Fish Frydays 2013 #4: Zion United Methodist Church

Mmmm

Another Friday full of fish adventures has come and gone. It’s amazing how many little things can go right or wrong and change a trip on the fly.

This past weekend our chosen destination was St. Matthias in South County. Having filled the car, as usual, with three generations of our family, the Honda Civic was pointed south.

Out of St. Louis City we went and into the wilds of South County all the while listening to music and Siri’s directions on how to get where we were going. As we passed down the road, United Methodist was on our right and jokingly I said, want to stop here to get fish instead? A good laugh was h ad by all as we kept chugging along down south.

Upon arrival at St. Matthias, a sadness overtook me, as there were nearly zero cars in the parking lot. This is never good at 5:45pm on a Fish Fryday. I rolled down the window to smell, and there was no smell of fish! We then checked the sign and saw that there was no fish fry today.  At least the car wasn’t emptied and we could just turn around and head to that place down the road.

Fish Frydays 2013 #3: Immaculate Conception

When beginning the post on this one, the last Friday in Lent before Good Friday it was hard to believe that this was only third post of this season. This is one of my favorite times of the year and my family loves going out for fish on Friday nights. So, this year was a bit disappointing that we have missed a couple. I may have to do something special to make up for that.

This is the first year of our travels were we didn’t create a week by week schedule two or three weeks before Lent started, so we’ve often times been at a loss this year when Friday rolled around, but I feel like we’re still doing well and going to places we’ve never visited, which is nice. We also had our first Fish Fail to go with the five or six slinger fails. All in all, aside from the plague that befell us, it’s been a pretty fun year, but my daughter now being old enough to say fish is yummy in my tummy as she eats it certainly helps!

Fish Frydays 2013 #2: Well………….about that.

Let’s get our fish on.

First of all, this happened on Friday the 1st and then my house was beset by germ warfare that someone in my daughter’s daycare dropped on us and here I have been abiding by the Geneva Convention my whole life! So, needless to say, I was very sick on this past Friday. Instead of tasty fried fish, I was “enjoying” beef broth.”

Now, let’s get to the fish story. We had chosen to head over to the St. Louis Spanish Society for this week’s fish fry. I had an errand to run and I ended up at the place well before anyone else had arrived. I walked to the back and fantasies of speaking Spanish during my fish fry ran through my head. Apologizing for speaking a different dialect, oh the fun I’d have.

Salute American Vodka

Awhile back an email arrived to me asking if I would be interested in checking out a new vodka called Salute American. Needless to say, this was a very surprising email. As has been well documented, I’m not really a vodka drinker. I believe that most people would know that I drink bourbon. I drink Scotch. And I drink beer. Hmm. I think I should write a song about that.

In fact, when I told my wife I was doing this post, she said what do you know about vodka? Me? not a whole to be perfectly honest, but I know what I like, but there was a time in the past when I drank a fair number of martinis and I definitely enjoy a spicy bloody mary from time to time.

What struck me about this group is that they are donating proceeds to causes that support returning veterans. This is something that is very near and dear to me. One of my closest friends, is a two time combat veteran who just returned home from Afghanistan last month. You may have read my being a bit weepy about it on twitter..sorry for any embarrassing drunk tweets but we drank a lot.

Fish Frydays 2013 #1: Our Lady of Providence

It’s a little hard to believe that we are in Fish Fry season yet again. This is my fourth year blogging about fish frys as well.

First off, let me apologize for not having a review last week. I’m finding a surprising amount of people are growing to enjoy and rely on these reviews, so again, I am sorry, but last Friday was my anniversary and the in-laws had our daughter and to top that off, one of my best friends returned from his deployment in Afghanistan and we were celebrating that, so something had to go. It’s nothing personal Fish Fry, but you just got squeezed out because of all the stuff going on that particular day, but we’re back and better than ever!

