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I'm writing from the Pacific
Northwest and I've just tasted sweet, slightly salty razor clams, more
on that later. Been on a 7-day journey to Port Townsend, Washington to
do a cooking demo for the Medicinal Mushroom Conference. There were more
PhD's there than you could shake a mushroom at. There were 25 countries
represented; scientists and doctors all studying the medicinal value of
mushrooms. The director, Paul Stamets, himself a genius, asked me to do
some cooking demos using mushrooms. After the terrific success at the
Aquarium relief fund for hurricane Katrina, where I prepared a giant
(1,000 tastes) jambalaya in my special pan, I was still thinking big.
Port Townsend is on the tip of the Olympic Coast above Seattle, very
close to the Canadian border. We stayed at Port Worden an old army base
complete with mess hall, officer's quarters and conference rooms.
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This is a perfect location for large groups
gathering great ideas. Sounds like something the Monterey Peninsula
could do (Hmmmmm). Now on to the menu; I was given a perfect location to
cook in. A kitchen shelter shack right on the beach, complete with a
wood stove, nice range, sink, refrigerator and picnic tables. There were
also big windows to watch ships and beach life. First menu - I prepared
candy cap-sausage risotto for 150 people. Being that there were 250
participants at this meeting, and there were three other classes going
on at this time, I figured 10lbs. of rice would be sufficient. Four
o'clock and the room was full - standing room only. When I added the
candy cap mushrooms, the fragrance was overwhelming. The smell of savory
maple filled the room and my audience was amazed. People walking by the
building had to stop and see where that delicious aroma was coming from.
I also brought some of Monterey County wines. After joking and telling
mushroom
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stories for about 40 minutes, the risotto
was done. Needless to say it was delicious. Look for this one at the
Blue Moon folks. The next day I needed a show stopper because word was
out that there was an Italian guy by the beach cooking wild mushrooms in
a giant pan and drinking wine. So what to do? How about a polenta dish
featuring fresh shrooms and one with dried porcinis and tomato sauce.
But there was one problem, I needed to serve both properly - after some
maneuvering, I thought about the table tops. They were 8' long, 36" wide
and had a Formica finish - let's go for it.10 lbs. of polenta should do
it. In the big pan we had all fresh chanterelles, matsutakes, pigs ears,
lions heads, cauliflower, hedge hogs and lobster - sounds more like a
massacre than mushrooms. For the dried porcini polenta, we had some
Marzano tomatoes and the usual, except I added a bit of fennel.
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Assisting me was my daughter Gia and her
neat friend Willy-boy Adams, both up from Portland to help. With tables
all cleaned off, down goes the 4 gallons of hot cheesy polenta -
everyone was shocked - then the other (what is this guy doing?). Then
the two sauces, a heavy sprinkling of Reggiano Parmesano, pour the wine
and serve the food - women and children first. After that, every man for
himself, what a great time. But that's not all, in walks Andrew Weil,
fresh off the cover of Time |
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Magazine. Yo! Andy, what a pleasure to see
you. Last year we spent 7 days on a boat in Petersburg, Alaska and shot
a bunch of shows. I should also mention that I baked a large cauliflower
mushroom (the size of a basketball), basted with escarole butter - WOW!
- knocked their socks off. Special thanks to Gia and Will; David Arora;
Tinker from Cuba; Paul and Dusty Stamets and the whole crew from Fungi
Perfecti in Olympia, Washington. |
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Met Victoria the survivalist, also known as
the chicken liver lady. Talk about frugality in the kitchen, she
collects gizzards and livers from the chicken farms (for free) and
grinds them up to make paté, which she puts in jars. She kept insisting
that I try it but when I politely refused to taste the brown stuff, she
left me with a jar to take home. After she left, I gave the jar to
Tinker, who gave it to her cat. |
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Cruising the Oregon Coast: Want to taste
pickled salmon, razor clams and award-winning canned tuna? It's the Bell
Buoy Fish Market in Seaside, Oregon. You won't believe the pickled King
salmon and, they will ship it to you - (503) 529-2722
www.bellbuoyofseaside.com.
Next stop - Garibaldi, Oregon - home of the
huge letter "G" on the hill; the annual Pacific Northwest crab races;
and the Oregon shrimp (bay shrimp, that is). We bought them right at the
plant. A one-pound tub, more than one person can eat, for $3.50. Fresh,
sweet, salty, delicious! Bay Ocean Seafood, right on the pier. Next
door, all you can eat fish and chips at Val's Place (503) 322-2033.
Fresh King salmon filet for $5.50 per pound - not bad. Crab season just
starting, pots all over the place. By the way, this bay shrimp fishery
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tightly managed by fishermen and
the government, so there will be shrimp
around for a long time - we're talking sustainability. The salmon fisher-men
work right along U.S. 101, literally shouting distance from the
road. We also visited Pacific Seafood Inc., the largest indepen-dently
owned seafood group in the Western U.S.
www.pacseafood.com. They have 700 boats, 1,000
distributors and 2,000 products and they fully endorse the advancement
of the seafood industry with regard to sustain-ability.
We checked out their oyster processing plant where they have a small
restaurant serving fresh oysters, clams, etc. A sign on the wall says:
"Nothing in life prepares you for your first raw oyster." Oysters have
always got to be served fresh and ice-cold, no
other options. This area of the Oregon coast is a seafood lover's |
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paradise. Shellfish and fin fish of all types and reasonably priced. Unfortunately the cooking was pretty bad.
Fish and chips overcooked (cardboard-ish) and
fried oysters cooked on one side only. We should really appreciate all
of the great restaurants around Monterey and real deals like the wharf's
weekly local's special.
Speaking
of fish, did anyone happen to catch last week's episode of Boston Legal?
They briefly touched on the supposed threat farm-raised salmon poses to
the B.C. wild salmon population. Mostly just more ignorant
misinformation. The only amusing part was when the supposed
ecology-worshiping character, played by William Shatner, shot a wild
salmon with a shotgun during a catch-and-release outing.
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