Bumbling toward self-sufficiency in the wilds of Cape Cod
One day last fall, as we were coming off the clamming grounds at Bay Street in Osterville with a peck of quahogs, we saw two guys loading their pickup with two full baskets of steamers. Steamers, as all you clammers know, are generally harder to come by than quahogs. They bury themselves much deeper than [...]
Kevin and I went clamming this morning, accompanied by our friend Katie, who is visiting from New York. It was a very satisfying experience.
Until today, I thought I was the only person on the planet who gets a thrill out of raking clams up out of the seabed, but now I know there’s at least [...]
One of the critical pieces of clamming equipment is the noodle. Not the kugel kind, the pool toy kind – those 5-foot lengths of Styrofoam that kids invariably use to thwack their friends upside the head.
Clammers, though, have a different use for them. When you wade out with your rake, you need to bring a [...]
It was three-day, three-shellfish weekend. Saturday was clams. Sunday, oysters. And Monday, for the first time, we went for mussels.
Mussels are the gateway shellfish. If you’re a little intimidated by clamming or oystering because of the expertise, special equipment, and fortitude involved, then musseling is for you. You just wait for low tide and pick [...]
Shellfish have many virtues. They’re tasty and versatile, low in calories and high in minerals. They’re good raw or cooked. They freeze well. There’s really only one problem with shellfish: shells. Since oyster season opened last October, I figure Kevin and I have gone through almost 400 oysters. Every single bloody one of them had [...]
Yesterday, a day when the temperature never got out of the teens, I called my friend Linda.”The oyster flats are frozen over, so we can’t go oystering, but I’m going to try for some clams. You in?”
“I’m in,” she said.
Linda is always in, and that is one of the things I like about her.
We’d been [...]
Tamar Haspel has been writing about food and health for over a decade. She recently moved from Manhattan to Cape Cod. She’s adjusting well. [Read More…]
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