing it: here, in all of its ludicrous glory, is our long-anticipated blog! WOO HOO!
I think the plan is for us to check in and post our thoughts about each week's fry experience--from the food itself to the prices, the ambiance and whatever other miscellaneous loveliness we encounter along the way....
Off we go, then, friends!
Then for two years we actually started GOING to fish fries.
The SECOND year, we started talking about blogging our way through this experience.
And now, in our third fantastic year of the Fabulous Fish Fry Tour of Northeast Ohio, we're doing it: here, in all of its ludicrous glory, is our long-anticipated blog! WOO HOO!
I think the plan is for us to check in and post our thoughts about each week's fry experience--from the food itself to the prices, the ambiance and whatever other miscellaneous loveliness we encounter along the way....
Off we go, then, friends!
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