Fried clam

Cassandra is gone.  All I do these days is fry up 40 Fathoms-brand battered clams and eat them with ketchup.  Not even tartar sauce!  I'm shattered.  I am like a clam with a shattered shell putrefying on the shore.  40 Fathoms really is the worst; I don't know why I keep buying their SHIT

Clam About Town

If Cassandra can go have a girls' weekend out in some cottage somewhere, then I think I can go out clam-bar-hopping and live it up like a young urban man!  Which is what I am!  I ate so much tonight but it was all so good.  Cass makes us such great clams at home that I sometimes forget the quality we have within biking distance.  With Nocturne going on there were tons of people out and about, and at the fourth restaurant I even made a seafood friend!  Mishelle almost knew more about clams than me, and we had a few Caesars before her husband came and 'rescued' her.  He was making some very odd requests.

If Cass hadn't taken the camera with her I'd have documented my feast, but alas you're at the mercy of my description.  The highlight of the night was a dill clam risotto - though for the life of me, I cannot remember where I had it.  I had a LOT of clams tonight - so many I may even regret it tomorrow.  Let's hope not!

A Clammin' Good Mystery

Have I got the story for you!  Tonight, while Cass is up in Cow Bay visiting her ailing grandfather, I decided I would take a road trip of my own, down to that hotel she stayed at for the conference.  If the clams were as good as she said, I'd have my evening's work cut out for me!

But get this - I checked both restaurants, and there is not a clam on the menu!  Things got even weirder when I mentioned the confectioners' conference.  Apparently they hosted no such thing!

It's got to be a different hotel.  I'll ask Cass when I get home; I tried calling but she's got her phone off.  I'd hate to waste a trip down here, though.  I'm definitely going to have to buy some clams on the way home.

EDIT: Cass here.  Yes, it was a different hotel.

Room Service

Cassandra checking in from the hotel.  Really good conference so far; learning lots about different candying techniques.  Eating tons of samples too!

On F's request I gave Room Service a call and ordered the clams. The concierge told me they were the spé·cia·li·té de la mai·son, and rightfully so - some of the best clam I've ever had.  Just what I needed.

I think I'm going to get an early night.  There's a marzipan workshop starting at nine.

Quahogs for once

Cassandra is away for the night at a confectioners' conference (on Thanksgiving Monday - weird, right?) so I steamed up some quahogs for the occasion.  She won't eat quahogs because of they remind her of Family Guy, which she hates, but she is missing out on some incredible taste!  I know people throw this word around all the time these days, but these things truly are succulent.


What our garden's going to look like tomorrow

Sauce review: Francis' bourbon butter

A night in the fridge didn't do this sauce any favours - what Francis described as "smoky" is more like "stale", and there is far too much worcestershire.  Sorry, spouse.  This tastes rusty.    ** 2/5 clams

A few on the BBQ

Hi Clam Fans - Francis here again.  Cassandra is out tonight seeing a friend so I got out the barbecue and I'm living it up.  I don't need her around to eat gourmet! (although it drastically increases the chances that I will)

I got a bottle of bourbon out for the butter sauce.  I'd forgotten how good it is!  Cass doesn't like me drinking it when she's around (apparently I get too loud) but this smoky flavour is really going to slide off of these Longnecks - though I may have gone a little overboard with the worcestershire.  I'm going to have to save some of this sauce for Cass.  Maybe she'll weigh in on it later.

I'm also going to need to lay in a few more bottles of this bourbon.  It's disappearing faster than these clams will!


Barbecued clams - popping hot

Clammin' Downstairs

I'm back!  Cassandra's been spending a lot of time on the phone this week so I've had an opportunity to tend to my clams in the basement.  Everyone says it's impossible to raise clams without access to a beach, but I think they just lack imagination!

My sand table took a full year to build, but with the water pumps running smoothly and my regular plankton feedings, my little Cherrystones haven't been doing too badly.  I don't believe so anyway.  It's hard to tell through the sand.

I brought an armchair down here to eat dinner - sautéed razor clams, from Clem's (I went back!) with seared snow peas and red wine Alfredo sauce.  Even leftover from Friday it was amazing.

It'd be a lot colder down here without the heat lamps over the clams.  With them running 24/7, we won't even need to turn on the furnace until Christmas!

I think Cass is off the phone.  I'm going to stay down here a little longer, see if the clams need anything.  I might add some more salt to the water; I'll keep you posted.


Delicious razor clams

Trip to Clam Harbour

The Eastern Shore is one of Francis' favourite spots in the province, and to hasten his recovery I drove us out to Clam Harbour - a fitting destination for two "clam-ficionados" like us!

