Planting the Seed

Skip's crew might be dwindling but we've still got plenty of work ahead of us. We've got an acre or so of open lease to plant; like any other farm or crop rotation, after a crop has been harvested, the land has to be cleared before you can plant again. We've spent the summer picking it clean and now we're filling every last corner of it with new seed. (And to answer a Mom question, there are other sections of the lease that are packed with full-grown oysters which were planted last year.) Skip is taking a break from "shovel" planting to try a hand at hand planting. We're planting onto a part of the lease that's just north of the cages (nursery) where the seed is being stored so for the next few days, we're carrying bags from the cages straight over to the lease, opening them, and emptying them out by hand into a small square area. This is a pretty cool set up since we can shake the seed right onto the ground when the tide is out and see what kind of density we have in that spot. Shaking the bags feels a little like operating a fertilizing machine. You hold the bag horizontally and shake it carefully from side to side while walking backwards so that you can cover a small line of area with a consistent number of oysters. Between Monday and Tuesday we put down thousands of oysters into a fairly small window of space. The seeds are still only about 3/4 to 1 inch long and they're all set pretty close together. Imagine that same space in about a year when the land is covered in three-inch oysters. Pretty incredible that we can get so many of them into a condensed area. But, as I keep saying, there's still a ton of seed.

Speaking of which, we may be at the tail end of our upwelling season...finally! Having watched and been very much a part of the process from the beginning, I can say that it's a fascinating system. Force feeding the oysters in a controlled environment produces an incredible yield. (But it's not without its headaches: at the very whisper of nearby Hurricane Bill this weekend, the Maritime School almost pulled all of their docks -- and our upwellers -- out of the water. Thankfully, the storm went far enough east so we we able to keep everything intact but the idea of getting the seed moved and possibly disassembling the upwellers was a major hassle. The only good thing that storm produced was some huge swells for Berg and Greg to ride on Sunday afternoon.) We'll probably do our last grade tomorrow and get that seed into the nursery. (It will be the last seed we plant later this season.)

Besides completing my tasks as Mama Seeda for the season, I've been able to spend more time on the float with the crew. Sadly, we're getting down to bare bones: today is Maggie's last day for the summer and Catie is out after Friday (she's taking a job as an eco-consultant in Burlington). But I have the feeling both will still be around quite a bit over the winter -- at least they better be. On Monday, it'll be back to me and a crew of guys: A2, Berg, Will & Greg. It's a good number for the fall so I think we'll have plenty of hands to get work done. It's just so hard to believe that summer might be coming to an end. Didn't it just get started??

It's August what?

We're halfway through our last month of the summer season and I have no idea where it went. Last week flew. Our new routine of pulling river bags, dumping the seed into the boat and Skip planting keeps our days flowing smoothly from one project to the next but 10 hours goes by in a second. We got a good amount of seed planted on the grant this week thanks to good weather but there's still a ways to go. The seed in our upwellers has finally reached a point where every silo is evenly filled and the levels are low. We'll keep grading (onto 1/2 inch screen now) and sending more seed out into the river (to replace the seed that's being planted) and we continue to wash, wash, wash our oysters and the bags they sit in. It never seems to end but now that I can see the progress, it's easy to understand why we take such good care of the seed.

These 1/2" oysters are now going out to the river on a daily basis. The oysters we're planting are about twice this size. The color on the shells has faded from wine/amber/purple to the gray-ish green you find on full grown oysters. Still, they're beautiful to look at when they're this size. Imperfectly shaped but with the smoothness and curve of a fingernail. And they're sharp as hell. I've got a hand full of slivers from handling them this week.

This was Eva's last week on the farm, sadly. One by one they go. We sent her off with a mini float party on Friday afternoon which ended with us creating crate city to keep the seagulls away. They've recently discovered that the roof on our house and the float itself are excellent spots to hang out -- they toss clams down onto the deck to crack them open and then crap all over the place. Not a pleasant sight first thing in the morning. But Skip installed a tiny device that simulates a seagull distress signal and keeps other gulls away. Apparently it works because the guys got to the float yesterday and found it free of poop. (Side note: If I'd known how much poop is involved in the world of oyster farming, I may not have asked for this job. At least I've gotten used to it.)

We hosted a serious float party last night for a the Hale family and a slew of their friends. Skip put on a show with striped bass ceviche, razor clam chowder, steamers, oysters, lobsters, and steak (with help from Meggie O'Neill, a former Creeker who now works in restaurants and did most of the catering). Catie, Shore and I lent a hand with service and clean up, but really, we were there to enjoy a perfect Duxbury evening on the water.

The guests absolutely made the night for us. They belted out tunes by Journey, Jimmy Buffet and the Beach Boys while feasting their way through the night. Once the sun went down, we lit the gas lanterns and snacked on ice cream sandwiches and blueberry tarts. To cap it off, we were treated to a fantastic display of stars (with a few meteors thrown in) and polished it all off with a stop at the Winsor House for last call. The whole night was a delicious display of how these guys are living the good life -- and not a bad way for me to spend a Saturday.

Back to work (and highlights from a whirlwind trip)

I felt incredible driving to work yesterday morning. Refreshed, renewed, strong... at least until about 10:30 when we started pulling out silos to grade the seed. Our babies exploded while I was away! Not only was I huffing and puffing trying to pull the massive seed out, but my arms were completely out of shape. After a week. So pathetic. Yesterday we hit the tide early to change over some of the nursery bags to a larger size -- the seed we put out there a few weeks ago is massive but some of it may be out there for another 4-6 weeks so we want to make sure it has plenty of room to breathe. I love seeing the difference in size -- it seems so dramatic in such a short period of time.

As for the upwellers, I was happy to see that Eva and Catie (the other seed mamas) kept things under control. It's insane how heavy our silos have gotten. But, the fantastic news is: We've started planting. Just today in fact. For those who don't know, once Island Creek Oysters have reached a certain size in the nursery (about the size of a half dollar), they're planted on the bottom of the bay floor where they're grown "free range" as we like to call them. They won't attach to anything; they simply grow loose on the bottom. Over the next several months, they'll grow pretty big until the water temperature drops in November when they'll go dormant. Once the water warms back up in the spring, they'll continue growing until they reach full size (about three inches) around harvest time. We'll be harvesting this batch sometime in Fall 2010.

To get started with planting, we pulled about 75 bags of seed out of the river and spent the morning dumping it into the bottom of our boat. Skip then took the boat out to the now empty lease (we spent the last few weeks cleaning all of the oysters off the bottom) and with a snow shovel, carefully flung loads of seed out onto the bay floor (he did it at low tide so he could watch the way the seed distributes).

While planting is a good sign, we still have a ways to go with the seed. Skip is planting the first batch of seed we received this past May and he'll leave the newest seed in the nursery and upwelling system until they're as big as what he planted today. Berg broke it down for me yesterday: we keep the seed growing in the bags for as long as we possibly can because once we plant it, the growth that occurs on the bottom of the bay floor is out of our control. By keeping it in the bags, we're keeping them safe from predators and giving them a little breathing room to grow.

Essentially, my job as Mama-Seeda is winding down but we still have a long way to go to get it all planted.

In the meantime, summer is definitely winding down. Quinn headed back to Indiana University last weekend. Eva is here just one more week (which is devastating since she's been an enormous help on the seed); Pops is off to college in a few weeks and Maggie's headed back to grad school at the end of August. "In the fall," Maggie said yesterday, "you guys will feel like it went by in a blink." She's right. Summer is just way too short. But don't worry about us. We're soaking up every second. We wind down the day with a swim and are doing everything we can to soak up the sun (with sunscreen on, of course).

Now, to the trip. There are way too many great stories to tell so I'll keep it focused on the food. A few dining highlights:

Greenhouse Tavern, Cleveland We found this spot on Saturday night after taking in a baseball game. It's right in the theater district and had the best crispy frites topped with a poached egg. Also discovered Dogfish Brewery's Theobroma. Love it.

Founder's Brewing, Grand Rapids, MI Dave has become quite the beer nerd which pleases me to no end since it gives us an excuse to hit up every divey beer bar and brewery we come across. At the Publick House (where he bartends) he serves Founders' Centennial Ale among others so we stopped into the brewery on our way through Michigan. Beautiful space with lots of windows and long, winding bar plus views into the on-site brewery. The beer cheese dip (made with cream chese, gouda, plus three of their beers: Pale Ale, Red Rye, and IPA) was a gooey, outstanding road snack.

