Turn, turn, turn

Winter clamming

It happens every time. Kevin and I actually leave our home and take a trip somewhere. We visit friends, or stay in a hotel. We eat at unfamiliar restaurants and check out the local attractions. We have a good time. We like this place! And then, inevitably, we start looking at real estate. Not because [...]

Shell out!

No shells!

The controversy is raging, and I need your help. It all started when my friend Chef John, uncharacteristically, made a mistake. John’s web site, Food Wishes, is a collection of extremely good recipes. They’re straightforward and easy to follow, familiar enough to be craveable, but with an interesting spin or variation. His videos are clear [...]

A tine to heal

My rake, with all its tines

If you spend any time at all raking clams, you will, inevitably, lose a tine. Maybe you hit a rock, maybe just a big clam, maybe regular use loosens an imperfect weld. Tines break, and when you don’t have all your tines you can’t clam as efficiently, so it behooves you to get them fixed. [...]

Taking the plunge

They come loose eventually

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 [...]

A thrill a minute

Katie's first harvest

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 [...]

Happy birthday to me, Part Deux

Doesn't float

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 [...]

Bivalve trifecta

Kevin out musseling

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 [...]

Stealth shucking

Linda (l) and me with our haul

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 [...]

Extreme clamming

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 [...]

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