Why I could never keep kosher
(Meaning, I hasten to add, no disrespect to anyone reading this who does so.)
In a word: Oysters.
There are other reasons. The whole two-sets-of-dishes aspect, for one, would be a big pain. And I would be sad to never have real bacon or a cheese steak again. But oysters-- that's the deal-breaker.
It's not just oysters. I do have a thing for shellfish of all kinds. Once, for a birthday--maybe my 10th--I was taken out for dinner and told I could order anything I wanted. I ordered three shrimp cocktails. I can still see the waitress bearing them in triumphally on their platter, twelve huge curving shrimp-tails hooked around a big dish of cocktail sauce. That was one of the best meals of my life.
But collectively, the meals and snacks I had this weekend, in our little barely-furnished one-room state-park cabin near the sea (bring your own cooler, bring your own propane stove, no cooking inside the cabin) might have it beat.
On the way to the coast, we stopped in South Bend and bought a quart-- a quart!-- of fresh shucked oysters (and they were cheap!). We put them in the cooler on ice. Whenever I felt a little peckish--between walks to the sea and trips to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center* and the piles of books we plowed through with nothing else to distract us--I opened up the cooler, speared a couple of oysters, squeezed a lemon over them, and-- aahh. Yum.
We bought another quart on the way home. Think I'll have some now.
*Thanks to which I now know more about loading a dugout canoe than I ever thought possible.
In a word: Oysters.
There are other reasons. The whole two-sets-of-dishes aspect, for one, would be a big pain. And I would be sad to never have real bacon or a cheese steak again. But oysters-- that's the deal-breaker.
It's not just oysters. I do have a thing for shellfish of all kinds. Once, for a birthday--maybe my 10th--I was taken out for dinner and told I could order anything I wanted. I ordered three shrimp cocktails. I can still see the waitress bearing them in triumphally on their platter, twelve huge curving shrimp-tails hooked around a big dish of cocktail sauce. That was one of the best meals of my life.
But collectively, the meals and snacks I had this weekend, in our little barely-furnished one-room state-park cabin near the sea (bring your own cooler, bring your own propane stove, no cooking inside the cabin) might have it beat.
On the way to the coast, we stopped in South Bend and bought a quart-- a quart!-- of fresh shucked oysters (and they were cheap!). We put them in the cooler on ice. Whenever I felt a little peckish--between walks to the sea and trips to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center* and the piles of books we plowed through with nothing else to distract us--I opened up the cooler, speared a couple of oysters, squeezed a lemon over them, and-- aahh. Yum.
We bought another quart on the way home. Think I'll have some now.
*Thanks to which I now know more about loading a dugout canoe than I ever thought possible.
posted by elswhere | 11:23 PM
1 Comments:
Oh yes, oysters are yummy! Love them on the half-shell with a dollop of extra-horseradishy cocktail sauce!
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