Fish Friday, (on a Tuesday)

No, I'm not all messed up from the time change, nor is this an advertisement.  It's just a recap, so don't try showing up to my parish hall this Friday.  I ran my church's Lenten fish fry this past Friday, which was a little mixed in the pros and cons department.  Before I get to that I'll give you a little background.  Catholics tend to skip meat on Fridays during lent.  Why?  Well, Friday was the day Jesus was crucified, and the abstention from meat is in memory of him giving up his body (his flesh).  Hence, Fish Fridays.  It's not a sin to forget, or even skip it intentionally, but it is a sacrifice that we try to make to focus us as a form of penance.  It also can help us get a little more into the spirit of the Lenten season which is one about prayer, fasting, and penitential sacrifice ahead of our Lord and savior dying on the cross, and the best part- rising again!

To be perfectly honest, not eating meat on a Friday during Lent is not much of a sacrifice for me.  Yes, I know fish is a meat, but historically, we consider fish more of a plebeian entrée than the flesh from livestock, which was more expensive, eaten only occasionally, and was associated with feasting and rejoicing (Scallops, Lobster, and Chilean Seabass are notable exceptions!) Still doesn't make sense to you?  Dig deeper if you want more.  But as I was saying, me skipping meat is no big deal.  Not that I don't enjoy having something meaty at pretty much every meal, but I really enjoy fish and we are often having seafood or pasta as an entrée.  Fish tacos are close to the top of that "meatless" list, and San Diego definitely does that well.

If you didn't figure it out from that lead photo and missed me mentioning it in past posts, I'm a member of that fine organization, the KofC, and I pretty much head up the group of us at my church.  So when things need to be scheduled, planned, and coordinated, that duty falls to me. It might be "Keeping Christ in Christmas" by selling religious Christmas cards, running the beer garden at our parish school carnival, or during Lent, running the Lenten fish fry.  Some parishes run one every single weekend, but we are a small parish and have an even smaller handful of men who are willing to step up and help, so we just run a single dinner during the season.

I've been doing it for going on 16 years now- going back to when I PCS'd back to SanDog from duty in Tampa Florida.  I took it over from the previous Knight in 2008 who decided he didn't want to be a member anymore.  Always willing to step up, I was asked to help run it and I have been doing it ever since, never able to take a step back.

On the positive side, it was our most successful one to date, at least when it comes to the food.  Everyone that attended thought it was our best effort at making fish, tilapia in this case, and everything was prepared just in time for us to open and everything was still warm when the guests started showing up. We've often struggled with the timing and having people need to wait as we wait for the first or next batch to finish up.  We've baked the fish, grilled it, fried it, and usually gotten mixed reviews in the past.  But this year, we used some Old Bay, then quick fried it in a pan with butter, then finished it off in the oven which made it cook much faster and helped keep the supply going.  Most of our patrons thought it was better than any other attempt.  

Yelp

It's always a challenge with our ancient kitchen to get the oven right and get the fish cooked through properly on all sides of the pan, in all corners of the oven, or keeping the fryer at the right temperature, and to make sure we have enough ingredients and servings for everyone that shows.  It's also a balancing act to charge enough to make a little money for the church and the council, but not too much to scare anyone away.  Or have too many leftovers which means I overbought and wasted money that could have been profit for us.  We usually do it to benefit one cause or another, sometimes the school, sometimes the maintenance of the church, pro-life efforts or what have you.  This year it was for the repairs to our church bell tower which was discovered recently to be separating from the main structure of the church. Not sure what that maintenance bill is going to run, but my little parish has not recovered after covid and we have a very small collection plate and an even smaller maintenance fund through a second collection which is only once a month.

There are quite a few well-off parishes in the diocese that probably do well with their collections.  The diocesan tax on them probably helps some smaller parishes get by (barely), like mine, as we rarely bring in what it costs to sustain our parish needs.  We are cut to the bare bones though, trying to make ends meet, going down to just one part-time office staff member, more CCD costs shifted to the parents, and plenty of deferred maintenance.  I only explain that to show how much need there is for successful fundraising from any effort.

But anyhoo, I said it was a mix of pros and cons. While the food was delicious and no waiting was required, it rained quite heavily last Friday evening.  That severely dampened the turnout, despite the weeks-long announcements from the pulpit, church bulletin notices, and a couple emails to the parishioners from the church office.  I planned for 80 people which is actually very small compared to a lot of parishes but it's about 10% more than I usually serve, thinking the heavy advertisement would help.  That rain though.  We only served 20 total meals.  I had a small group of men to help, so each of us took home rolls, potatoes, and fish- enough to make us tired of fish for the rest of the season.  Assuming we eat it all of course before the already thawed-out fish needs to be tossed.  Yes, I considered donating to a local foodbank, but most of it was already cooked, and the fish that wasn't, had been sitting out waiting to be cooked.  I couldn't risk donating it to the general public.  

Fortunately we covered our costs.  We charged $15 this year ($10 in years past since the pastor wanted to make it affordable) as we need some funds for that tower.  I spent $268 on supplies so there are a few small bills I can throw towards the tower maintenance.  If only the rain had come some other day, we could have brought in over a grand, especially with beer and wine sales, of which the product was donated at no cost to us.  

Oh well, there's always next year.  However, I announced that someone else has to take the lead next year.  It's pretty stressful for me, buying all the supplies, shopping around to get the lowest prices, coordinated the volunteers, running the kitchen, etc.  I don't sleep well the week of the event, and the preps invade my dreams.  16 years in a row is some dedicated service to the parish if I do say so myself.  We'll see if any other Knight steps up next year, or if another group at the church wants to take it on.   

My last post alluded to me growing tired of my job.  This one has me tired of running a fish dinner.  

Maybe I'm just tired.