(I don’t know Ann H. Ash because she’s not even from our town or church, but her name is fun to say three times.)

The only fish I was exposed to in Portland, Missouri was fried: catfish, crappie, and maybe some big blue gill. I was adventurous enough to eat fried shrimp, too, at the Captain D’s in Jeff City. Dad would get that crab shell thing stuffed with…whatever, and I felt like we were in another country. Hell, maybe another planet by the looks of that strangely shaped, hard body.

My only childhood foray into actual seafood was in 1985 at my cousin’s wedding in Maryland. I remember this trip very distinctly for a lot of reasons:

1. It was my first road trip
2. We ate at a seafood buffet, and I ate like a coastal king.
3. It was the first time I encountered tiny plastic hors d’oeuvre swords
4. Mom was trying to eat the crab legs without cracking them (I was five, but still trying to convince her she was doing it wrong),
5. I got anaphylactic shock. My nostrils swelled shut, and I was coughing and gasping for hours. Dad’s solution was to have me try to blow my nose.

Luckily, I survived without medical intervention, but was justifiably afraid of seafood for the next 20-30 years. Despite this near death experience with the ocean’s abundance, I really love seafood. I crave fish. I’m not even joking when I say that I feel like my very British DNA is telling me that the ocean is the best place to eat. I love raw oysters, steamed mussels and clams; I eat canned smoked oysters, sardines, and sometimes like a few anchovies on my pizza. I love sushi, too. Yes, it took me a few tries to get over the RAW FISH idea, but now I’ll eat any fish-type thing raw. Eel, white tuna (which is tuna fat), albacore, and, of course, salmon.

I can’t remember the first time I had cooked salmon, but I remember being a little scared of it for years afterward. Its pinkness made it look undercooked, and if you remember from past stories, that was a huge fear in my family. Even when I was teaching myself to cook and following recipes perfectly, I over-cooked it. On purpose. It was also hard to adjust to the fish smell and taste which is basically absent in the fried white fish I ate growing up.

If you’re afraid of pink fish and grew up in a place like me, I encourage you to try this recipe: it’s not too fishy, but just enough to help you expand your taste buds. Please, please, let me know if you are daring and try it our for yourself.

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I think this might be one of the only fish recipes in the cookbook, so it stood out to me. What was glaringly absent in this recipe was cream. Doesn’t a chowder require cream? Gaby and I consulted the Google and learned there is a New England Chowder and a Manhattan Chowder. The New England version is the creamy, white, thick chowder that I think of when I hear the word. But, the Manhattan Chowder is tomato and broth-based. (We still added a little cream, though.)

I used a frozen salmon filet instead of canned salmon and a whole quart of Gaby’s home-canned tomatoes.

I was very skeptical of all the tomatoes, but when Gaby, Camila, and I had our first bites, we said it was pretty damn good, even though it tastes more like a tomato soup than the chowder we’re familiar with. It was very acidic, but we all agreed we loved it. Camila suggested it needed to taste more like salmon, so maybe next time I’ll use the immersion blender to do that. We ate it with Gaby’s homemade sourdough bread and butter. And, after we each had a bowl and a half, it was gone.

Chef Gaby rating on a scale of 0 – Grandpa’s Pasta Sauce: 8.5!

Up next week: Aunt Connie’s Zesty Italian Crescent Casserole!

Manhattan Salmon Chowda

1/2-3/4 pound salmon filet, skinned and cut in bite size pieces

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 onion, diced

at least 3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 green pepper, chopped

2-3 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 cups water OR seafood broth/stock

1 quart of home canned tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon thyme (dried or fresh)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup frozen corn

heavy cream or sour cream

Directions: melt the butter in a soup pot and add the onions, garlic, and some salt. Cook until onions are soft. Add green pepper and sauté another minute or so. Stir in the flour, slowly and constantly, over low heat until the mixture become brownish and thicker. Add water, tomatoes, thyme, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes. Don’t forget to stir it. Add corn and salmon and simmer another 5 minutes or until you feel it’s done.

Try it like this first, and then decide you want to add just a touch of cream.