Alinea, Chicago Words can hardly describe this one. We were blown away from the minute we sat down. It's a dining/theatrical experience, from the rock-heated basil and tomato vines (served as an aromatic essence to accompany heirloom tomato salad) to the nitrogen-frozen mousse finale (wherein chef Grant Achatz himself arrives at the table to plate a variety of blueberry sauces, maple-wood globes, the mousse, malted ice cream, and fresh thyme artistically across a silicon pad set directly on the table and then tells the diner: "the rest is up to you.")

I am still wide eyed over the white chocolate sphere filled with watermelon liquid and accompanying straw filled with raspberry jam AND Bubbilicious bubble gum and piece of caramel-drizzled bacon served from a string. Also adored the "steak and potato" course with sous vide wagyu beef, potato crisp covered potato cream cube and involved a centerpiece that spewed dry ice and the smell of the grill (garlic, thyme, smoke) across our table in wisps of smoke. Oh, and there was a packet of powdered A-1. We managed to catch a little piece of it here.

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Map Room, Chicago Another beer lovers' haunt, complete with volumes and volumes of National Geographics stacked in the bookcase. We hit this post-Alinea so our palates were fuzzy but the Guldenberg was a nice nightcap.

The Publican, Chicago Our final stop before the long car ride home. The design and decor are really unique with long, communal tables, tall, stiff-backed chairs and beautiful wood and brass fixtures. We were there for afternoon service (3:30-5:30) so didn't have the full menu or a big crowd but the space was filling up by the time we left. The limited menu was a perfect sampling of their easy, lighter dishes. We took in some frites (also offered with a poached egg - I'm seeing a midwest trend here) as well as some oysters (the chef's selection, decent but ultimately disappointing since they weren't our own) and the charcuterie plate (pork pie; duck liver terrine; spicy Spanish sausage; and a first for me, raisin mustard).

Eastern Standard, Boston

Ok, ok. Not on the itinerary but we did end our vacation here on Sunday night. Garrett Harker invited locally based friends that are originally from in and around the Maryland area to join him for an authentic Maryland-style crab festival and it was glorious. Newspapers, mallets, Old Bay, Natty Bo in the can, tasty crabs, and yes (YES!), TastyCakes for dessert (Mom, you would have loved it.) It ended with CJ laying face down on the table due to a self-induced food coma (he survived) along with us leaving in time to get a full night sleep and head back to work on Monday morning.

It is fantastic to be home but sadly, staring into our far-too-empty fridge makes me really want to go back to Chicago. Or at least crack open some Island Creeks.

The chef connection

One of the main reasons I was drawn to Island Creek (aside from the oysters, of course), was the way in which the farm established relationships with chefs. Almost every Boston chef I can name knows of (and favors) Island Creek oysters. But more importantly, they all know Skip and "the guys from Island Creek." Skip and Shore have clearly worked hard to make theirs a well-known brand. But they've also opened the door and welcomed any chef that wants to come down to the water and check things out. While this isn't a new concept (chefs have probably visited farms and had relationships with their purveyors since restaurants were created), I knew early on that there was a takeaway with ICO that most chefs couldn't get anywhere else. Being on the water and going out to the lease can make people a little awe struck. There's a mystery behind growing oysters. Sure, it's scientific and methodical but oysters themselves aren't easy creatures to know. On top of which, the farm has an aura to it. The people there happen to love their lives and the place where they live. And sure it involves hard work, but it all takes place in the middle of a breathtaking bay.

To be fair, there's no easy way to describe to visitors what to expect. You'll come down to the water, go out to the float and probably get a tour of the nursery and the lease. You'll be on a boat. In a harbor. It will most likely be beautiful out. The crew will be busy and will likely keep working while you explore. You'll see what it means to cull and to drag. But we won't tell you much more than that. We'll wait for the questions to come. And while we try to tell people what to expect, every time we get them down, we get the same reaction: Wide eyes with a face that's half smile, half awe. One that says, "How fucking cool is this?"

Will Gilson, chef at Garden at the Cellar came to the farm with a few of his cooks on Tuesday. Talk about cool: he's cooking a dinner at the James Beard House in New York on Tuesday, Aug. 4th and he's personally sourcing every ingredient on the menu from New England. He's raising and slaughtering pigs, catching his own mackerel, harvesting his own produce, and, of course, hand picking the oysters.

He and his guys gallantly suited up in waders and came out on the tide with us. We were there to get some work done, cleaning cages and organizing bags, while they were there to pick. We handed them some buckets, gave them a few guidelines and let them go. Forty five minutes went by before I checked on them. Walking towards them in the water, I could tell they were enjoying it. Their buckets were full of perfect oysters and they were relishing the sunshine and the water. Will was happy with his haul and Brandon was antsy to open some of the jumbos so he could fry them up and stuff them into po boys at the restaurant that night.

It might not sound like much. But I guarantee they'll always remember Island Creeks because of that visit. And they'll remember what it felt like to stand in the water and pick the food they would eat later that night. It will stay with all of them no matter where they end up next or who they cook for. And that's a pretty powerful tool.

Of course, we also grow pigs for our chefs. Gourmet and Midnight are getting nice and fat in time for Oyster Fest. The chefs who will be roasting them, Chris Schlesinger (East Coast Grill) and Jamie Bissonnette (Toro) are in for a treat. We've been feeding them about 10 pastries a day and Hendo's been mixing up a slop (including beer) for them every now and then. If this isn't enough to make a chef fall in love, I don't know what is.

Getting to work side by side with our chefs is a pretty big part of it all. We're not just raising goddamn delicious oysters -- we're doing it in a way that works for the chefs. We create culls for them. We pick them at just the right size. And we spend hours putting together perfect bags. It's a business but it's one the growers and their crews are downright obsessed with doing well.

Which is why I'm almost reluctant to leave the farm for a week-long vacation. (I did say "almost.") We're headed to Mackinac Island, Michigan for the Murray Family Reunion tomorrow night -- we're road tripping out there and have stops in Cleveland and Chicago on the way to and from. (Dining at Alinea on Thursday night. And yes! They buy our oysters!) While I desperately need a break (my lower back could probably take a month off), leaving the farm and all of the seed is no easy feat. I can still see oysters when I close my eyes at night. Wonder if that goes away after a week? I'm guessing no...

From sunset to sunrise.

Phew. What a week. I swore I'd be better about posting. But these last few weeks have had me scrambling between life on the farm and everything else. Not that I'm complaining. I can't decide what I'm more grateful for: the fact that my job keeps me out on the water all day or that it has almost completely removed the computer from my life. It was another typical, summery weather week. Some sun, a few showers, and one massive storm that hit on Thursday night. Luckily, the beginning of the week was clear. Chef Jeremy Sewell brought his kitchen crews from both Lineage and Eastern Standard, along with some friends, out to the farm for a tour and dinner. They started on the docks with a look at the upwelling system and then made their way out to the tide to check out the nursery. Eventually, they landed on the float where they cracked open some Harpoons and waited for dinner.

Skip had been out early that morning pulling up his lobster traps and digging steamers for his guests. The haul was huge and he'd been on the float that afternoon setting up for dinner. Apparently, when Skip hosts a float party, he goes all out.

He and Shore pulled together a great meal with little more than a few steam kettles, some sea water and some rock weed. And, of course, plenty of melted butter. The kitchen crews were clearly impressed... and probably more than happy to let someone else take over dinner for the night.

After dinner, and a few more drinks, the crowd got a little rowdy.

And before we knew it, they were all in the water.

Exactly how it should be, Skip said.

The crew had to catch a bus back to Boston but a few of us hung out on the float for my first sunset from the water.

And, of course, it was followed a few short days later by my first real sunrise on the water. We had a big drainer week and on Thursday, we made it out on a 6 a.m. tide just in time for the sun to come out.

We spent both Wednesday and Thursday on the tide pulling in plenty of hand picked oysters and cleaning up the nursery a bit. The cleaning went quickly since there were so many of us. Looking down the row of cages at our army of a crew made it feel like effortless work. But we still managed to get ourselves caked in mud.

