Cooking for One: Your New Five-Minute Lunch

I have no sense of how big of a role smoked fish plays in the diet of most people. For me, smoked salmon, whitefish, and sable are a standout part of my core childhood memories. We lived in New Haven, but made the 90 minute journey to Manhattan fairly often to see my dad’s parents, who lived, still, in the complex my dad grew up in. And smoked fish was on the table about 80% of the time we visited.

One time, my grandfather, who was famously frugal, expressed major upset—shock, even—at how much lox I put on my plate. He turned to my grandmother and said something like, “She’s going to eat a quarter pound on her own!” (As if a quarter pound is even that much, at least in terms of weight. Money is another thing.) It was one of my favorite foods, after all, and it’s not like my parents were buying it at home in Connecticut.