Corn and Salmon: Two Meals

For two nights in a row, we've been playing at eating summer. Monday was gorgeous...as close to a real summer as it gets around Isolationville. Seventy degrees, beautiful blue skies, a light breeze to scare away the bugs. We took a long walk with Baby Girl and DogNextDoor to the public docks and let DND play in the water. When I went to the store later, I couldn't resist the corn (probably should have...the cut end was starting to ferment) and they had affordable and ripe avocados, so a summer meal was born! Our produce selection has improved dramatically over the last month. Part of that is just increased summer traffic; our store goes from one produce delivery a week to several. But there's new management, too, over the winter, and they're doing really lovely things. There was ginger. Actual, fresh ginger. I hardly know what to do with myself.

Anyway. So dinner Monday night was salmon, avocado, grape tomato, and red pepper salad with cilantro, green onion, and lime juice, and corn on the cob. Very tasty. We had some of the salmon leftover, and I had just cooked it with salt and pepper, so it was completely flexible as an ingredient the next night. We also had two ears of corn left. So for dinner last night, I combined the corn kernels, the salmon, green onions, sauteed onion and red pepper, cilantro, and a light fritter batter, and made corn-salmon fritter-cakes. The pictures didn't turn out very well, as you can see.

We ate the cakes with a big heap of finely shredded romaine, lightly dressed again with sushi vinegar, sesame oil, and salt. A sweet chile sauce finished off the meal.

As I was shredding the lettuce, I was taken back to my meat-eating days. One of my favorite sandwiches, and the last meaty meal I ate, was a good hard salami with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Now, I realize how heretical that might have been, but it was tasty! Really good delis would make their sandwiches with finely shredded lettuce rather than whole or torn leaves, and the texture added a certain something.

When people ask me if I miss eating meat, the answer is not really. I miss certain foods that happen to feature meat, but it's not necessarily the meat that I miss. This sandwich is like that. I love the spice of the salami with the crunch of the lettuce and the creaminess of the mayo, all on a good, crunchy roll. The meat was definitely part of a larger package. I haven't eaten red meat or poultry for over twenty years, and it's still very particular dishes that I think about, not the meat at their center or side or wherever it was.

All that from shredding my lettuce.

Comments