Wednesday, March 31, 2010

6th Week of Lent: St. Joan of Arc, Powell, OH

Once again, the gauntlet had been laid down! Did you know that there are two “Best” Fish Fries in Columbus? As we explored earlier, St. Margaret’s stakes that claim, but so does St. Joan of Arc in Powell.


For all of you “Amazing Race” watchers who were aghast when the racers were recently in France and had to find St. Joan of Arc’s statue, and had no idea she was a real person, take comfort in the fact that she is honored here in our own backyard. I wonder what the young French saint would think of Fish Fries? Though, if she was in favor of fund-raisers she would surely approve, because from what we can tell, the Fish Fry is an effective one.

We were joined once again by our Catholic friend B, as the four of us ventured up to Powell on Friday. Since the Buckeyes were playing at 7:00, we headed north on 315 early to beat the rush which turned out to be a good thing. The parking lot wasn’t too full at 5:30, but it filled up quickly once we were there.

St. Joan of Arc’s, like several of the other Churches we’ve visited, serves their Fish Fry as an all-you-can- eat buffet. Also, like several of the other churches, we were seated family style with other people at our big round table.

We found out that each week, a different group in the Church does the serving. The cooking though is done by the ever popular Knights of Columbus. Our dinner options were both baked and fried fish, French fries, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, green beans and the ever popular roll.

Perhaps it is because we were early, but St. Joan of Arc’s managed to get all of the food on their buffet at the right temperature, at least on our first try. I tried both the baked and fried fish as did B. T and Z had the macaroni and cheese with their fried fish and we all had the beans, fries and coleslaw.

Our first batch of fried fish was very good, and all of us gave it a “thumbs up”. While the baked fish was moist and did taste good it was not the best we had in our adventures. We all loved the fries and the coleslaw. The fries were hot and salty and the coleslaw was tangy and creamy. We all thought that they could have done a better job on the green beans.

Z, our macaroni and cheese critic, said it was OK, but not great. T was not so kind. He thought it tasted like pasta and paste.

We were also less than impressed with our second batch of fried fish. The batter failed to cling to the fish, perhaps a result of the high turn-over and cooking too quickly. Overall, it was very good and one of the best we had but I’m not sure any of our group would have rated it the “Best”.

Since this week is Holy week, this was our last Fish Fry for the year. This week we will have a special guest blogger from Fiji. There, the tradition is for churches to raise money with a Lovo, the Fijian version of the Luau. So, tune in next week, and have a happy Easter!

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