Shellfish Heaven

The Village finally decided to go do some shellfishing this past weekend. Ivy found a really nice place at Hood Canal where there are oysters, clams and even geoduck. I've gotten clams and oysters before, you basically just picked them up off the sand. However, digging up a geoduck I've never done. It takes a lot of hard work as they are normally buried 3-4 feet deep. So we had to time it right where the low tide is more than -2.0. Lily found a spot where I actually saw the neck of the geoduck but as i dug, the hole kept filling in with water. It just made it impossible to dig the sucker up. We did dig up some horse clams though which are like the clams we eat at restaurants but 20 times bigger. There's another low tide coming at the end of the month. I'll get you geoducks yet.

Normally, the places I've gone to before has oysters scattered all over the beach. But here, there is an actually oyster bed about the size of a football field of nothing but osysters.


This was very awkward to see the oysters standing straight up attached to one another. Normally, they all are clumped together in every which way.


Tide starting to come back in. We're in a mad rush now to shuck as many oysters as we can. Unfortunately, it's illegal to take the shells with you. Turns out the reason you have to leave the shell is that oyster eggs attach to the half shell and grows the other half shell as it matures.


Ivy working hard.


Me Alex. Me hungry for oyster.


Hmmm, how should I cook all this seafood tonight?


Freshly dug clams.


All done. What an exhausting day.


Feeling kinky anyone?


The trick to eating clams is to let it sit overnight so that it spits out all the sand.


Finally, it's time to eat. Ivy made this clam pasta dish with olive oil and fresh basil. Soooo good.


This was an Emiril clam chowder recipe. Turned out pretty good. Like most recipes, I need to tweek it a little now that I've tried it. We heated up some bread to dip in the soup as well. So yummy.


Oyster cake made with oysters and egg. Perfect with some salt and pepper and ice cold beer.


Deep fried oysters.