Kitchen Table Talk

Sherri Gardner HowellFarragut

I love living in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains, but the sirens of the seas call me “home” every summer.

Home is Holden Beach, N.C., a quiet beach town near the much more touristy North Myrtle and Ocean Isle. Holden has been my beach for more than 55 years, having made my first trip there when I was 7 years old. My latest number of years-in-a-row stands at 24. For the past 19 of those years, we have vacationed at Holden with our friends the Melendys.

Our families have grown now to include daughters-in-law and grandchildren. Each July spent at Holden seems to have something to set it apart and make it memorable. There was the year with No Howell children (not my favorite), the “First Girlfriend Allowed” year (she married David Jr. so she could come back), the First Year With Grandbabies (2009), the Weird Neighbors year, the No Amy year and the Naked Butt year (potty-training year for Bennett).

This year was the Year of the Salmon.

Quick background: We are blessed with children who cook. My younger son, Brett, is a chef by profession. The older Melendy son, David, is a backyard chef who has plenty of restaurant experience. Over the years we have moved from eating in restaurants half the week to never. What we serve at home has all the restaurants beat, hands down.

This year, David suggested to Brett weeks before the trip that the Pacific Northwest salmon we hear so much about might need to take a swim toward our table at Holden Beach. Brett, in a “why didn’t I think of that” moment, stepped out the door of his restaurant in Seattle to Pike Place market and ordered a whole salmon to be delivered to our beach house mid-way through our week.

The salmon didn’t swim. It was caught fresh on Wednesday morning and shipped that afternoon, arriving the next day. Brett went to work on it with his wife, Olivia, stepping in as prep chef.

By dinner time, a five-star meal was plated and served with smiles. The pan-seared salmon was accompanied with fresh roasted asparagus, cauliflower and broccoli, garlic mashed potatoes, charred lemon and a beurre blanc sauce. There was more salmon for lunch the next day that Brett had cured or smoked or something.

After dinner, I sat in the rocking chair on the porch. The waters of the ocean stretched out in an endless plane of inky blue as I cradled my baby grandson while two more of mine and two Melendys played at my feet. The impatient moon was already shining in the sky, even though the sun had not quite finished melting away. The laughter and buzz from the living room and kitchen inside filled me with contentment.

“We just ate Pacific salmon while on the beach on the Atlantic ocean,” my husband mused. Indeed we did, merging two oceans on one plate.

As usual, there was only one thing wrong with the week that became the Year of the Salmon: It was too short. The Pacific Ocean called one group home while the rest of us packed for the mountains of Knoxville and hills of Nashville.

We’ll be back, I assured my beach. We always come back.

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