Thursday night's storm had Skip down at the water at 3:30 a.m. where he said he could hardly stand up due to the wind. The waves were crashing up and over the docks where our upwellers live. One of our boats actually got ripped off the dock but thankfully, he was there to pull it back in. Friday morning there were sailboats up on the rocks by the Maritime School and the harbor looked disheveled in general. We didn't make it out on the water that day but still managed to get some organizing and work done at the shop.

Yet another busy summer week. But oddly enough, I'm starting to get used to it all.

They're alive!

When you look at oyster seed every day, it's hard to remember that they're living, eating, breathing creatures. The little buggers just lie there while you wash and grade them and aside from floating around in the upwelling system, they don't seem to do much of anything. At least, that's what I thought. And then Skip reached his hand into an upweller last week and something happened. It was the seed he'd been growing out in the back river (which feeds into Duxbury Bay from the northeast, just past the Powder Point Bridge) in floating trays. He was experimenting with one of his batches of seed and it had done really well, growing quickly to a size that looked good to him. We'd moved it to the upwelling system about a week or two ago. He pulled a handful out on Tuesday to take a peek and as they were sitting in his hand, the seeds started moving. They were actually opening and closing but it looked like they were about to jump.

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"I've probably grown about a hundred million seeds over the years and I've never seen anything like it," Skip said a little wide-eyed. All of the other growers came down to take a look and said the same thing: "Never seen that before. (And we hope it's not a bad thing.)" We watched it happen again a few more times over the course of the week so Skip called his friend Dick Krause from ARC. Dick thought it might have something to do with the difference in salinity between the back river and the upwelling system. Perhaps they were getting used to the higher salinity levels? They eventually stopped doing it and have been growing nicely all week -- definitely not a bad thing. I, for one, was tickled to see these fragile little things having some fun with us.

Other than that, our week was a good one. We finally had a string of good weather (and luck) so things on the farm ran smoothly. Berg was back with a leg brace so the team felt whole again. We did some cage cleaning to get all the seed that we've put out in the bay nice and neat. Cleaning involves pulling those mesh plastic bags out of the cages, banging them a little with a PVC pipe to keep the oysters from crowding into the corners, giving them a shake and a hand swipe to get some of the gunk off of them, then rotating the bags so they all get equal time on the top or the bottom of the cage. It's a slow process but we managed to get a number of cages done this week. We also deployed some more seed so our nursery is almost completely full both in the bay and in the back river. My favorite day was Friday: the seed crew (Catie, Eva, and me) graded in the morning and then went out to the float and culled for the rest of the afternoon. We went for a swim, hung out in the sun...Eva taught me how to skip oyster shells (I was a complete hack until she pointed out where my forefinger should rest on the shell; I got a few good ones off but definitely need some practice). We ended the week on a very relaxed note.

This was also a huge week for Island Creek in the press. Tasting Table, an epicurean email newsletter (like a foodie's DailyCandy), did a sweet write up on our new webstore (thanks Ryan!) and How2Heroes posted some videos they'd shot a few weeks back. Nice way to introduce folks to the farm so pass it along.

I spent this weekend in Charlotte for my sister's baby shower. She and her husband are in the process of adopting a child so it was a fantastic way to celebrate their new addition... and they'll be super prepared for whenever the baby gets here! The best part about it is that my sis could eat and drink whatever she wanted yesterday so we had a few drinks, and of course, a few oysters. The farm shipped 5 dozen down for the party and we had a blast shucking in the back yard. Lots of love for Island Creek in the South. We just need to get our oysters into more Charlotte restaurants (hint hint, Hendo).

What could possibly go wrong?

It turns out, almost everything. We've had something of a black cloud following us these last few weeks. It's nothing serious but there's been a string of bad luck and I'm hoping the streak is almost over. It started a week and half ago when a lightning storm hit way too close to home. Our crew had been on the float wrapping up an epic bag count last Thursday morning and came in to shore to drop the bags off. The rain hit right as we got back to land so we took a quick break and waited for the heavy stuff to pass. An hour or so later, we were back on the dock where Catie and I were pulling out silos getting prepped to grade some seed. The sky got dark again and Berg made the call: Head indoors. Now.

I ran over to the rowing dock to help Catie get some stuff situated and passed Christian who was trying to get his silos in a safe place. He stayed on the dock but Catie and I made it up to the woodshed with Maggie, Eva, Will, and Berg. Berg ran back out for something and while he was gone, the rain picked up. A few minutes later, a huge clap of thunder crashed over our heads. At the same time, I looked towards the wood shed door and saw a pink flash. Lightning strike. And it was close. We all hit the deck waiting for another boom but instead, the door opened and in came Christian and Berg, looking scared shitless. The lightning had hit a sailboat mast that was moored about 20 yards from the rowing dock. Christian had seen the sky turn pink and did a belly flop onto the plastic part of the dock. He said he could smell the electricity from where he was. Steve of Jeeves was in the process of rowing from Billy's float back to land and was within a few feet of the sailboat that got struck. Very close call but thankfully, no one was hurt (not so sure about the sailboat, though).

The next day, Berg got hit by a car. (He's still on crutches but we're hoping to see him back on the farm this week.)

The 4th, from what I hear, was pretty spectacular. Some of the crew plus a few growers along with friends got some fireworks lit from the float (Dave got a great shot of it).

And then this past week, we had another round of bad luck. Skip came down with a stomach bug (after chipping his tooth on a bagel). We couldn't manage to shake the bad weather until Thursday this week. And our white boat, the Carolina, decided to die while I was about to drive it from the float back to shore. The motor turned twice and then just cut out. I was already untied and couldn't do anything but stand there, fussing with the throttle, watching folks on the float watch me drift away. Thankfully, the current carried me over to a nearby moored sailboat so I tied myself up and waited for Mark to get out there to rescue me (he called me a good mariner; "at least you got yourself tied up to something"). I was also pretty thankful that the problem wasn't something I had caused. I think it ended up being a fuse or faulty wire, but either way, the Carolina is out of commission until next week. As Greg Morris said, "If you're going to work on the water, better know a thing or two about how to fix a boat."

Skip was still pretty out of it on Friday but we managed to do a double deploy: we got about 600 bags out to both the river and the middle of the bay during low tide. One team went to the river, the other went to the cages and we all had a pretty successful morning. Finally: the babies are in the water! We still have more to get out there but I think we're officially over the hump.

And away it goes

We're on a roll now, moving seed out from under ourselves daily. The weather and the tides have kept us from deploying a ton this week but between tomorrow and Friday, we'll have a huge chunk of seed out in the river and in our cages in the middle of the bay. We have to wait until low tide to get most of it out and the tides aren't cooperating like they should. They come in and out at varying speeds and this week, it's just been fickle. But at least Catie and I are past the hump of grading daily. Now we're giving our sub quarters a few days to pick up speed and grow.

Plus, Skip actually sells a lot of the seed he grows to other growers and this is the week they're all getting it (and deploying it on their own leases). We're doing seed counts daily which takes some time and keeps my head filled with crazy numbers. I'm getting very good at determining a liter count on a tote by eyeballing it, thanks to Skip.

But I've also started counting everything, all day long. How many shakes it takes to grade a scoop of seed. How many scoops it takes to empty a tote when grading. How many boards on our upwellers are driving me crazy. Adding up all these little things gets my head focused, in a very weird way. My dad and high school math teacher would be proud.

Everyone on the farm is grinding these days. The farmers are deploying seed all at once. The crews are helping them along with culling and bagging a huge amount of oysters every day. The delivery guys are out there pounding the pavement. On the wholesale side, we've been selling scallops both in the shell and shucked; we've been hand delivering our products to NY (which requires a twice weekly round trip in one of our trucks in less than 24 hours - Hendo's been leading the charge); we're about to start selling striped bass (next week!); and finally - finally! - the Island Creek Oyster Fest tickets are on sale. GO BUY ONE. They will sell out before the festival takes place on September 12. We've been busy putting together a pretty killer lineup of chefs and bands plus we'll have thousands and thousands of oysters and beers by Harpoon. Our pigs, Gourmet and Midnight are getting fat and happy in time for the pig roast and we've been watching our chickens turn into lovely little hens (don't worry: we're not eating them). Skip even cobbled together a makeshift pen for them out of seed cages.

