oysters galore
The REALLY bad thing about work is that it is, for me, often all-consuming. That means nothing gets done around the house save for the bare essentials. That also means basic survival cooking if even that and we have done lots of that at home in the past 6 weeks. When it's too much to get a home-cooked meal together, we'll opt for something cheap and fast. Now, we don't eat fast food or anything like that--when we go out it's usually to a place where there is either a certain amount of comfort or homemade food. Neighbourhood taquerias, any Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean food places where I'm the only white guy in the place and so on. But even then, going out later in the evening is usually difficult because of the long work day and/or places choosing to close at a regular hour.
So now, the work crunch has been over for a week and things, cooking-wise, are getting back to normal. Last weekend, we took our touring motorcycle (a BMW K1200LT) north of San Francisco for a little pre-flight of a longer trip we intend to take later this year. It dawned on us just about the time we got to Mill Valley that the Johnson Oyster Company was in the area. The chase was now on.
We tooled up past Stinson Beach and headed for Inverness. After a wrong turn (my fault and Jan made sure that I turned around real quickly), we were headed for Point Reyes. The sign said about 17 miles to there and I thought that the oyster company was there. It was getting late for lunch, I was getting cranky and tired from being in the saddle so long. However, just a mile or two into the trip to Point Reyes, our Mecca sat staring us in the face: the access road to the Johnson Oyster Company.
I don't know what I was expecting but I was hoping for a sit-down place where we could slurp some freshly farmed oysters and relax. Alas, it was not to be. They had a fairly large facility and one smallish shack with a bunch of freshly harvested oysters and a couple of refrigerated cases. No real place to sit down, no drinks, lots of dust and sand. However, the trip's worth soon became evident.
You can buy their oysters in bulk (in their shells) and packed in jars. Lots of people in line ahead of us were buying fairly large bags of the tasty morsels. But WE needed them raw and NOW. Fortunately, they had what they called a "oyster cocktail" which was 3-4 "extra small" oysters in a small plastic cup. We ordered two and were directed to a small table where there was plenty of sauce in both quantity and variety plus forks and napkins. We were all set.
The moment I had one of those delectable things in my mouth, I knew that I had the best tasting oyster ever. A few minutes later, I was back in line for another cocktail and a pint jar of extra smalls. The taste of these oysters was exquisite. Extremely clean, a hint of brine, a nice little firmness that gave way to a foie gras-like taste and texture. You really didn't need sauce but their homemade tomato-based one complimented nicely. They were, in a word, fantastic.
Johnson's is apparently the only "approved" oyster farming company in Northern California (and maybe the entire state). It's on Drake's Bay which is also apparently some of the least polluted water on the California coast. I think that this is why their oysters taste so good.
We had our jar of gold packed in a bunch of ice and carefully put it into the motorcycle's side pack for the trip home. This past week, we both had at the jar in the form of "kaki fry" which is the Japanese style of breaded and quick-fried oysters. Jan took that one and they were delicious. Today, I made a basic gumbo (see one of the recent previous entries for a recipe) but substituted some fish stock, used a smoked bratwurst, some medium shrimp and about 12 of Johnson's oysters. That turned out real well too...the trick being putting the oysters into the gumbo about 10 minutes before serving and heating very gently so they'll cook but not break. I'll use the rest tomorrow for a classic appetizer of Oysters Rockefeller.