To kick off our blogging tour, I started texting back and forth as to where we were going, but I kept getting shot down with “we’ve already been there.” When I solicited opinions on where we should go, the most common answers I get are a fish fry in the far flung suburbs or St. Cecelia. To be clear, we did St. Cecelia in the first  year our clan, back when the wife and I were not yet the wife and I, on our first fish fry tour. I understand that they put a great deal of effort into their Mexican foods, but I want fried fish, and theirs was boxed. So, I don’t want to return, but lots of people like it and that’s awesome.

St. Louis’s Perfect Slinger #36: Joe’s Chili Bowl

Owned by Pasta House.

It certainly has been a long time since I’ve told you about a slinger in St. Louis hasn’t it? You always get my standard apologies when it’s been awhile: I’m taking three classes at UMSL this semester, my daughter is now running and talking, and I’ve also begun a new blog on music.

I am sorry I’ve been neglecting the blog that people care about, but I do have a couple slinger tales for you now!

A couple weekends back, the family and I were at the Pink Flamingo Festival at City Garden. It was actually my first time going to City Garden and I just loved it. While we were out there, a man wearing a Pink Flamingo as a hat and cowel handed us a menu for a chili bar. Of course curiosity got the best of me and we were on our way to brunch.

Beer Squared #31: Pale Lagers

26, 27, 28, and 29.

Well, Bob and I decided to give pale lagers another go. We have come to the conclusion that we have way too many beers to work though and for full disclosure notice, we did this tasting after a round of double IPA’s. So, if you think our soon be trademark style is a little off, it’s because we had a wee bit too much to drink that day.

In this session we have a lot of St. Louis connections. We tried an AB-In Bev lager that they don’t see fit to let us drink, a beer who’s recipe is from pre-prohibition St. Louis, a new St. Louis Brewery, and the go to import beer. Bob and I aren’t really too big on lagers anymore, but they definitely have their time and place. There’s nothing like a great light lager to add to my bbq sauce or to drink while I’m grilling outside in August, but drinking these in the dead of winter clearly were not any of those times.

Beer Squared #30: Flavored Stouts

21, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

Bob and I ended up having a bit of a collection of flavored stouts. We did put an Oatmeal Stout in this category, which could or couldn’t be classified as a flavored stout. When we picked out the beers for this tasting, we only had four. I felt like we needed five beers to round this one out because there was nothing heavy. So, Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout was tossed into the mix.

We ended up picking a beer by Bell’s, another Saranac beer I brought home from Western  New York, a Schlafly beer, a chocolate stout, and the aforementioned Sam Smith’s. We have three American craft brewers and two English brewers. I think this makes for a very good list of suspects, some usual and some not.

Beer Squared #29: Porters

16, 17, 18, and 19. 20 not pictured.

When working out our schedule for what we’re going to review and the 80-some beers that are always waiting to be reviewed, I received a bottle of Deschutes Black Butte Porter in the mail, which bumped it up to the front of the line.

This is our first go with porters which were originally the working man’s beer. I’m going to apologize to our readers, as three out five of these beers are not available in St. Louis. I brought back a couple from Western New York and Bob brought one back from San Francisco….of course now Kona Pipeline Porter is probably available since I’m refusing to check…

So, this go round we have another five beers to go through and it’s a very nice mix of breweries. Deschutes, who just came to St. Louis, Yuengling, the nation’s oldest brewery, Great Lakes, who needs to come to St. Louis soon, Kona Brewing from Hawaii, and Dundee, one of our personal favorites who gets no love.

Fish Frydays 2012 #6: Saint Mary Magdalen

Don't quite understand.

Good morning! I hope everyone has had a good Lenten season and a number of great Fish Frys! I think  it’s safe to say that we’ve had a better year this year than we did last year. I hope you all did too.

As has been the case this year, our ever changing cast of characters changed again. The wife and baby had spirited away to the East Coast this past week, her yearly get together with some old friends. This week it was just myself and my mother in law, again a brand new combination.

I had heard many good things about Saint Mary Magdalen over the years, but I had ruled it out because I wanted to stay in the City, but I’ve learned that it is getting harder and harder to find new places in the City, so we have made three trips outside of our fair city this year.