If you like seafood, there is nothing better than fresh fish. If you live anywhere near where fish are caught, the chances are that during the summer there is going to be a good reason to build your supper club menu around seafood.
The truth is that seafood is polarizing. Either you like it, or you don’t . People that don’t like it claim it is the taste, texture or smell that they don’t like. Quite often the haters will relate a story of eating bad fish and the unpleasant consequences.
For those of us that love seafood it is just the opposite. We relate seafood to good times, great tastes and wonderful texture. For me, while I now love seafood, it wasn’t always that way. Growing up as a Catholic, we had to eat fish on Fridays. We had a local fish-man that came around in his truck on Friday morning, so our fish was fresh. But, my father loved mackerel and mackerel is a very oily, fishy tasting fish, that wasn’t appealing to kids.
I started to love fish when I got to eat what I caught. As a young boy, I would spend a few weeks every summer in Lake Placid NY with a family friend. Al Venatier was a Frenchman that taught with my parents. Al and I would climb up the backside of Whiteface Mountain and then fish the streams for trout. We would bring home a creel full of brook trout that Al would dust with flour and sauté in butter. I became a fish loving convert that has developed a love for everything seafood.
There is nothing more fun than having a Supper Club party built around a fresh catch. Striped Bass is a prized catch in the ocean around New York. If you are lucky enough to catch a keeper you have a great excuse for an Impromptu Friday Night dinner party. You can grill Striper with olive oil and herbs, or my favorite is to sauté filets with a lemon butter sauce. No matter how you cook it, there is something about really fresh fish that is just special. If you are lucky, you might even be able to convert a hater.
(My nephew Robbie Pezzolo caught this monster Striped Bass off of Staten Island NY. His dad Robert was always the best fisher person in the family. Looks like Robbie is taking over that title.)
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