But Billy's in charge of corralling them into their coop at night. Not an easy feat but I think he has a way with these chickens.

The only thing we're missing on the farm is Berg. Poor guy got hit by a car last week. He's doing fine - just a hairline fracture - but the crew is definitely feeling a little lost without him. Hopefully he'll be on his feet in no time. (And if you're reading this Berg, the girls say 'get better soon!')

Moving seed

We are smack in the middle of the busy season. Last week was the first of it with the long drainers but this week, we're putting seed out daily which means our crew is in overdrive. Catie and I have been grading seed every day and every time we do, we are left with a batch of quarter-inch seed (the sub-quarters, or subs, are put back into the upwellers to grow for another day or two). The quarters, as we call them, are ready to be put out in the water in mesh bags where they'll stay until the oysters are about the size of a half dollar (about 6-8 weeks). This week has been hectic because not only are we grading every day but we have to rely on the tides to get our bags into the water at the right time.

Every time we grade, Skip comes over, sees the tote full of quarters and says something along the lines of: "Holy cow! What are we going to do with it all?" To which Catie and I reply: "Get it out of here!" Our primary goal is to keep the seed density on the upwellers from getting out of control so the youngest seed has room to grow. That means constantly moving the bigger seed out into the water. It's like a living puzzle where the pieces find new homes every day. And it's just the kind of scramble my organized mind loves to tackle.

Yesterday, we had a ton of seed to get into the water so we deployed (put out into the water) about 300 bags in the back river at low tide, right around noon. The set up for putting seed in the river takes a team of people: someone to put the seed in the bag (about 1200 seeds per bag; we scoop them into bags with a measuring cup) and pipe the bag closed, someone to toss the bags into the water, and a team in the water to arrange the bags on the system lines (a set of parallel lines hooked up to buoys -- we attach the bags to the lines with metal clasped rings).

Our team yesterday included myself, Maggie, and our newest member Andy Popplo (because he's Andy 3, we call him Pops) on the boat getting bags ready. In the water, Will was the middle man (once the bags are tossed in, the tide carries them down to the rest of the team -- Will was keeping them organized) and Quinn and Catie were the bag attachers. Skip was out there organizing lines. Dave Grossman came out with us for a bit and got a quick tutorial on bag tossing.

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So since we're dealing with a finite amount of time and have a certain number of very small seeds to deploy, how do we prep for our trips to the water? Part of it is knowing exactly how many bags will go out. That all depends on how much seed we have. The bags are kept up at the shop (we spent all spring power washing and organizing them). Once we know how many seeds will go out, someone runs up to shop, grabs a certain number of bags, brings them down the water in the farm truck, and puts them on the boat.

As for how many seeds are going out, since Skip's been doing this for awhile, he can get a pretty good sense just by looking at how many quarters we have. The quarters go into totes, or black plastic boxes that hold about 60-70 liters of quarter-inch oysters. While Skip can eyeball a tote pretty accurately, he still makes sure by counting the oysters: we count out how many seeds fill up 100 ml and then multiply that by how many liters of oysters there are total (I call it oyster math). Counting full grown oysters is one thing, but baby oysters are a whole 'nother challenge. They're tiny and tend to stick together when they're wet so it takes the precision of a pharmacist (you could also use the word "dealer") to get the number just right.

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As you can see, we're trying hard not to distract Skip while he counts (but Maggie and I manage to make each other laugh no matter what we're doing... which is probably a distraction to everyone). After his count we deployed a little bit more seed before coming in for the day. We celebrated our huge day with a late lunch at Tsang's.

Even after sending millions of seeds out into the water, we still have plenty more to deploy and lots more grading to do. We'll be deploying more tomorrow and hopefully some on Friday as well. Skip's goal is to get 1,000 bags into the water by the 4th. If the weather cooperates, he may just reach his goal.

In the meantime, we got rained off the dock this afternoon. Grading in the rain is fine. But holding a metal grader while your arms are submerged in water during a lightning storm is probably a bad idea... so we quit around 4 today which means we'll get an early start tomorrow.

For another peek at our big drainer tides last week (and for a nice little love story about Twitter), check out this blog post by the folks at How2Heroes. They'll be posting more on their visit soon so stay tuned.

A long week of super long drainers

Phew. That was a long one. We just wrapped up a full week of drainer tides -- where low tide completely drains the bay floor giving us loads of time to hand pick oysters -- most of which started super early in the morning. It's typically the longest week of the year since the tide stays out for hours on end several days in a row. Only, we couldn't go out to pick on Monday or Tuesday because of the weather. Monday's storm seemed to hold on forever with the wind and rain blowing us off the float by lunchtime. Tuesday was another windy, rainy one. Catie and I were on the dock with the rain blowing at us sideways while we graded some of our seed. But it had to be done: our oldest seed had popped and almost a quarter of it was big enough to go into seed bags. When we grade, we separate the quarter-inch seed from the smaller stuff and put the smaller stuff back into the upwellers to continue growing. It brings down the volume in our silos allowing the smaller seed more room to grow. So we graded that batch and had enough quarter-inch seed to fill about 600 bags. At the end of the day on Tuesday, the crew spent the evening filling the bags with the seed and finally, on Wednesday morning (5:30 a.m. start time), we were able to get out on the tide. We spent the first few hours hand picking oysters and once the tide started to flow back in, we put the filled seed bags into cages which we set up in southeastern facing rows of 10 on part of the lease. Each cage hold 6 bags so we filled about 100 cages that morning. Quick work to do when the tide starts coming in but we got all the bags out and made it on the boat before the water spilled into our waders.

There was more seed washing to do on Wednesday afternoon, plus we were able to take a look at some of the seed Skip's been growing in the back river. It's coming along a little at a time -- it'll be interesting to see how much it pops once we move it into the bay.

On Thursday, the weather FINALLY broke. We were out on the tide in the fog that morning but by the time we came in, grabbed a coffee and got to work culling, we were working in the sunshine. After lunch, Catie and I graded another set of silos which meant we were set up under the scorching sun on the dock for the afternoon. Nothing wrong with that after 20 straight days of rain. Yes, we wore hats and sunscreen but still managed to get some color. We capped off the day with a trip back out to the float where we found a spanking new soaker float attached to our garage float. That gives us around 70 feet of float space to work on -- it's like adding a patio the size of your house to the backyard. It's huge! I'd show you pictures but, sadly, my camera bit the dust after sitting in a pool of water one rainy afternoon. Ugh.

Friday was another decent day. We were out on the tide in t-shirts in the morning and made our way in for an early lunch by 11:30. Eva came to the dock to help us grade that afternoon (it goes much faster when there's three of us) and despite a passing thunderstorm and an army of ferocious no-see-ums (tiny, invisible, flesh biting gnats), we finished up by about 4 p.m. and joined the rest of the crew (who had been culling and bagging on the float) to help load up the truck.

I'd recount more details or give you some funny anecdote about the crew but to be honest, I'm wiped. We put in a few 12-hour days and worked our tails off all week. After two full nights of sleep and even a few naps, I'm still recovering. But this is the busy time and from what I hear, we'll keep it up at this level until summer's over. I'm ready for it. My hands and lower back are ready for it. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we've got some drier days ahead.

One (mostly) lousy June

This week, we managed to get one brilliant day (very little wind, sunny, low 70s) and it happened to be a day Catie and I were working on seed. We spent the morning washing everything in the silos. Just to give you a quick idea of what it takes to pull out and clean a silo (plus, what a balancing act/teamwork effort it is to manipulate the silos around a bunch of rowing boats) a few quick videos, courtesy of Dave Grossman. [vodpod id=Groupvideo.2771829&w=425&h=350&fv=]

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Later that day, Skip, Dave, and I went out to the back river to grab the seed Skip's been working on out there. On the way, I got a little taste of Skip's love for speed. We came flying under the bridge on the way out.

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Not nearly as fast on our way back in as we were carrying precious cargo: 8 trays of 1 1/2 month old seed. On the way, we ran into Don Merry, who also has some seed back there and Skip was anxious to show him the progress on ours.

