Friday, May 18, 2012

Breaking All the Rules + Oysters

Okay, I've broken one of the golden rules of blogging by letting 10 months--10 whole months!!--go by without a single post.  I'm crawling back into your arms, humbled.




I got busy.  Like, busier, because I have a business that got really busy.  I am going to experiment with a new approach to DustSnowCoffee.  Briefly, it's going to get brief.  Not as brief as Twitter (@dustsnowcoffee), but with a lot more pictures and less prose.  That's the plan anyway.


Let's do it!


We've got a lot to catch up on.  In small bites.


Which leads me to a meal, the real subject of this post.  I've been meaning to share it with you for months (six, not ten!).  




Do the cranberries give away that this meal took place on Cape Cod?  I was visiting my parents at their cottage on the beach, and they experimented with two newly discovered recipes, one of which was martinis with cranberry garnish.   We transported this exciting cocktail twist to the Coonamessett Inn in Falmouth, MA. It hasn't made its way to California yet, but I expect to see it in every chic lounge on the West Coast for the next cranberry harvest.




The real gems of the meal were the oysters.  To make the dish: start by whipping up your favorite aioli recipe.  Then shuck.


  
Freshly shucked oysters are key, right before you prepare the dish.  If there is no way you're going to shuck oysters yourself, the fishmonger will do it for you, but you risk losing a lot of juice.  Gently sautée a mix of chopped mushrooms, preferably fresh from the market, in olive oil and garlic with some salt and pepper.  Pile the mixture onto the shucked oysters.




Drop a teaspoon or two of the aioli onto the mushroom mixture, and broil until the aioli is just right--lightly brown but not burnt.




This is not an oyster.  It's a clam shell that is hosting a colony of smaller mollusks.  A micro community on South Cape Beach.




After you eat, you have to walk.  Otherwise, you risk making (and consuming!) another crispy-chilled martini with cranberries and a lemon twist.