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Lobster in Blue
This was the lonely last soul in the tank at a seafood restaurant at the South Street Seaport in New York City on Sunday. I’m all for eating lobster, but this fellow (or lady) pulls even my heart strings.
Read MoreWild Vermont Lobster
Ran across Les Hook and Nova Kim from the “northeast Kingdom of Vermont” at the New Amsterdam Market in New York yesterday. I did a double-take when I saw the packages marked “Wild Vermont Lobster.” Ain’t no ocean there, folks. Of course, what they were selling was “lobster” mushrooms, harvested by hand and dried. Does anyone…
Read MoreThe Ultimate in Sustainable Sushi Might Just Be … Chicken
In The Story of Sushi I write about one of the first female sushi chefs to graduate from the California Sushi Academy–Tracy Griffith, actress, singer, and half-sister of Melanie Griffith. Here’s the beginning of the section about Tracy in the book: A feisty redhead, Tracy had gotten to the point in her film career where…
Read MoreLobster Claw Stiletto Booties
The world needs fantasy, not reality. We have enough reality today. Fashion designer Alexander McQueen, commenting in the New York Times Magazine on his ’lobster claw stiletto booties’ The magazine reports: During Paris fashion week in October, Alexander McQueen sent down the runway lobster-claw ankle booties that were the highest, and probably the strangest, shoes we…
Read MoreHow Fish Cheese Can Solve Our Carp Problem
The New York Times reports that Asian carp – “a mammoth, voracious, non-native conqueror among fish” – are invading and conquering the Mississippi river system and now the Great Lakes. Funny, just like how sushi conquered the Midwest. So I have a solution. Make the carp into sushi. Freshwater carp sushi is the original form…
Read MoreBluefin Tuna: Tigers of the Sea
This a slide from the A/V presentation that I show with my lectures. I tell the audience a bit about the amazing bluefin tuna, and then explain what is happening with the overfishing of this majestic beast, and then I ask, “Would you eat a tiger burger?”
Read MoreLobster Is So Cheap That …
Not sure how I feel about this lobster grilled-cheese sandwich. The poor lobster’s fortunes seem to be falling awfully fast. What say you? Lobster meat’s financial status has been tumbling for some time now; if you’re curious why, I unraveled some of the mystery of cheap lobster prices a while back on The Atlantic. It’s…
Read MoreOyster farming can actually clean Chesapeake Bay
Oyster farming can actually clean Chesapeake Bay Drastic changes proposed for Maryland’s oyster industry: The three-pronged proposal includes plans to increase Maryland’s network of oyster sanctuaries, expand areas available for aquaculture and private leasing of oyster harvesting, and protect current fisheries from leasing. Because oysters naturally filter pollutants out of the water, a larger population…
Read MoreTime for a gravadlax revival?
Time for a gravadlax revival? This is also how sushi got its start in Asia, as a buried-fish preservation technique: The word Gravadlax (actually two words, gravad and lax) translates as buried salmon. Back in the mists of time, the fish were buried with salt to preserve them and the hidey-hole marked and covered with rocks to…
Read MoreU.S. Bowling Congress endorses sushi over french fries
U.S. Bowling Congress endorses sushi over french fries Ironic. In my book The Story of Sushi, one of the characters I interviewed talks about how when he was a kid growing up, his Japanese father’s favorite sushi bar was in a Japanese-American bowling alley in L.A. He laments how that place disappeared. Only for bowling-alley…
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