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?

After descending a short staircase we were plunged into considerably more insanity:

This is a very popular fish fry! For how crowded it was (and it was extremely crowded) the people at St. Albert’s did an awesome job keeping the line moving and getting everybody fed. It’s obvious they’ve done this before. With two serving lines for added speed it was a matter of ten minutes until we had paid our ten dollars a head and loaded our plates up with fish and starches. Finding four seats together in the room pictured above seemed unlikely, so unfortunately we missed Fr. Joe Gillespie’s lively announcements throughout dinner as we headed up to the gym. But there was bingo!

There is obviously an art here to piling up your plate, and from what I saw some people have refined this art to a far greater extent than I. The food was great, a perfect example of its kind. The fish was fried Alaskan Pollack which was mild and meaty and extra delicious when slathered with copious amounts of tartar sauce. There was also some sort of baked fish, but I was here for a fish fry, damnit. What really shined about this meal was the sides:  the meatless spaghetti sauce managed to be pretty meaty tasting and the cole slaw, which gave me and my dining companions some pause for appearing to be drenched in mayo, ended up being very light and tangy. I wished I had gotten a (much) bigger pile. The low point for the sides was the mashed potatoes; not the worst mashed potatoes I have ever had but they tasted distinctly reconstituted. But that is really a minor quibble in the face of the great food and the extremely friendly and welcoming people serving it. St Albert’s, I’ll see you next lent!