Fish sticks

Salmon fish sticks.

I love the bit in the Revenge of the Nerds movie where the nerd is asked, "Don't you know what this writing on my hat means?" The nerd responds, "Malcolm ten?"

Later, the nerds marvel at the dinner prepared at the home of their hero who is now a Bill Gates type character sold out to success and now a changed personality, no longer a genuine nerd. The nerd hero asks over dinner, "What's wrong?" The nerd answers, "It's just that I've never seen fish before that wasn't in stick form."

Just the idea of fish sticks cracks me up.

I recall my mom reheating frozen fish sticks when I was in the first grade. She also heated breaded scallops. I picked off the breading revealing white disks. I put my disks together forming a cylinder. I asked her if scallops were really a snake that was cut up. My mom laughed and answered, "Yes." Suspicion confirmed, I lived with this untruth for an additional 16 years.

Scene II: Cape Cod, oyster shack. The proprietor had a large poster behind the fish counter depicting various seafood items. I noted the scallops were pictured, as, well, scallops. I said to the owner, a rough looking fellow unshaven and with an unclean white apron and twice my weight, "Your fish poster is wrong," with all of the certainty of a twenty-one year old. The owner sneered, "Oh yeah? What's wrong with it?" He implied the word "punk."  I go, "your poster shows scallop like a clam and it's really a snake that is chopped up." He looked at me hard and pathetically, then laughed like I was totally retarded. Then carefully explained the truth and the details behind their preparation. I blame my mother.

* Lightly sautéed in coconut oil
* Madras curry powder, garlic powder, S/P
* The trick, if there is one, is to cook these minimally.
* I tend to over-season things, because that's just the way I roll.
* Hand-mixed mayonnaise, because once you discover the joy of hand-mixing mayonnaise, you'll never go back. This was made with olive oil, which is oddly traduced as being too strong for mayonnaise. This confounds me greatly and I dismiss the criticism as irrational, then proceed to load it up with other strong flavors, chiefly mustard, which I inevitably mix with mayonnaise anyway so I might as well put it in directly. Garlic and ginger.