Soft Shell Video

The video link below was done by Tim Sughrue of Congressional Seafood over at a sloughing house in  Kent Island, MD.  In the video you can see how much larger the soft shell crab is than the shell it burst from.  Remember, you have to be quick to catch the crabs at the perfect moment when they first release their shell, because immediately after they begin to harden.  This requires round-the-clock watch with workers keeping an eye on the crabs through the night.  It's a labor of love, but anyone who's eaten a great soft shell crab will tell you its worth it!

VIDEO

Copper River Opens

It is on.  The wild salmon season that is.  Some have been feasting on farm raised Atlantic salmon, the purists have been munching on frozen fish, and the die-hards have been suffering through withdrawal.  May 17th changed all of that with the opening of the Copper River salmon run, the unofficial (or official depending on who you ask) banner cutting, corner stone founding, breaking ground of the wild salmon season.  Other rivers in California and Oregon, such as the Klamath, have been open since May 1st, but it is usually the Copper River that gets everyone excited.

The first week wasn't so hot for the Copper River.  Bad weather and strong winds up to 40 knots reeked havoc on the 330 brave harvesters, who were fishing in the short opening window. About 82,000 sockeyes were delivered with 700 kings - that's a really low number of kings, down by half from last year.  The prices reflected the bad weather and low harvest.  Seafood sellers in Anchorage were reportedly selling whole sockeyes for $16.95/lb. and kings for $22.95/lb.  That's without factoring the loss you take after cutting fillets.


The second 12 hour opening on May 20th fared much better though, with 190,000 sockeyes and 1,400 kings showing up for that harvest.  What that means for us in D.C. is that prices won't be cheap, beware of any fresh wild salmon of good quality considered so, but they will be here and just in time for the Memorial Day weekend.  Copper River sockeye and kings are renown for having a great fat content, firm texture, and delicious flavor.  The river is a long one, so the salmon that have to travel back to their place of birth have to fatten up to make the long haul.  At the end of 2012 there were a lot of deals to be found at big brand grocery stores for sockeye salmon.  Be careful though, as you might see some great deals, don't be deceived.  Prices often reflect the freshness, handling practices, and overall quality of the product.  Not all fish get distributed and handled the same.  Look for glistening fillets, a melon fragrance, and a nice fat content.  It is also pertinent to ask whether they butcher the fish in-house or receive fillets that are pre-cut.  The fish that come in whole tend to be superior in my experience.


Now that the season is underway, be on the look out for sockeyes, kings, and cohos as more and more rivers and areas open.  In the not too distant future you will begin to see fish from areas such as Bristol Bay, Sitka, and the Columbia, Kenai, Cook, Fraser, Taku, Quinault, Nushagak rivers.  Copper River though will always hold a special place in the hearts of salmon lovers nationwide.  Maybe it's the mystique of being one of the first to open.  Maybe it's the special sight of all those fish returning every year, just like the generations before them did.  I think it has to do with our anxious anticipation.  Every year the fish return, is another year that we have a chance to make things better, for them and ourselves.     It's a chance to time travel 1,000 years into history and rewind the costs of humanity.  Every year is another chance at protecting an ancient resource and slowing our lives down to live a little closer to the land, with newly found appreciation, reverence, and awe.

VA and MD Take To The Reefs

Imagine the Bay, a crystal clear sanctuary where many different species thrive and reproduce and live in a balanced, bountiful harmony.  Imagine a Bay where you can see the bottom through glass-like water.  That's exactly the way the Chesapeake Bay was, before the pollution.  What kept it that way were the millions of oysters, dutifully filtering the entire Bay every 3 days.  Oysters are a very important part of a healthy ecology and play a very significant role in our water system.  VA and MD government bodies are doing a lot of work to bring back oyster reefs and oyster populations to their previous glory days.  This includes transporting oysters and "putting them in the mood" by bathing them in warmer water to induce spawning.  Think of it as sex therapy for oysters.  Please take a look at this ARTICLE to read more about the work and importance of bringing oysters back to the Bay.  When you get a chance while dinning to try some oysters this summer, especially Virginia or Maryland varieties, take the plunge.  The more of them you eat, the more of them get planted.  The Bay needs more empty shells, because at BRG restaurants the shells go back into the water to create new habitat for the next generation of oysters.

Shuck 'em if you got 'em

Piracy Costs Everyone

Reuters published a report today on how fish piracy, the illegal harvesting and selling of seafood, is costing the global economy billions.  The report is based on Oceana's ongoing efforts to combat the many problems facing the fishing industry and its transparency, or lack thereof.  According to Oceana's research, illegally caught seafood could account for a minimum of 20% of seafood worldwide.  The illegal trade threatens the jobs of 260 million people who are dependent on the seafood industry.  Let's not forget about the fish in this scenario.  Fish piracy has devastating effects on many species that are already threatened or endangered, such as blue fin tuna, many species of shark, and abalone.

