FORAGING

To me foraging in the wild is the most satisfying of activities. Foraging taps into my ancient hunter-gatherer self and I derive extra pleasure when eating things personally gathered. So, on Friday we set out for Hood Canal to dig clams. Getting there is half the fun. We took the Bainbridge Island ferry from downtown Seattle, a beautiful 35 minute crossing of Puget Sound, and drove across the Agate Passage bridge onto the Kitsap Peninsula. I am such a ferry geek (ferries being the light rail of the waterways) that I had brought my 1995 Washington State Ferry mug in my suitcase from Santa Rosa. By bringing your own ferry mug aboard, your coffee is discounted. My excellent cup of local Seattle coffee was only 50 cents!

After a lovely drive through rolling pastureland, and such charming towns as Poulsbo, the Pacific Northwest's little Norway, we reached the Hood Canal Bridge, which connects the Kitsap Peninsula to the Olympic Peninsula.


"At 7,869 feet (2,398 m) long, it is the longest floating bridge in the world located in a saltwater tidal basin, and the third longest floating bridge overall." (Wikipedia)

We were headed for one of our favorite clamming spots, the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife Shellfish Lab at Pt. Whitney. We chose this spot as it is very scenic and has a nice little lagoon where you can dig without having to deal with the surf. For this day's -2.9 tide, the tidelands were closed (the WDFW is re-seeding the geoducks and horse clams - if you have never seen a geoduck, click here for a great photo http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/shelfish/beachreg/2clam.htm - yes they really look like that) so we knew we would only be getting steamer clams.

As it was a typical Northwest day with a light drizzle, our lagoon wasn't mobbed with people and we were treated to this pair of Bald Eagles in a nearby tree top.


After we got our limits (40 clams each of 1 1/2" or larger) we headed to the tidelands which were open for oysters only. I never tire of this lovely Hood Canal view, even on a cloudy day.

While we were gathering our oysters, we saw tons of tiny crabs skittering through the rocks. This one was especially elegant.

I know Great Blue Herons eat fish, but maybe they also like crabs, when they are easy pickings like this.


Here's Jim shucking oysters. The law states that you must shuck the oysters in place and leave the shells. This is because the empty shells serve as a nursery for the baby oysters. It is not unusual to pick up a Hood Canal oyster and find one empty side and two or three other sides with different size oyster shells attached.

There is just nothing like a fresh oyster. I had forgotten how delicious these wild ones are - we've been eating mostly farm raised ones in the past decade or so, which are quite delicious but not as good as these. Jim and I both popped down a few raw ones and we talked Jeff into trying one.
I guess it must be a textural thing for some people.
He was a good sport, though, and kept it down.

The Hood Canal area is just so lovely. Every time I come here I wonder if we could manage to buy a place over here and whether we would survive the long rainy winters.

As the day was still young, and we had gotten all of our limits of shellfish (18 oysters each), we decided to show Jeff and Lynda Port Townsend, called PT by locals. On our way in to this quaint Victorian seaport we spotted this.

The pose of the sitting deer reminds me exactly of cats, a sort of "this-is-mine" attitude.

Port Townsend is the County seat of Jefferson County. In summer it is a major tourist destination for events such as the Wooden Boat Festival. Even on our rainy Friday there were still a fair amount of obvious tourists looking around at the fun shops.

We did our share and then headed back home to cook our clams.

Waiting in the ferry line is always entertaining.

Here comes our boat.

Since this was Jim's birthday, we decided to do up a proper birthday dinner. We sauteed our clams in champagne and shallots and served them with crusty bread.

We had gotten some absolutely lovely arugula from a stall at the Pike Place Market, and some breasola from DeLaurenti, a great old Italian deli in the Market. (Breasola is a very thinly sliced air-dried salted beef that has been aged about 2 months - like the Prosciutto of the beef world). This gave me the opportunity to make one of my most favorite salads, which I discovered in Tuscany.

The recipe couldn't be simpler:

Young arugula leaves
Breasola
Parmesan curls

Dressing:
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Pepper

Instant feast.

The one thing we didn't have for the birthday dinner was a birthday cake. Jim decided he really didn't want one but he did want ice cream. As there wasn't any in the house, we piled in the car and went to the one store we were sure would be open at 9:30 at night - Safeway. AND, we found the ultimate ice cream. Jeff and I stood giggling in the ice cream aisle as we read this label:

"A celebration of rich vanilla ice-cream with brownie batter swirl and peanut butter filled chocolate cows."
Does it get any better than that?

Next -FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL