Tired? Try fish sticks!

The kids are back in school, paying work is coming, which means I'm just not thinking about food in the same way. The list of things to do on Thursday was just too long for the day, so I found myself cruising the aisles of the co-op after supper. As I pushed my cart past the freezer case on my way to the dairy case (or soy, as the case may be), a row of yellow boxes called out to me. Over here! We're wheat-free fish sticks!

Now, I appreciate a lovely poached sole or grilled salmon as much as anyone else, but sometimes a fish stick is just the thing, if only as a vehicle for tartar sauce. And fish sticks, well, I admit to a soft spot for them. My mother adamantly refused to buy them (we lived in the Bay Area, c'mon!), but my future husband had never met a fish that wasn't square and breaded. Southern Germany is landlocked, you see, so the only fish that makes it down there has been pretty heavily processed. So, if I wanted fish in Freiburg, it was fish sticks. Indeed, the first romantic dinner in our apartment, I fell in love--with the convection oven. It did a terrific job on fish sticks and oven fries.

Now, the food at the co-op was particularly vocal this evening, and before I could get to the checkout, a little tub of chocolate mousse jumped into my cart. It was nearly as good as the stuff I married my husband for, and get this, it was made with tofu instead of eggs. I'm happy to report it went quite well with the bit of champagne left in the fridge.

Which might explain why I was so tired that I made fish sticks for dinner.