Salmon Cakes (Unlocked)
and how to fall
Originally published for paying subscribers August 28, 2022. Unlocked now!
My dad has only dropped me once.
Childhood was spent swinging from my dad’s arms, getting thrown into the air and caught softly every time. We played a game called “Flying Juli” in which he lay on his back and hoisted me up into the air on his feet. I spread my arms out to either side like wings and made airplane engine noises between bursts of laughter.
And through all of this, he never dropped me.
Later, when I started horseback riding lessons, which my mom watched through her fingers, only taking her hands away from her face to bite her nails, my dad taught me how to fall. We practiced tumbling and jiu jitsu falls in the living room. Always tuck your chin to your chest, he would say as he laid out the couch cushions across the carpet so I could practice.
And through all of this, he never dropped me.
When I was a teenager, full of pent up emotions and ready to burst, he never told me to stop talking. Or acted like what I had to say meant nothing, even though it so often did. He listened to everything I had to say on the back porch with a paper bag of unshelled peanuts in one hand and an empty bag for the broken shells in the other.
The only time my dad ever dropped me was when we lived on the island in North Carolina. It was duck hunting season, and we had driven our skiff boat out into the place where the water is briny and the marsh grass grows tall and sunk the anchor into the silty black mud of the marsh bed. We waded out through the thick grass, hiding ourselves with the shadowy tan of our jackets in the shadowy browns of the inlet vegetation.
The marsh bed squelched under our boots. The ground was soft, and if you weren’t careful, it would hold onto your boot, pulling your foot down into the black earth to settle with the crabs. It took a long time for me to extricate each step from the ground. I was only ten years old or so, and the depth of the water creeped up ever closer to my chin. Every few steps, movement beneath the water caught my eye. Crabs with vibrant blue claws scuttled away from my feet, and shiny fish darted through the water on either side of me so fast they became blurs. The water was cold. An icy and invigorating numbness inched up my legs. We had further to go to get to the place where the reeds were thickest and a low platform built of gnarled, black wood would give us a stable base to wait for ducks.
But I couldn’t wade any further on my own. The water was too deep now and too heavy for me to wade through. My dad slogged back to me through the marsh and picked me up. I felt the saltwater draining out of my waders in a great sloshing waterfall as he pulled me up out of the muck. I was “Flying Juli” again, floating over the reeds and the water, tucked safe against my dad’s chest, watching the dragonflies flit from reed to reed across the water. The platform was in sight when, with a great splash that set the surrounding wildlife squawking, my dad’s foot was caught by the muck and we crashed into the water.
We couldn’t stop laughing, the saltwater spluttering from our mouths as we floundered toward the platform. Eyes bright and teeth chattering, we wrung the water out of our hats and tried to quiet down enough for the animals to surround us again.
Hours later, the buzz of wings sent our heads and rifle tips pointing toward the sky. With one clean shot, my dad brought down a bird from the sky. He waded through the water alone this time to get it.
The bird was beautiful. A Hooded Merganser: fawn brown and black with white stripes down its sides. Its hood stuck out behind it with feathers so white it looked like a wide eye.
We made our way back to our boat, slowly and with careful steps and lots of happy chatter. The salt-spray hit my face as we made our way back home. I held the duck carefully in my lap. Look closely at it, my dad had said. Appreciate its beauty. He gently moved the duck’s wings back and forth, pointing out the different kinds of feathers and which ones were used for flight. How the muscles in the wings and the lightness of the bones propelled the animal through the sky.
It was important, my dad said, to take nothing for granted.
And as I sat in the front of the skiff, still shivering in my not-quite-dry clothes, the fading warmth of the duck seeping into my numbed legs, I marveled at the shimmering feathers. The way the cold water beaded and fell away from the sides. How the hood on its head could be fanned out or folded low.
My dad has only dropped me once. In the cold and briny sound off the coast of Carolina. But even then, as we both fell into the water, he was holding me close, teaching me everything I needed to know. Like how to fall properly and, most importantly, to laugh as I was going down. To get back up from the ground. To look up when you hear wings, and to see beauty in everything.
Thinking back on my time on the Island brings back memories of Old Bay and mouthfuls of crab cakes. I’ve always loved crab cakes smothered in a simple tartar sauce. But after moving to Colorado, it felt almost wrong to make anything with crab. I knew they hadn’t been plucked from the sea that morning, and that my grandmother, a staunch fresh-fish-eater after her time in Maryland, would not condone crab in Colorado.
My mom came up with a simple yet inventive variation on crab cakes — salmon cakes! They’re delicious, and we’ve finely honed their making over the years to form this recipe. I hope you enjoy them and that they fill your mind with salt water and your ears with crashing waves.
Salmon Cakes
You will need:
For the Salmon Cakes:
2 cans salmon
1/2 red onion, finely diced
2 eggs beaten
3/4 cup plain breadcrumbs
2 Tablespoons fresh dill, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon olive oil plus more for cooking
Pinch of salt and pepper
For the Tartar Sauce:
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
1/4 cup mayonnaise
What to do:
First, drain the salmon and put it in a medium sized bowl. Using your hands, pick through the salmon for any bones. The very small ones will simply dissolve as the cakes cook, providing an excellent source of calcium, but the larger round bones will not dissolve. Form the mixture into hamburger-sized patties.
Next, combine all other ingredients in the bowl with the salmon and stir until very well combined. In a large non-stick pan, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat, making sure to spread the oil evenly around the pan. Place salmon cakes in the pan and cook about 5 minutes per side, or until the cakes are a nice brown on each side.
While the salmon cakes cook, combine the sweet pickle relish with the mayonnaise in a small bowl.
These cakes are best served with a coleslaw salad (or another salad of your choice!). They do not need buns or any other bread to make them into a full meal. Trust me. I recommend a nice Chardonnay (like this one!) to pair with this meal.
Do you prefer salmon or crab cakes?
If the new season of “Only Murders in the Building” has you on the hunt for more spooky stories, check out some of my flash-fiction work that’s been published over the past year!
That’s it for this week. If you liked this post, consider sending “Food & Fodder” to a friend who you think might enjoy it!
Thanks, as always, for reading,
Juliana
Interested in trying a paid subscription? Click the link below for a special offer!
PS —
Have you guys heard about Bookshop?
If you love supporting smaller, brick-and-mortar bookstores but love shopping from the comfort of your home (or, like me, you live in a teeny tiny town with a lovely but sometimes limited book selection) you’ve got to check them out. 10% of their sales go to local book stores, and 10% goes to their affiliates (like me!) every time you buy a book. They’ve got all the selection of a big online bookstore, and they’ve donated $20 million and counting to bookstores!
I now have a little “storefront” on their site, so if you’re wanting to see or buy some of my favorite books, head on over to my Bookshop site! Right now, my Bookshop lists include my Cookbook Collection, My Work, My Top 10 (always changing), and My New Foray into Scary Books.
You can find a favorite cookbook of mine, “Half-Baked Harvest: Super Simple,” there!