While quiet on the trip there, Francis definitely came out of his "shell" when he spotted roadside clam vendor Stephen, who we met this summer at the convention.  Stephen's buckets were filled with fresh clams, and we shot the salty breeze while Francis pored over the buckets, selecting what would be our dinner tonight.  I have to say he did a good job - our risotto was delicious - though some of the credit of course goes to Stephen for dredging them up!

Stephen told us an interesting story.  According to Eastern Shore lore, a giant clam once appeared on a moonlit night to an old fisherman, who tried to wrestle it into his boat but was instead swallowed whole, never to be heard from again.  Stephen then produced a pearl from his pocket and implied that it was perhaps the fisherman in calcium carbonate form - I laughed, but he gave me the pearl and told me to keep it safe, sounding very mysterious.  Francis offered to pay, but Stephen would have none of it, and even threw in some mussels with our clam haul.

Overall, I'd say, a successful trip!


A clam shell

Crazy - for chowder!

Cass here!  Francis has been in bed taking it easy ever since our oyster mishap, so I'm commandeering the blogging role temporarily.  My delirium was thankfully short-lived and left no lasting delusions.

This weekend I experimented with some chowders - clam only of course - and the smell has got Francis itching to get better.  I've been bringing him large bowls to build up his strength.  Here are some reactions he had to my concoctions:

Carrot Tarragon Clam Chowder

Francis said it was light and delicate, but he didn't keep it down for more than a minute.  I thought it needed more salt.

Triple Clam Chowder

I tried to make Francis guess which types of clams I used in this one by smell alone.  He guessed Cherrystone and Butter clam immediately, but couldn't place the distinctive Littleneck clams I'd secretly imported for his birthday.  I agreed that the chowder suffered from being too high-concept, and was only fair to middling in taste.

Corn, Clam and Caper Chowder

I admit, I went a little overboard with the alliteration (and with the capers) but corn is F's favourite, and he ate bowl after bowl of this particular experiment.  There was so little left for me that I was forced to subsequently make....

Clam Salad

I tossed some raw clams with baby spinach, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, blueberry balsamic vinegar and some of the expensive olive oil, and voila!  I left a small serving for Francis in the fridge but ended up eating it myself while he was sleeping.

I hope Francis is up and about soon, because my palate is simply not enough for all these clams we've got in the fridge.  And I hate packing up leftovers.

Chowder, clam (not one of mine)

Oysters? N'oysters!

Cassandra brought some oysters home today, thinking that we might enjoy them as much as clams.

She couldn't have been more wrong!

Opting to pan-fry, Cassandra added a whole stick of butter, an entire head of garlic, and her secret ingredient (which I will not reveal here).  So how, you might think, did it turn so bad?

Maybe she used old garlic.  Maybe they were bad oysters.  But we were up half the night with fevers!  Cass was hallucinating - she kept talking about bird people coming to attack her, and at one point she thought I was one of these, and she lashed out at me with her fingernails.  I had been vomiting myself and the noise was agitating her.  I had to hold her until she calmed down but it was the middle of the night before she finally fell asleep.  I haven't thrown up for a few hours but I still don't feel on top of my game.  We probably won't be going into work today.

From now on we're sticking to clams.

Pan-fried oysters - not a good idea

All Clammed Around

Today Cassandra and I drove to a new clam shack near Lunenburg.  We had heard (through a colleague of hers at the restaurant) that they specialized in Razor clams - a species which is more delicious in garlic butter than even mushrooms - and we figured it would be worth the drive.  We listened to Stevie Nicks on the way (Cassandra's choice).

But when we arrived at Clem's Clams, we found to our dismay that it was closed!  They had run out of clams an hour before we arrived.  Disappointed but not discouraged, we went down to the docks to see if we could intercept some fishermen.  As luck would have it, a clam boat was just arriving, and one small financial transaction later, we had procured for ourselves a whole bucket of fresh Razor clams.  We never leave home without the cooler, so we loaded it up and drove back to the city, working up amazing appetites.  Cassandra insisted on Stevie Nicks again on the way back, in exchange promising to make her famous breaded jalapeño mustard clams tonight.  I indulged her, of course, and there's only one word to describe what she whipped up for us:

Clam-tastic!


Clams in clean buckets

Welcome to ClamBlog!

You've stumbled upon ClamBlog, what my partner Cassandra and I hope will become a leading online resource on clams and molluscs.  I am an oceanographer by trade, and Cassandra is a chef - so between us, we've raised and eaten some of the most delicious clams of all time.  We'll be writing about all things clam, so check back often for recipes, stories, and of course, clam puns.  Happy clamming!


Clams