This photo shows The Phantom looking rather nervous. I'm not a great lover of boats, and had just been handed a set of waders to put on which looked like they had come straight out of the costume locker for the film "The Perfect Storm".
This is JJ's oyster barge, with my better half looking cool for'ard.
Early morning light over the oyster beds...
This is John Joe, hefting a sack of oysters. We were standing way out at sea. The oyster beds are only uncovered at low tide, for a couple of hours morning and evening, two weeks out of four.
We were out to do some quality control. This is the contents of one bag...
I soon started to relax when I realised that we had an oyster knife on board. After all, there's only one real way to do quality control on an oyster. Eating it. I will never eat an oyster any fresher than those I ate, standing in the Atlantic that morning.
And this is A Happy Phantom, with two kilos of mussels and two dozen spanking fresh oysters for that night's supper. I'm afraid I didn't get any photographs that night, we were too busy eating!
3 comments:
I am unseemingly, outrageously, appallingly, offensively disgracefully envious of your oyster haul... I love, love oysters. Did you eat them all? Oh I hope so....
Greedy Amalee
I was sharing them with my wife, John Joe and his wife, Kay. I have to confess I ate most of the oysters myself though! The mussels were excellent too, the plumpest, meatiest morsels of mussel I have ever eaten. We just cooked them in a big pot with some softened onion and lashings of dry cider. Gorgeous.
By the way, JJ sells most of his mussels to the Dutch, and his oysters to the French. We British just don't recognise quality...
What struck me was the contrast between the two photos of you.
One filled with trepidation... the other filled with oysters and mussels.
Which one was the happiest?? :)
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