Kudos to Oceana's work and Reuters reporting for bringing to light this blight on the industry.  Piracy and mislabeling are real issues that the seafood industry must deal with and it only reinforces the importance of BRG's initiatives with our traceability program.  Being able to trace your seafood purchase adds a value not only to the customer, but also to the fishermen who caught or farmed it.  In order to keep our oceans healthy and fish stocks sustainable, seafood must be purchased responsibly at every level, from docks to markets to restaurants to diners.

More on the traceability program here.

Soft Shell Crabs are Coming

I have been hesitant to write something on soft shells this year.  Though they started to show up over a month ago, the prices were sky high and quality was, well it was the first of the season, so you know how that goes.  Now I feel like its time to mention the tasty little critters because more states are open and if the warm weather keeps up we are going to see softies begin shedding right in our backyard.  Right now FL, GA, and SC are producing soft shell crabs and my sources tell me that pots have been dropped in VA waters and right now its a waiting game.  The price has come down, not to mid-season levels, but enough where we are offering them at BlackSalt on a regular basis.  The sizes I have been quoted right now are for jumbo size crabs, which are perfect for cooking, but the smaller crabs that are more affordable are soon to come.  If you want to encourage the warm the weather to get here faster, there's no better way to do it than cooking up some soft shell crabs, pouring a few pints, and turning up the music.  Quoting the Beatles, "Here comes the sun."

Craw-Daddy

Black Restaurant Group loves to host a crawfish boil and if we are putting on a party, you know its going to be epic.  During the spring months of April, May, and June you will catch at least one of our restaurants throwing down on a good ole' fashioned, Louisiana-style boil that includes spicy peel-and-eat shrimp, gator, corn, potatoes, and homemade andouille sausage.  The feature is of course, the star of it all, authentic, live Louisiana crawfish.  Whether you call them crawfish, crawdads, crawdaddys, or mud bugs, you can't go wrong when you use live, fat, select size crawfish for your boil.  Finding the best ones outside of the state of Louisiana is not always as easy as you might think.  The folks in the bayou are quite fond of their local fare, and usually the fattest bugs are reserved for card-carrying members.  Lets just say, it pays to know a guy.

Enter Jamie Guidry.  Jamie is the son of Louisiana chef Todd Guidry and has started a company, Crawdaddy's LLC,  running crawfish from select spots in Crowley and Dulac, LA all the way back to D.C. once a week during the season.  Jamie and his family are from Louisiana and have rooted connections there that aren't open to everybody.  Fortunately for us, Jamie uses his connections to deliver only the best and sweetest bugs available, ones that previously would not have crossed state lines.  Jeff Black restaurants offer these delicious critters in the proper style, seasoned with secret spices and served in boil-basket, family style fashion.  We won't share just exactly what spices are used in making these buttery bugs mouth-watering, but we are proud to have a true bayou guy providing us with the most important ingredient; great product.  Jamie's bugs really are the sweetest crawfish I have tasted.  The next time you hear crawfish boil at one of the Black restaurants, get your ticket early.  We will get you in on the tasty 'secret' as if you were a true Louisianian.  Just don't call them crayfish.

Northern Neck Turns to Produce

Barn at the Farm

Steve Turnage began delivering fresh products to Washington D.C. in 1986 and has not looked back since.  He wakes up at 2:30 in the morning on delivery days and is on the road by 3:30 am in order to get to D.C. restaurants in time for lunch service.  He started out growing mushrooms on logs cut from white oak but since has moved on to produce.

His Northern Neck Farm is situated behind his house on Kingsmill Road in Hague, Virginia and boasts almost 100 acres.  On it he produces fresh greens, onions, rosemary, and lettuce right now, but is always open to farming new items.  He enjoys developing working relationships with chefs where each party feeds off the other for ideas.  You can tell his heart is in it from the painstaking efforts he takes in producing good food.  Crops are planted and harvested by hand, which, when you are talking about over 5,000 individual onion bulbs, can get quite daunting.  Still, Steve prides himself on his ability to maintain quality in his products while deterrents such as deer and bad weather hinder his production.  Recently he planted a field of wildflowers to encourage bees to visit the area.  The noisy guests provide a vehicle for pollination and are a welcome sight to any farm.  Steve will continue to provide great produce to local D.C. restaurants for some time, but that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to get any bigger.  Steve reflected as we were leaving, "I like where we are right now.  We are at a place where if we got any bigger, I am not sure we could do what we do."  That's a thoughtful insight into the difference between buying from large producers and small farmers; it's not about how many plants you grow, but rather, how you grow them.  Videos: Deliveries, Spinach, and Produce

Waiting for Spring