local oysters

One of the perks of living in the Skagit Valley is being near the water. We don’t live close enough to Puget Sound to, say, go kayaking every morning (rats!), but a half-hour’s drive gets us to a ferry terminal, a bayside walking trail, or a shellfish farm.

I visited Taylor Shellfish for the first time many years ago, as part of a Watershed Masters program I was in. We toured the facility, listened to a lecture on oyster reproduction in a big cold drafty room, then ate quantities of hot fresh oyster soup. I wasn’t actually a big fan of oyster soup, but I appreciated the gesture at the time. We’ve since been back to the farm a number of times to buy fresh clams, mussels, and (most recently) oysters.

The retail shop is right on Samish Bay, near the mouth of Oyster Creek. They sell shellfish and crabs, as well as oyster knives and a few sauces and seasonings, so if you want you can buy a bag of oysters and head straight out to one of their picnic tables on the water and eat them immediately. It doesn’t get much fresher than that.

Half a cow

We got our cow!

Every so often we buy a side of beef from a friend who regularly raises cattle to keep the grass in his pastures down. The first time we did this, the cow in question was a rather energetic and troublesome character, one of a duo named Mary-Kate and Ashley (I’m not sure which one we got). The last two have not had names, as far as I know. The meat gets processed at a local butcher shop, packaged, labeled and hard frozen, so we can pick it up, toss it in the trunk and take it home to our chest freezer. It’s a great feeling to have a freezer-full of local, pasture-raised beef - we just have to think ahead a bit to make sure it’s defrosted in time for dinner.

 Hamburger, anyone?