Pride, Prejudice, and Fish

For this week's Scandinavian Saturday supper, Hillary was my helper.  We made a pretty simple meal because we had errands to do during the day and a play to attend right after supper--not a lot of time for multiple recipes or lots of dishes to wash.  So here's what we made:

Iron Range fish stew with goat cheese on flatbread

From a cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas, we made her Iron Range fish stew recipe, a northern MN version of Finnish kalamojakka ["fish stew"].  Hillary chopped an onion . . . and then was so traumatized by the effects on her eyes that she was pretty much done helping, so I did the rest.  I cubed potatoes and simmered them and the onion in fish stock with allspice and salt (I also added carrots and celery, which were not called for in the recipe).  When the potatoes were done, I put large pieces of pollock and cod into the broth to stew.  When the fish was done, I stirred in cream, butter, and dill and added freshly ground black pepper (also not in the recipe) and a little more salt to taste.

When the stew was ready, Hillary returned to see how else she could assist--so she helped me put thin slices of gjetost [Norwegian "goat cheese"] on pieces of flatbrød ["flatbread"] as an accompaniment to the stew.  It was a tasty meal.  The fish was flaky and tender, and the broth was thin like a soup; but the dish overall was hearty due to all the chunks of vegetables.

Then it was off to the university to see a production of Pride and Prejudice, an adaptation of the classic novel by Jane Austen.  When I phoned to reserve tickets, I asked if it was a family-friendly play; I was assured that it was but that children would most likely find it "boring."  Clearly they didn't know our children; I got tickets for all of us, and the girls thoroughly enjoyed the play and understood the period language and other details, the high-society manners, etc.  (And I, a former teacher of literature, have never read the novel, so it was fun to discover the characters and plot as the play progressed, as opposed to already knowing what would happen before the play began.)