It's Friday, during Lent, and silly me made lunch plans at Superior Grill. Luckily, their shrimp fajitas are as good at the beef.
In Louisiana, especially, I think Catholics and other folks that skip meat on Fridays are always struck by this paradox: Lent is supposed to be a season of fasting and repentance but skipping meat for seafood is not exactly a sacrifice. My argument it may not be a painful sacrifice, but it is a change you have to make. Hopefully, that train of thought would lead you from dinner to tradition, church and God. I've also heard priests suggest that if you are going to have a more gourmet meal then you should donate an equal amount of money to charity.
How do you handle the Friday meals?
Photo: Times archives
4 comments:
I'm ashamed to admit this but I've sent the family out to Wendy's for a salad. I'm trying really hard to eat only at locally owned establishments. Today I've sinned. Meat, I'm not so much worried about but then as a Unitarian Universalist I guess I should be...
By the way, I stopped by because I saw you commented on Teddy's new blog.
Hey, my shameless plea worked... You bring up a good point though. Lots of folks are supporting the locally owned/locally grown movement with a sense of morality that I find interesting. Why did you make that choice?
Last Friday, I went to a "shrimp and oyster night" buffet. I rolled through and got, you guessed it, shrimp and oysters. I also got a piece of fried catfish. When I took a bite of the fish, I discovered to my dismay that it was, in fact, chicken. Hey, it looked like fish and logic seemed to lead me to conclude that it would be fish, but it just wasn't.
So, there was the condundrum. If I wasted the food, that clearly would be a sin. If I finished the chicken, I would at the very least be in violation of tradition.
I ate the chicken. You do what you gotta do.
I went to a Catholic school, and they served tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches every Friday.
St. John Berchmans also serves a meatless meal every Friday night for $5 per person.
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