We were off on Friday, so I finally had made the purchases for the seafood extravaganza. Fortunately, Alton Brown had an episode of
Good Eats on oysters the night before. I
figured out that I needed to buy small oysters that were sweeter and easier to handle. That was good to know, because I knew nothing. I found myself really nervous about this whole situation. I am a self-professed
Foodie, and my creds were on the line here. But as I looked at these things that seem to be exotic rocks, I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would ever get the idea of cracking that open and having a swallow. Primitive man probably saw primitive birds smashing these things on rocks and feasting on the innards. But what else did primitive man have to eat? I was dubious. With that in mind, I also bought some lovely lump crab meat along with the oysters at the fabulous
Santa Monica Seafood and some shri
mp and crab legs (they were on sale at my regular market). Since the oyster prep was very simple, I decided to finally tackle the elusive shrimp bisque recipe and make some crab cakes. If I hated the oysters, I could still enjoy some seafood. Next, came trying to opening the tightly closed rock. I am not the most graceful person I
know. As far as I know, my father is still leery of me coming at him with h
ot food. You trip once going across a diningroom and no one forgets. Shucking these things involves holding the oyster in the palm of the hand while leveraging a sharp implement pointed toward my hand and shoving it into this rock. As I was doing that for the first time, I realized that we could be mere centimeters from a visit to the ER. However, that didn't happen. I opened them. It was inelegant, but I shucked a half dozen without losing any of the liquor. I had three on the half shell with a squirt of lemon and three with a
Mignonette sauce. They are delicious. It was clean and sweet and a little salty. I got the attraction. I will definitely have them again. My Foodie creds remain in tact. The bisque and crab cakes were great as well.
figured out that I needed to buy small oysters that were sweeter and easier to handle. That was good to know, because I knew nothing. I found myself really nervous about this whole situation. I am a self-professed Foodie, and my creds were on the line here. But as I looked at these things that seem to be exotic rocks, I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would ever get the idea of cracking that open and having a swallow. Primitive man probably saw primitive birds smashing these things on rocks and feasting on the innards. But what else did primitive man have to eat? I was dubious. With that in mind, I also bought some lovely lump crab meat along with the oysters at the fabulous Santa Monica Seafood and some shrimp and crab legs (they were on sale at my regular market). Since the oyster prep was very simple, I decided to finally tackle the elusive shrimp bisque recipe and make some crab cakes. If I hated the oysters, I could still enjoy some seafood. Next, came trying to opening the tightly closed rock. I am not the most graceful person I know. As far as I know, my father is still leery of me coming at him with h
ot food. You trip once going across a diningroom and no one forgets. Shucking these things involves holding the oyster in the palm of the hand while leveraging a sharp implement pointed toward my hand and shoving it into this rock. As I was doing that for the first time, I realized that we could be mere centimeters from a visit to the ER. However, that didn't happen. I opened them. It was inelegant, but I shucked a half dozen without losing any of the liquor. I had three on the half shell with a squirt of lemon and three with a Mignonette sauce. They are delicious. It was clean and sweet and a little salty. I got the attraction. I will definitely have them again. My Foodie creds remain in tact. The bisque and crab cakes were great as well.
