Long ago, in the days before grunge, before reality teevee, in the days of keyboard ties, Reagan as president, there was a boy.This boy was perhaps the quintessential book-reading, friendless nerd.He was chummy with book characters, and would often dress up as them, pretend he was them, and spend hours in his yard playing out their timeless acts.

I use timeless in a non-praising manner, as they often were villains or perhaps just obsessed lunatics.I mean, can you call Dr. Frankenstein a good guy? That is debatable.

He enjoyed the pirates and harder characters that a Robert Louis Stevenson brought to life. So much so that to this day one of the boy’s prized possessions is a first edition of ‘Treasure Island’. This boy, this friendless, imagination filled dweeb, also dabbled in the works of Melville.

So much so that he even got his parents, who knew what they thought of their odd and strange child, to take him to many locations the average child would dismiss in a moment’s notice.Whaling museums abound the southern New English coast, and they brought the boy back to the periods of time he was reading about in these books.

Anyways, this boy, perhaps not fully grasping the complete vision and concepts of Melville’s finest effort: Moby Dick, would dress up as the obsessed, broken, lunatic Ahab, even going as far as making a peg-leg out of wood and hobbling around his back yard as the disfigured mariner.

It was not really til later that the boy not only learned the book was not just an adventure tale, but a story about humanity and obsession.He probably also had no clue that it is not sea-food, but sea-life, that too came later.

Well, if you do not know, and if you are not seeing the point, I can be much more pedestrian; That boy was me, and that boy made a mock clam strip roll.

So, avast ye, here be the recipe.

Ingredients.
- 1/2 cup of gluten.
- 2 tablespoons of seaweed powder.Just make sure it is vegan and has no other stuff put in it.
- 2 teaspoons of kosher salt.
- 1/2 a cup of water, minus one tablespoon.
- 3 cups of vegetable stock.
- 1 large handful of dried seaweed.I used Nori.
- 1 tablespoon of dill.
- 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour.
- 1/2 cup of corn meal.
- 3 tablespoons of corn starch.
- 1 teaspoon of salt.
- 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
- 1 teaspoon of curry powder.
- 1/2 cup of soy milk.
- 1 tablespoon of vinegar.
- 2 tablespoons of Egg- Replacer.

You should set up your broth, first.Find a large-ish sauce pan, place the vegetable stock, seaweed, dill, and heat that in between low and medium heat.

Arg, now find ye yar bowls, and mix the gluten, seaweed powder, kosher salt, then mix in the water.Once you have made your seitan dough, and it is a ball, tear pieces off of it.
Take those pieces, stretch them, roll them between your fingers, you just want to kind of duplicate the shape of a strip.

Oh, and sorry about talking like a pirate there for a moment, I soon realized an entire recipe told in pirate lingo would be painful, even by my recipe rambling standards.I think.

Place the teared seitan pieces into your gently simmering broth and let them cook for 45 minutes.They will be a bit stringy, or chewy, which with this recipe , is perfect!

For added flavor, I suggest that once you are done cooking, that you let them soak in the broth, in the fridge , overnight.But, if you are a rebel, or impatient, you can just succumb to urges and move on with the rest of the recipe.That could be a bit obsessive, and you would be making Ahab proud, or something.

Good for you, I think.

Okay, grab two bowls; In one bowl mix the vinegar and soy milk, let it sit for a few minutes, then add in the Egg-Replacer.In the other bow you will wish to mix the flour, starch, cayenne , salt, curry powder, and corn meal.

Now, you can either fry or bake these.I went for the true effect of the greasy, Cape Cod clam shack and used frying.But, you could bake them.I may bake them next time, either way, I assume you know what you are doing.

Okay, so dip the strips in the milk mix, then coat them in the flour mix, then dip back in the milk, and then dip again in the flour.Then, can you guess what you do next?

Oh, you! Yes, you cook them, either in your oven, or fry them up.I used an old pot, heated up oil and dropped the suckers in, they only needed a few minutes, if that.

I whipped up a simple tartar sauce, made some fries, and toasted a couple hot dog buns. Bam! You got yourself a meal.I wish I had not said “bam”.Ugh.

Have you ever wondered why it is is called tartar sauce, yet you do not use cream of tartar in it? I do not know, that thought crept into my thinking as I made it.Also, do I have to tell you that recipe, too? Fine.

Tartar sauce ingredients.
- 1/2 cup of vegan mayo
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1/4 cup of diced pickles.
- 1 teaspoon of dill.

Mix all that crap together, there you have a simple tartar sauce.You are welcome.

This makes me think of Cape Cod, and summers on the cape.Which is alright, I suppose.I am no Walcott, I like the Cape.