Back on land, Catie taught me how to grade, which is separating the oysters by size. Once some of the seed gets to about a quarter inch (called quarters, obviously), we can pull those out and put them into either separate silos(to continue growing in the upweller) or into mesh bags which will be put out in cages now set up in the bay. The seed that is too small (under a quarter inch) is put back into its original silo to continue growing. This helps bring the volume on each silo down, giving the oysters in each batch more space to grow. Still waiting to see where our seed goes next. After all the love and care we've given these babies, it might be a little sad to see them leave the nest to start growing in the big, blue sea.

My crew has a new Thursday tradition. We have a lot of summer birthdays, many of which happen to fall on Thursdays. Hence, Birthday Thursdays. Even without a birthday, we're all in for a celebration of some sort. This week's involved a feast at Will's place. We started with baked oysters (a la Berg) and fried oysters (made by Will).

Berg's Baked Oysters

2 dozen Island Creeks 1 bag baby spinach, chopped 3 tbsp minced garlic 3 tbsp butter, chopped Couple handfuls of shredded parmesan

Shuck the oysters. Top with couple pinches of spinach, 1/4 tsp garlic, pat of butter, couple pinches of parmesan. Arrange on a baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for about 5 minutes or until parmesan is melted.

Will's "Chilean" Island Creek pan-fried oysters

2 dozen shucked ICO's, reserve some liquor. Kultru Chile olive oil Extra Virgin olive oil

Batter: 1 c. buttermilk 1/4 c. oyster liquor (from shucked oyters) 4 farm-fresh Araucana eggs (or regular eggs), minus 1 egg white 2 tbsp flour

Breading: 3/4 bag of Panko bread crumb flakes 2 tbsp flour Homemade or commercial chili mix to taste. (Will uses Fireman Fred's Flaming 3 Alarm Chili Mix from Saratoga) 1 tsp paprika Pinch of cinnamon

Over med high heat in a saucepan combine Kultru Chile Olive Oil with EVOO (half and half to fill pan halfway). Combine all batter ingredients in a large bowl. Combine all breading ingredients in another large bowl. In sets of 6-8 oysters, dip in batter, then roll/cover with dry ingredients. Pan fry for a few min on each side, until batter gets golden and crunchy. Serve atop garlic Triscuits, cover with small slice of pepperjack cheese and a pinch of chopped spinach. Arrange on baking sheet and heat in 375 degree oven for as long as it takes to just melt the cheese. Serve 'em up with a glass of Crios Malbec Rose.

Washing seed

We've been having funky weather for a New England June. With temps hovering in the high 50s/low 60s and more cloudy days than sunny ones, the water temps haven't quite warmed up to where we want them to be. This is definitely having an affect on our babies. Christian tells me that with some sun, the water should warm up to about 60 degrees and that's what makes the oysters "pop" or go through a growth spurt. Since we have seed at different stages of growth in the upwellers (some seed came in early May; other batches came in early June), we've seen some of them explode but the younger ones are still small. As seed tender, I'm tasked with keeping them clean and poop free so they can continue to grow and eat. So Catie and I have gotten into a washing routine, which usually happens every other day now. The process goes something like this:

We start with dock 1 where there's 1 upweller with 8 silos. Because the boards to the dock are awkward and heavy, we open one portion of it and start unbolting the silos. We each pull one or two out, which means hoisting the box up by the ropes, waiting for it to drain of water, then dragging the bulky box up and onto the dock (we're still able to do this individually but as the oysters get bigger, it'll get harder and harder). Once we've got a few boxes out, I'll grab the hose and wash each one down individually: Outside, inside, then the seed and screen below it, which are now usually covered in crap. I'll move onto the next box and Catie will jump into the upweller to put the clean box back in place (they're secured to the trough with bolts and wingnuts... when the wingnuts are screwed on too tight, we use a wooden mallet, courtesy of Greg Morris, to knock them loose).

As I'm washing, Catie stays ahead of me pulling out and putting away the boxes and eventually we'll move over to dock 2 (also called the rowing dock since that's where the rowers from the Maritime School keep their boats stored). Dock 2 is far trickier since we have two upwellers there which both live beneath a rack of row boats. The far upweller (we called it the 20s) sits below some really low-lying boats so getting in and out is easy only when that boat is off its storage space and in the water (ie: when the rowers are in class). Since we still haven't gotten the rowers' schedule down, Catie and I are often interrupted while we're opening the dock to let rowers in and out. Usually, they arrive just after we've gotten the doors off ... which means we have to quickly put the doors back on and step aside until they're done. It's impeccable timing... but we'll get the hang of it eventually.

As we wash the upwellers, we can track the progress of our seed, checking out which ones are getting bigger, which ones are super poopy, and how they're growing overall. I'm a big fan of the seed job. Not only does it give me access to the seed growth in slow-mo, I get to hang out on the dock a few days a week and shoot the shit with the other farmers. They fret and stress and get excited over the babies like any anxious parents: a little nerve-racked but totally filled with love. And lots of hopes and prayers for a really good season.

So, you can imagine that this weather isn't helping much. Today will be a nice one, in the 70s and sunny, but we just need one long stretch of sun... fingers crossed that it's coming soon.

Talk about culling

One thing we, as a crew, never tire of (besides making each other laugh) is discussing the cull. We've got Maggie and Catie who are both veterans on the farm (we like to say that Maggie has been around so long, she actually invented culling) as well as Quinn, Berg, and A2 who were all around last summer, plus myself, Will, and Eva (the newbies). While the cull itself never changes (still looking for threes, Graybars, Per Se's), discussion of what makes a Per Se or a Graybar can go on for hours. We've now uncovered 'tweeners, the in-between shape that could go either way but really, should just be returned to the water to grow up a little more. Maggie and Catie are strict with their cull and return oysters when their too oblong or narrow so I've taken to following their lead. A2, who's in charge of the float (and by virtue, the cull) constantly pulls out oysters to show us what he's looking for and what direction we should be going. Basically, it's an evolving discussion. Not to mention, no two oysters are the same. So every day, we flip our crates, set up our stations, and cull with a purpose. It really makes a difference in the oysters that go into our bags, which I hope (and imagine) makes a difference to the chefs who buy them.

Last week, we got two new additions, Gourmet and Midnight. No, we're not going into the business of Island Creek heritage pork. But we are planning on fattening them up in time for Oyster Fest in September. Two of our participating chefs, Chris Schlesinger and Jamie Bissonnette are roasting them for the event. Plus we've got 16 other chefs on board from Jody Adams and Jasper White to Louis DiBicarri, Will Gilson, Greg Reeves, and Jeremy Sewell doing small dishes with scallops, stripers, and razor clams. We're also looking to shuck something like 40,000 oysters. Phew. You guys ready?

There I was, covered in oyster poop.

In my previous life, I often wrote or edited items about over-the-top beauty treatments like a 24-karat gold hair straightener or caviar facials. It was always sort of a pleasure (and sort of hell) to test drive the treatments: If things went well, you walked away with a shiny mane, glowing skin, or a fresh coat of polish; if they didn't, you could be missing an eyebrow. Once again, I get to revert back to my beauty editor days with the arrival of oyster poop. Not nearly as smelly as oyster mud, but just as freaking gross, it is the brown, slimy ejection of growing oysters and I'm hoping that it'll do wonders for my skin. Because I am about to be swimming in it.

For now, the job is simple. Catie and I remove the silos from their spots on the upweller trough (ok, simple is an understatement: these beasts weigh about 60 pounds and are as awkward and angular as a giant, heavy box filled with water and poop can be) and pull them out of the water and onto the dock. The process sometimes requires both of us since we have to pull them up from a bent over position and slide them onto the dock without catching one on a toe. Once they're on the dock, each silo gets hosed down inside and out and tilted on its side, causing the oysters to slide down so we can hose off the screen underneath. The fresh water kills any bacteria from the poop and washes away the whole, filthy mess. But there's no easy way to hose down a square box filled with growing particles of sand. The misting water makes the tiny little oysters fly around -- one hit of the hose in the wrong direction can send hundreds of them scurrying up the side of the box. On top of it, oyster poop is thick and sticks to everything. It collects on the screen and sides of the box and when it sprays upwards, it sticks to clothes, hands, shoes, and, of course, faces.

