For Christians, Lent is a season of solemn reflection on the trials of Jesus Christ in the desert; its central themes are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. All very noble concepts, if a not a little dour. Lent is also a time to enjoy delicious fried fish on Fridays, all thanks to a longstanding Catholic ban on Friday meat-eating during the season (which may or may not have been a giveaway to fisheries special interests — some things never change).

Martha and I have been taking full advantage of the season: we started with the wonderfully iconic Fish Fry at Saint Albert the Great’s. The very next week, we were off to the Red Stag Supper Club for the restaurant fish fry experience. I go out of my way to avoid talking about restaurants on this blog, so of the Red Stag I will say only this: I have seen the future of fish fries and it is sprayable malt vinegar. That’s right, malt vinegar in atomizers. Everyone should be doing this.

Having done the church and restaurant things, the only venue remaining for our Lenten self-denial was our own home. Part of my motivation was a desire to pay tribute to the recently destroyed Blackbird Café, who for a long time sold a “Fish Fry” on their menu consisting of deep-fried breaded salmon fingers, fries, and tamari-beurre blanc, garnished with a lime and pickled ginger. I have vivid memories of this dish: my burning of the beurre blanc not once but twice occasioned my first severe dressing down in my short time in a professional kitchen (there would be more!). A dish tinged with penance and regret, what better meal for Lent?

Our fish was salmon, which I cut in to strips, salted and peppered, and had Martha take care of the breading, using flour, eggs and breadcrumbs. Martha learned the hard way the importance of strict adherence to a wet-hand, dry-hand regime when breading. All Lenten meals should offer such learning opportunities.

On the side of these salmon fries, I cooked french fries using the usual two-stage method (blanch at 325ºF and finish at 375ºF). Since I had no reason to expect my beurre blanc to turn out any better than it had the first two times, I steered away from it for the sauce, choosing instead my old Turkish friend tarator. Tarator is, after all, a natural accompaniment to fish. To be extra fancy, I sieved the tarator after blending it, making it nice and smooth.

Comparing the home fish-fry experience to that of the church and the supper club, I can say my biggest deficiency at home is the lack of a commercial fryer. Whereas the cooks at the Red Stag can throw a pound of fish or potatoes in the fryer and expect a fluctuation of no more than a few degrees, my addition of that much food to a pathetic gallon of oil drops the temperature by more than 100ºF. And our pitiful little apartment stove just can’t kick out the BTUs to improve the situation very quickly. It doesn’t mean you can’t fry at home, it just means it’s going to take longer. But really, what’s your hurry? It’s Lent; use the extra time to reflect, damnit.

Just don’t spend so much time reflecting that you don’t realize the season’s almost over! In fact, this Friday is the last day to enjoy delicious Lenten fried fish, be it at a church, a restaurant, or at home (Good Friday is a fast day, FYI). Of course you could also fry fish after Easter, but that just wouldn’t be the same, would it?

Saint Albert was almost not a saint at all, thanks to the discovery during his beatification process of extensive studies of the occult: black magic. Among his writings on the subject was found a recipe for a depilatory potion that required burning a large frog whole and mixing the ashes with water then spreading the mixture on the to-be-hairless area. In the end though, Albert did earn his sainthood and luckily for us the Catholic parish in Seward bearing his name hasn’t taken any cooking cues from their patron; instead of burning it they prepare some of the finest fried and baked fish available for Lent, served for your convenience in two fast-moving lines. It’s the church fish-fry of the season and after the great time we had last year, Martha and I were not going to miss it.

Last year, we came on the last Friday of the Fish Fry’s operation, and it was crowded: line-wrapping-all-the-way-around-the-room crowded. This year we were a little more on the ball and showed up the second Friday of Lent. The room was certainly still full, but the line was not nearly as long and we were able to purchase our tickets ($10 for adults) and get our fish and sides in short order. So my advice to anyone thinking of visiting the great Saint Albert’s but intent on skipping the line is to get there sooner than later, before people realize Lent is almost over. Then again, waiting in line can be pretty fun; there are lots of interesting people to talk to.

The Catholic church sometimes gets a bad rep for being conservative, reactionary, even regressive. But it’s also rarely fair to judge individual parishes by the policy of the church as a whole, and without intending to direct any specific critcisms of St. Albert’s I’d like to commend them for their very environmentally-friendly reusable ticket system. I’d like to think I got the same ticket as last year!

There are a lot of reasons to make it down to Saint Albert’s for the fish fry: the always friendly volunteers who do everything from serving your food to clearing your plate, the irrepressible wit and humor of Fr. Joe Gillespie who works the crowd for the evening, microphone in hand, the bingo. But ultimately a fish fry is about the food. Given how much I enjoyed it last year, I was glad to see that the menu was unchanged from last year: in order there was: cheesy mashed potatoes, fried Alaskan Pollack, baked Alaskan Pollack, meatless spaghetti, cole slaw, rolls and of course tartar sauce and lemon wedges. Immediately after the savory line there’s a whole table of desserts to tempt you, but I’d recommend maintaining one free hand to pick up a glass of lemonade on your way to find a seat. You can always go back for dessert. And more fish.

The food prompted no complaints from me: who can object to lemon spritzed fried fish with tartar sauce? As with last year, though, the standouts were the sides; particularly, the meatless spaghetti which from its appearance you would expect to be as saccharine as any jar of Ragú but is actually somehow meaty and deeply flavored. I don’t know if this sauce is some secret church recipe or if it just comes out of a different can than I was expecting. Maybe it’s black magic. Frankly I don’t want to know. I just know I like it.

With two years under our belts at Saint Albert the Great’s, we’re starting to feel like regulars (though I can tell we’d need quite a few more years to meet others’ expectations for that title). Given how little time we spent in line this year, we might just be back before Easter. We’ll definitely be back next year, when I’m hoping for the addition of St. Albert’s famous blackened frogs’ legs to the food on offer. Does frog count as meat?