Sunday, January 18, 2009

Local/not so local



My friend Dan, who grew up working-class in Burlington, used to catch smelts in Lake Champlain when he was a kid and sell them to Ray's Seafood to supplement the family income. I don't know whether the smelts that usually show up in the grocery stores in winter are locally ice-fished or not, but they are cheap ($4.29/lb yesterday) and tasty, especially when fried:



I don't cook them too much because H is not too keen on the small bones (which are totally edible, and good for you to boot) and the kids are squeamish about eating fish that, well, looks like a fish. To spruce up the rest of the meal, and try to pretend it isn't winter, I went in a tropical-fruit direction — serving the fish with a little leftover Cranberry-Mango Vinaigrette I had in the fridge:



... a brown rice salad with pomegranate seeds and pineapple:



... and the cabbage salad with golden raisins and almonds — dressed only with extra-virgin olive oil, salt & pepper (no vinegar) — which is the best nutrition-into-kids delivery mechanism in our house (here made with napa cabbage):

1 comment:

Heather Riemer said...

mmm...yummy...but better with spines pulled out--and not so hard to do