Today, we finished cleaning out the silos and I looked down to find oyster poop all over my hands, cascading down my legs, and felt a splash or two in my hair. Catie, an old pro at tending the seeds, said just wait: "Once we start grading, you'll get covered head to toe. Literally. It gets everywhere."

As much as I look forward to that day, I'm still undecided on the benefits of oyster poop on the skin. My hands are cracked and dry and my hair looks like it's been doused in lemon juice and left frying in the sun. Maybe a few pats of oyster poop can clear that up? I'll keep you posted.

Farm Visitors

I had the chance to see our process through someone else's eyes last Friday when my friends Jenn, Max, and Michelle came to the farm for a visit. We went out to the float where they hung out with the crew as we did our CWB routine and later, killed some time eating fresh oysters off the back. Afterward, Berg took us back to the dock where I showed them the upwellers and our babies before heading over to Snug Harbor Fish Co. for some lobster rolls and crab cakes.

Talking them through the process made me aware of just how much I've picked up on the farm. I walked them through the whole process, from seed to farm to float and actually felt like I knew what I was talking about. Wouldn't have been so easy two months back. But somehow, despite my previously empty knowledge base, I've managed to understand how our babies go from a twinkle in the eye to the sweet and meaty oysters we serve in restaurants every day.

Of course, I'm still a fan of standing at the raw bar and shucking like we did at the Harpoon Brewery's Summer Session over the weekend. After days and days of looking at gnarly, rough-edged shells, it's fun to open a couple hundred and watch oyster freaks get excited. I always manage to slurp back a few at these events and just like that, every ache, pain, and bruise disappears. We shucked in the brewery's VIP room and while we didn't get creamed like we did at the Nantucket Wine Fest, it was clear that our oysters and Harpoon beer make a harmonious pair.

And, a quick plug for the farm: The new Island Creek website is up and running. There are some great pics of my crew hauling cages down to the water. Take a look around and if you're hungry, buy some 'sters.

Summer crew

More new faces on the farm this week. Well, new to me anyway. Catie, a veteran on Skip's summer crew, started with us on Friday (she just graduated from Colgate) and Eva (fresh outta Brown) starts with us tomorrow. With all these extra hands, the work flies and we can go through a massive number of oysters in a day. We put in a full day today and logged more than 150 bags. Sheesh! Back when A2 and I were the only ones culling, we'd be lucky to hit 50 in a day (but we still had a damn good time doing it). We've come a long way -- more ridiculous humor (Will's "Dopeass quote of the day" can lay the entire crew out with laughter - Maggie and I were to the point of tears twice today), more opinions on what music we listen to (Maggie's a Kanye fan, which makes A2 happy; Will and I are into the classic rock/90s stuff; Quinn seems to like whatever's on) and more competitors in our ongoing 'name that tune' game. (1 point for the artist, 1 point for the song title. Berg is a champ with classic rock; A2 can list the entire Jam'n 94.5 playlist which repeats itself about 3 times a day.)

But the crew shifts around so we won't be shoulder to shoulder on the float most days. Berg is teaching Quinn how to drag so we can have two guys bringing in oysters every day (though Quinn almost lost his life with the winch twice today, he'll pick it up eventually) and Catie and I will spend more time on the docks with the seed. We've got seed in all 16 silos now (with one more trough/silo going in this week) -- each silo is holding seed at different stages, from 1.5 mm to about 2.5 mm (at least that was the size they were when they arrived -- all have doubled or tripled since we've had them). For now, we're keeping the seed clean (ie: free of oyster poop) by hosing down each silo every few days. We'll go through and hose down all of the silos tomorrow and probably do some organizing -- Skip picked up more seed this weekend so we'll need to make some room for it. If the seed goes too long without getting cleaned, they'll foul quickly (foul, from my understanding, can be a much nicer way of saying either oyster poop, or the effects of oysters lingering in their own poop).

Since the seed is in an upweller system, there's fresh water being pumped over them all day long and they're just soaking up the nutrients, growing at an incredibly rapid clip. The volume of our biggest seed has probably tripled in the last two weeks, meaning they're healthy, hungry oysters that are going to move through the system quickly. Should be a beautiful week so I'll try to get some more photos and a better description of the process as we go.

In the meantime, I picked up a stellar recipe for our oysters from chef Ken Oringer during a Memorial Day bbq last week. Super quick and easy for summer.

Ken's grilled Island Creeks 1 dozen oysters 2 tbsp butter, cut into a dozen small pieces 1-2 tbsp Mexican hot sauce (essential that it's Mexican, says Ken)

1. Fire up the grill. Set the oysters cup side down over a medium/high heat. Grill until the shells just pop open (time varies depending on the oyster), then pull them off the grill. 2. With a shucking knife, separate the oysters from the top shell (toss the top; careful not to lose too much juice). Top each oyster with a piece of butter and a dash or two of hot sauce. 3. Put the oysters back on the grill for about a minute to melt the butter. Pull them off and let them cool for a bit before serving.

Stupid snail eggs.

I have an affinity for eggs. Over easy. Scrambled. French omelets. Farm-fresh or, you know, the standard grocery-store variety. Whatever. They're the perfect food. My culinary school teacher at CSCA, Chef Stephan, told me that every egg has the exact amount of biotin (needed by the human body) to break down the exact amount of fat found in one egg. Name another food that does all that work for you. Ok, maybe celery. But for taste? And yes, those are hen eggs. The kind you eat. But every egg holds some sort of promise, doesn't it? Baby blue jays. Baby snakes. Caviar. All good things in small packages.

But baby snails? That's where I draw the line.

Sometime around the last full moon (a few weeks back) the mud snails of Duxbury Bay started laying eggs. It's a seasonal thing and will happen a few more times before mid June. They'll hatch and make new snails which will spawn and lay more eggs. This is the cycle we live in.

But it's where the eggs land that just kill me.

The eggs adhere to whatever underwater, stationery surface they can find and once they stick, they're on like glue. That could be old clam cages. Seaweed. Our oysters. In fact, our oysters are the eggs' most favored landing place; all those nooks and crannies and divets in the shells are like warm little caves that the eggs can hide out in. Crate after crate, oysters have been coming back blanketed with these little, woolly nuisances. And it is a royal pain in the ass.

Imagine turning over a crate of a couple hundred oysters, all of them covered in a thin blanket of these tiny slivers of minced garlic. Imagine pulling out a stainless steel scrub brush whose head is the size of a post-it note and rubbing away at the mottled brown shell to get every miniature egg separated from its landing spot. Imagine tightening one fist around an awkward oyster and the other around the handle of the brush and scouring away, getting just a few eggs off with each stroke. The eggs scream off the brush, hitting you, your neighbor, your neighbor's eye, and every other object in plain sight to the point where you see them when you close your eyes at night. Imagine trying to come up with a super-strength brine, or vinegar-based solution that will loosen the eggs but not ruin the oysters. You turn to your neighbor, who is wiping snail eggs off their face, and talk with them about this idea. But instead of coming up with a brine, you accept your fate and go back to work, scrubbing until your fore finger and thumb are blistered. Or until your eyes cross. Or until the stainless steel spokes of your brush are eaten away to the stubs.

You brush and brush only to find that all you've done, after a full two minutes of scrubbing and cursing, and scrunching up your face, is uncovered yet another single, ugly oyster shell.

Imagine repeating it a hundred or two hundred times to get your crate of oysters cleaned.

Then imagine this: Imagine, over the course of a long weekend, going to a restaurant (or three) and ordering a dozen (or three) of your very own oysters. Imagine the plates arriving to the table, all sparkling and clean and covered in ice and lemon wedges. And you go to pick up an oyster, ready to slurp it down. And your finger, feeling its way around the edge of the oyster, finds the tiny, softened woolly fleck of snail eggs. You look closely at the shell and they peek out at you from a darkened crevice, staring you in the face.

Of course, you eat the oyster. And you laugh at the snail egg. And you tell it it has not beaten you and that you will kill millions of its siblings when you get back to work. The eggs are no match for your scrub brush and vengeful hand...

Maybe it's hard to imagine. But if you can... even if you can for just one minute, then... just then, you might be able to imagine a day in the the life of a Duxbury oyster farmer at the end of May.

