Starving off the Land

This is our fourth winter on Cape Cod, and I didn’t like any of the first three. It’s not just that my cold tolerance is decreasing as I age, the snow turns our driveway into a carnival ride, and my husband insists on winter activities centering around the possibility of falling through ice into water. [...]

We all of us have a favorite Monty Python skit. (All of us of a certain age, that is.) Maybe it’s a classic like Dead Parrot or Argument Clinic. Could be the Silly Walks or the Spanish Inquisition. Maybe it’s more obscure. Upper Class Twit of the Year, anyone? Or maybe you’re just a sucker [...]

I have a theory.  It’s a theory about oysters, and housekeeping, and how they’re related. It’s unfortunate that the Internet has given us tools to test these kinds of theories, because it means I can’t just keep going around talking through my hat. So, in a Starving first, I’m going to solicit your input in [...]

In a just-right world, each of the 70,000 oysters that are this year’s crop would reach deep-cupped, three-inch perfection some time between October and December, and demand would be such that we’d ship the very last of them for somebody’s New Year’s Eve party. Then we’d close up shop, and start thinking about next year. [...]

It’s all oysters, all the time, here at Starving. But don’t blame me. Blame Kate. Kate, who writes about her own food procurement adventures at Living the Frugal Life, asked a very good question on the previous oyster post. To save you the trouble of looking for it, I print it here, almost in its [...]

We’ve started harvesting oysters in earnest. Every Thursday we take a shipment to New Bedford, where it gets loaded on a refrigerated truck bound for New York. It lands at the Brooklyn Terminal Market, where our wholesaler picks it up. We made the decision early on that we would keep our operation small. We want [...]

Our oyster farm has a name, a logo, and, as of this morning, a first sale. Kevin took the oysters out of the water yesterday, and we sent them by refrigerated truck to New York.  It was only a sample shipment — a mere hundred oysters — so our buyer could taste what we’re growing. Michael [...]

The oysters, they are growing. The biggest of last year’s crop are now a little over two inches – still an inch from legal, but way bigger than the pinheads they were this time last year. Oysters grow by forming a thin, sharp mantle on the edge of their shell. They tend to grow in [...]

Ever wondered how much 100,000 baby oysters weigh? Well, I can tell you. 752 grams, a little over a pound and a half. Our 100,000 came yesterday, from Mook Sea Farms, in Maine. They’re shipped overnight in a styrofoam cooler, wrapped in a handiwipe. Each oyster is about two millimeters, and they make a pile [...]