Believe it or not, one of our favorite shows to watch during quarantine is on Twitter. DadHouse, “the best imaginary reality show on the internet.”
This weekend, we’ve asked the stars of DadHouse to tell us about their own Weird Quarantine Obsessions.
Salmon Bookends, by Amy Freeman
The days I don’t have quarantine-custody of my tween, I bookend my time with salmon. I can’t seem to stop myself, and I’m not even sure why I should try.
Each morning he’s gone, I breakfast alone, on a torn half of a slice of wheat bread (toasted), dolloped with guacamole (spicy) and finished with a heap of oily smoked fish (cold-smoked Nova, but only if it’s on sale). I wash it down with a cup of coffee (Gevalia), splashed with almond milk (chocolate). For dinner, I broil a pound of rich orange salmon (Atlantic, thick-cut), skin-side up until it crisps and bubbles, then flip it for maybe 90 more seconds under the heat, which I will divide into thirds, to eat for the following two nights. Usually, I plop a slab of steaming fish onto a bed of spinach (baby) so it wilts the leaves, then I smother the whole shebang with a mix of barbecue sauce and horseradish mustard. I swap out the coffee for a cabernet (bourbon-barrel aged).
Here’s the thing. I don’t regularly eat or serve salmon when he’s with me. I ate it maybe once a week in the six months before quarantine, and not at all for the year before that, when I was vegetarian. And when my son is in his room reading Manga, or in our basement on his iPad, or outside walking our dog, I can eat scrambled eggs and spaghetti. But when he’s not, I’m back to salmon.
Twenty years ago, I read that pregnant women lacking a particular mineral—I forget which-- find themselves craving, and eating, clay. I remember articles defending the practice as natural, you could do it as long as you found and ate toxin-free clay, as if that’s a thing.
I can’t say I crave salmon; I don’t have fond childhood memories of it, nor any from adulthood, for that matter. But I am, three days each week, obsessed with it. I wonder, but decide not to research, whether Omega-3 fatty acids treat loneliness.
In real life: Amy Freeman divides her time between freelance writing and serving as Development Director for The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. Bylines and upcoming work in The Washington Post, Parents.com, HuffPost, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, Furious Gravity (Grace and Gravity anthology series), Gargoyle Magazine and, and, and.
On DadHouse: @FreemanAmyL. All that @Dad_House positivity, especially during this pandemic (it’s my first) was making my teeth itch. I mean, what’s reality without random conflict? As Old Man Freeman, I make guest appearances on the show whenever I darned well feel like it, if only to make sure everyone stays off my damn lawn. And if my quarantine obsession makes you feel sorry for me? Well, stuff it.
If you’d like to try this obsession for yourself:
Smoked salmon and lox are not the same thing! Here's a link for the morning meal: https://www.eater.com/2019/9/14/20865463/whats-the-difference-between-lox-nova-smoked-salmon
Dinner-wise, this is where it all began. You can swap out the mustard spread for chutney/ginger or a cilantro/lemongrass shmear. https://www.everydaycookingadventures.com/cooks-illustrateds-broiled-salmon-with-potato-chip-crust/