The babies arrive, our family grows

On Tuesday, I was out on the float and got a call from Skip asking me to drive the boat over to the dock (by myself - ack) to check out the upwellers. I made it over there without knocking into anything and found Skip, Mark Bouthillier, Dave Grossman, and Christian Horne all on their knees staring into a couple of gaping holes in the dock. They started renting dock space from the Duxbury Bay Maritime School in the late 90s and have kept their floating upweller systems there ever since.

Each upweller has a trough down the middle with pipes running into four silos which sit down the length of the trough on either side. A pump pushes water through the system so that there's a constant flow of fresh bay water. The bottom of the silos are fitted with micro or fine mesh screen so when the seeds arrive we just drop them to the bottom of the silos and let them grow.

This week, Skip got a few orders of seeds from two different hatcheries. They ranged in size from 1.5 mm to 2.5 mm so they're literally the size of grains of sand. But if you could see them up close, each tiny seed looks exactly like a grown oyster. On Tuesday, we dropped about a million into our silo system.

The seed arrived in a ziplock bag; wrapped up in two packets of dry/wet cloth.

And we carefully unwrapped each packet and dropped them into the silos.

It was a little unnerving and, as cheesy as it sounds, somewhat spiritual. I had hundreds of thousands of those little lives in my hands (all of which determine Skip's future livelihood) and the smallest gust of wind could have carried thousands of them away. They'll stay in the silos for the next few months, getting bigger by the day. My job, as keeper of the seed (latest nickname: Mama Seed-a), will be to constantly clean out the silos and eventually grate the seed (which will all grow at different rates), separating and moving the larger oysters to different silos week after week. Eventually, when they're large enough, we'll drop the seed onto a designated section of the lease to grow "free range" on the bay floor.

I'm still learning the ropes on the seed but am pretty pumped to be the one to watch it grow each week. We have to keep the trays and silos clean (oysters do poop... a lot) which means hosing down the trays as often as possible. These trays are actually filled with seed we received last week that's been attached to a buoy in the back river. We pulled them in and got them cleaned off before setting the trays back out for another week or so.

The only downside is that I'll be spending less time on the float with my crew, which has doubled in the past two weeks. We've now added Maggie (in grad school at Brandeis) and Quinn (a journalism major at Indiana University) plus Will (who's taking a short break from GE) to the group. They're all keeping A2, Berg, and I entertained and on our toes. Between Maggie's attempts to storm the fort and Will's goofy, mad scientist humor, we've grown into a big, very happy float family.

We also saw the arrival of the farm's newest members, six baby chicks. The plan is to build a coop behind the office so the chickens can grow and eventually provide us with blue eggs. For now, they're safely nestled in a cardboard box under a heat lamp in the office.

Yesterday, Skip and I took a drive down to one of our hatcheries, the Aquaculture Research Corporation (ARC) in Dennis on the Cape. He was picking up another couple million seeds so I tagged along to get a quick lesson on how our oysters are spawned. On the way down, Skip told me about his background with Dick Krauss, who runs ARC; he was the first person to get Skip his clam seed back in the early 90s and eventually helped him with the oysters, too. Now the two could talk for hours about the ups and downs of oyster farming. While they got caught up, one of the hatchery experts, Sue showed me where and how the oysters are grown. Essentially, they keep the parents, which are about 2 or 3 year-old-oysters, in waters warm enough to cause them to spawn (over 70 degrees, but closer to somewhere in the 80s). They then collect the fertilized seeds and grow them in a controlled environment until they're a couple of weeks old before selling them to farmers like Skip. I learned that you can tell the difference between male and female oysters by looking for a milky white sperm sack inside the oyster belly (haven't tried it yet, though). Under a microscope, Sue showed me an 8-day old oyster as well as a few 3-week old clams. Our batch of oysters weren't swimming, but the clams were and it was incredible, like looking at cells; the clams' legs and byssus threads were squirming like crazy. To the naked eye, they looked like specs of dust but their shells were hard and firm.

I was hoping to get some photos but they're pretty protective of their process (understandably). I'm still not certain on the science behind it all but clearly, these people have provided Skip with unparalleled support. They're one of the main reasons he's had such success with his business and it was clear during our trip yesterday that he is in awe of what they do. I, for one, can't wait to learn more.

Nantucket Wine Fest '09

There are far too many fun stories to tell about this past weekend. Not sure this little blog will do it all justice. But here goes.

Most of the farm packed up early last week to hit Nantucket for the 2009 Wine Festival. On Friday, Will, Berg & I hopped a flight from Hyannis to the island and arrived just in time for a seminar hosted by Skip and Shore at the White Elephant. They were joined by Sarah Leah Chase, a cookbook author, Jamie Hamlin, a TV personality, as well as Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat wines. A group of us stood behind the raw bar shucking as Skip told the seated crowd the story of Island Creek. Sarah paired our oysters with a black pepper mignonette to start and later served them quite simply with grilled sausage. The sausage dish was a hit, as was the roasted bone marrow dish that followed it (no oysters but a fantastic pea shoot salad and a few dabs of Martha's Vineyard sea salt from).

Jim had several fantastic things to say about our oysters which was a huge endorsement for us -- he called them "a delicious example of East Coast oysters." And we were absolutely enamored with his wines, especially the Hildegard and the Nuits-Blanches au Bouge. Really tasty juice.

Afterward, we packed up and got checked in to a few rooms at the Cottages (conveniently located above Provisions, the sandwich shop run by our friends Amanda Lydon and Gabriel Frasca who also run the Straight Wharf Restaurant) before turning thoughts towards dinner. Skip lead the charge to the Boarding House, owned by close friends of Island Creek, Seth & Angela Raynor. Somehow, after a trip into the kitchen, he was able to snag a table for all ten of us up in the Pearl's private dining room -- which was exactly the color of Pepto. The guys were unfazed so we sat down to a huge table and started an epically long (and hysterical), family style meal with a few cocktails and a magnum of Ridge Zinfandel. Skip took charge of ordering and out came a parade of amazing food: dumplings, soft shell crab, lettuce wraps, 60-second steak, wok fried lobster, black cod...it was never ending. Berg and I hoarded a few dishes at our end of the table just so we could lick the plates.

After dinner, we eventually found our way to The Chicken Box where the phenomenal U2 cover band, Joshua Tree, rocked straight until closing time. There were after parties, beers on the roof, and eventually, we all made it home safely to bed.

Saturday was an early one but we managed to get to the Nantucket Yacht Club in time for our 11 a.m. set up. We arrived to the tents and found our boat already in place (thanks to Shore and a few others) on the back lawn, right in front of the water under a powder blue sky. Picture perfect spot.

Seth and Angela and restaurant team were set up to grill Island Creeks with an ancho chilli butter and also created four toppings for us: straight mignonette (from the Boarding House), Thai lime dipping (the Pearl), tomatillo salsa, and regular salsa (their new ceviche bar and Peruvian restaurant, Corazon del Mar -- opening in a week or two). The Thai lime dipping was an unbe-lievable combo of garlic, cilantro, lime, Thai chillies, sugar, and fish sauce. By the end of the weekend, we were calling it Green Love. Just addictive stuff. We shucked for both the mid-day and afternoon sessions under pretty gorgeous weather which took a turn towards cloudy gray at the end. We kept at it and by the end of the day, had run out of about 5,000 oysters for the weekend. (But one quick phone call home and we had 25 more bags sent to us on the ferry -- thank you, Lisa). We also had an incredible crew of fans stop by the float -- many of whom wanted to buy the t-shirts off our back and wish us well. Jim Clendenen came by to pour wines with us for the afternoon session; we made friends with a huge oyster fan named Ted from Kentucky; my pals Alex Hall and Mike Blanding stayed the day; and Marlo Fogelman (Marlo Marketing Communications), Glen Kelley, and Janice O'Leary (from Boston Common magazine) swung by as well.

We managed to escape with a few farmers' tans and plenty of extra bottles of wine in us. A quick nap later and it was dinnertime once again. This time, we hit American Seasons, owned by Orla and Michael LaScola. This was a more intimate dinner (literally since two tables held all 8 men and myself) but we managed not to disturb too many other diners. We split two more magnums of Zinfandel (this one was called The Prisoner and at 15.2% alcohol, did most of us in) and ate another wonderful collection of dishes. My braised pork shank could have fed an army (well, ok, just myself and Berg... CJ gnawed at the bone) while the meatloaf "sandwich" topped with foie gras won for hands-down flavor.

