Undaunted

Emma was born in 1892, and in 1980 I lived in her basement and she gave me a 1940 seafood cookbook pamphlet, me being a Midwesterner living on the east coast where fish was the cheapest food, and I have treasured the cookbook, especially the Fish Roll recipe I made several times to feed hungry me and drug-addled friends, all so mentally ill we stayed out 'til 4 a.m. listening to bands like The Young Snakes and Rubber Rodeo singing songs like "Life Sucks, Then You Die," and vomiting, etc. Emma didn't like when police came to the house looking for "Eric" or whoever. . . "Unexpected guests will not daunt a hostess who knows how to make a fish roll," said the cutline beneath the illustration -- and in honor of those days we used to sleep ("crash") on bare hardwood floors, today having on hand 1.5 cups of  leftover cooked fish and an onion and some parsley in place of green pepper, I got out the cookbook (pictured) and made the frugal fish roll (result, pictured).

I used one of those baggies of Bisquick baking mix. The recipe was supposed to serve 6. In 2019 it serves 3. Great way to make leftover fish appealing.

A daunted hostess? Me, never. In grad school out east, fellow grad students, easterners and Midwesterners, all of us extremely thin, dropped by my place to chat and after a while might venture, "Uh, you wouldn't have, like, anything to eat around here, would you?" Food has always been my second-highest priority, after rent.