Again, our night turned a little rowdy and we found our way over to the Straight Wharf for a late-night dance party. The videos are priceless, but alas, too damaging to share.

Sunday, we found ourselves up and at 'em for the final day of Wine Fest and a rainy, foggy morning. The weather had us stuck indoors and without a grill at the Yacht Club but we made the most of it and kept things light with a few Mexican wrestling masks to entertain the oyster fans.

More wine and a pitcher of sangria appeared on our raw bar but once again, we escaped alive and finished the second session at 2 p.m. at which point Shore & CJ walked the raw bar boat through the streets of Nantucket and over to the Boarding House (in case you're wondering, the boat was hand-made by by a Duxbury local and yes, it's heavy).

Once the raw bar and grill were re-set-up on the Boarding House patio we shucked for the Festival wind-down party. More of those fantastic sauces, more shucking, and more wrestling masks were in order. By the end, Skip looked as tired as we all felt and just kept saying, "The tide is going out on this one." One final meal at the Boarding House bar turned up a tasty plate of gnocchi, amazing French fries, a crispy, thin crust pizzetta with roasted grapes and arugula, and yes, a few more cocktails.

After we ate, Angela walked me over to Corazon del Mar, the couple's newest restaurant set to open in a few weeks. The concept is a Peruvian spot and ceviche bar and the aesthetic is gorgeous: think Mexican Gothic and romance. Really beautiful, two-story place.

One more night out meant one more stop at the Straight Wharf (with a pit stop at Captain Tobey's) and a round of shots for everyone at the bar. I finally got to catch up with Gabriel Frasca (who requested a few late-night oysters) before we shut down the bar and all stumbled home. It was one long finale to end a sweeping weekend of fun.

Of course, the 8 a.m. flight home wasn't nearly as idyllic but we still put in a pretty full day of work yesterday. And now... we catch up on sleep and officially say hello to summer.

Spring Fever

It is officially go time. The last few days have totally changed the dynamic at the farm. There's seed arriving daily and the growers are pumped. I got to the farm yesterday and found Mike George laying face down on the dock -- he was messing with the silo in his upweller which already has tons of little seedlings in place. It's tricky this time of year since the wind is still blowing hard east and can easily pick up and carry the seed out of your hand. But he was happy to show off his new babies.

It set the tone for the day which turned into an exciting one. After a few hours of culling, Skip came by and gave the team a little pep talk about the upcoming summer crew and our respective roles. And then we had a visit from Blue Ginger chef, Ming Tsai. He was pretty chill but tasted a few oysters and then went along his way. Pretty sure he liked what he tasted though.

A2, Will, and I opened a few oysters after some more culling and then went back to land for some lunch. We picked up a few friends along the way. Don Merry, Mark Bouthillier, Dave Grossman, the suits, and our crew all ate up at Snug Harbor on the patio and chatted about the new website (coming soon!), our visitor Ming, and just the general beauty of the day.

Skip told us he was getting some seed in yesterday but we haven't seen his yet. He's expecting to get millions of seeds this year which is incredible (he gets them for his own farm and his father, Billy's). I can't even fathom how we keep track of it all but I suspect I'll have my head wrapped around it pretty quickly in the next few weeks. We've got two new crew members starting next week so I'm gearing up for what should be a ton of work. And, ok, a little bit of fun.

B&G Oyster Invitational... and hey look, it's May.

On Sunday, Island Creek participated in the first annual patio opening party at B&G in the South End. It was a stellar event put on by Barbara Lynch's B&G team and we were happy to be involved. While the Creek shuckers (myself, Berg, Shore & CJ) spent most of the afternoon under a tent on the downstairs patio (right next to the DJ and our friends from Harpoon Brewery), the party stretched through the restaurant and across the street over to Lynch's cookbook library/demo space, Stir, next door. Chefs like Louie DiBicarri (Sel de la Terre), Jamie Bissonnette (Toro), and Tim Cushman (O Ya) participated in the oyster-dish competition (congrats to Louie for winning - I never tasted the dish but hear good things). There were also oyster profile demos taking place at Stir across the street (teaching folks what type of oyster they prefer) as well as a few shucking competitions -- CJ shucked for Island Creek but, sadly, was beat out by Perry Raso of Matunuck Oysters (he was shucking at a booth next to us and happens to be Berg's former boss -- he's working on opening a raw bar near his farm this summer so go visit him).

We started the day with about 30 bags of oysters and after a few hours (the event stretched from noon to 8 pm), we'd flown through them. Shore called Cory who drove up another 20 bags from the farm and we kept shucking... my arms are still killing me. Chopper, the world's fastest oyster shucker (from Wellfleet) stopped by to give CJ and I a quick shucking demo. Clearly, I found out, he's figured out a method. He uses a self-made shucking knife ("better than what anyone else makes," he said) which he slides into the side of the oyster ("you can't see it but there's a sweet spot on every oyster") and, after popping off the top, slides its curved edge down into the shell to scrape the meat away in one swift movement.

CJ gave it a whirl and got pretty good at it but decided to stick to his usual method during the competition ("too soon, and I need more practice," he told me) -- unfortunately, it wasn't enough. As the afternoon carried on, the crowd loosened up and we let the B&G shuckers take over while we enjoyed a few beers with our new friend in the police uniform (he let us borrow his hat for a few pics).

Cat Silirie, No 9 Park's wine maven, was pouring Txakoli, a crisp, effervescent rose which went really well with the oysters, as did the Harpoon Munich Dark. I managed to sneak a few sausages and mini lobster rolls from the trays that kept passing by but by 8 pm, we were all ready for a full meal (and a few more drinks). But first, we had to figure out what to do with the ice luge that had appeared out of nowhere and ended up on our raw bar. The best option? Head to Eastern Standard, of course. Our whole crew, plus many tag alongs (including Meggie, a former Creek employee and current cook at O Ya) ended up at ES for some late-night bourbons and more oyster luging. I'm not sure which was more haggard by the end of it, us or the ES staff, but we had a fantastic night and, naturally, we all got home way past our bedtime.

And even though our week started with a bang, we kept riding high. Shore actually woke up Monday morning and made his way to New York where he shucked Island Creek Oysters at the James Beard Awards with Rialto chef Jody Adams. It was a huge honor for ICO and while they were too exhausted to do any serious partying (as is the tradition at the Beard awards), they ran into plenty of Island Creek friends like Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, and Tony Maws.

Back at the farm, the week started a little slow -- it's been rainy, raw, and windy all week. But our newest cohort, Will, started with us on Tuesday, plus we had Joe of Jeeves with us Tuesday and Wednesday, so we rocked all of our weekly duties (culling, washing, bagging) and by this afternoon, we'd done the bulk of our bags and officially moved on to spring cleaning. In oyster farming terms, that means we're getting ready for the seed to arrive.

I ran into Christian at the water on Wednesday and asked what I should expect for May weather.

Christian: For May? Rain. And more drinking. Me: More? Of both? Christian: Actually, in the last ten years, it's never failed. Never. The day the seed arrives, the wind blows hard east. You want a hard east wind? And some rain? Just order some seed. Me: Nice. At least I know what I have to look forward to. Christian: Yup.

We chatted again today.

Christian (in a day-glo yellow sweatshirt): I forgot to mention it but May always means thunderstorms. Keep an eye on the [Standish] monument. If you see clouds and lightening coming that direction, there's a good chance it'll hit us. Me: Also good to know. Christian: It's a pretty no-fail warning system. A2: Great sweatshirt, Christian. Christian: It's bright, right? My spring colors. Can't miss me in this thing. I could be picking trash by the highway in this thing. A2: Right on.

So, anyway, the seed is getting here in the next week or so and to prepare, we're cleaning out all of our old seed bags. There' s huge pile back behind the shop -- we've made a small dent in it so you can almost see over the top now. We have to power wash each bag to get all the grit off from last year, and then prep them with styrofoam filling, piping, and metal rings so they'll be ready for this coming summer. It's a huge, tedious project but one of those signs that summer is almost here.