This is why we don’t wet store any of our product.  Wet storing is a tactic that many distributors in the shellfish industry use to keep product longer and minimize risk.  On its most basic level, this simply means they have tanks which are filled with water from the nearest bay or harbor and when they receive product from all over the country, they dunk it into those tanks to store it.  The oysters can live in the tanks nice and fresh for quite some time.  Don’t get us wrong, we see the value in this.  It delivers a fresh product to the end consumer and makes the job of the distributor much easier.  Not having wet storage here means we have to hustle to empty our coolers just about every day–some days that’s easier than others.

The problem with this, though, is that if you store a bunch of different oysters in the same (often filtered) water for a number of days they all start to taste the same.  For us, that kind of misses the point.  Whether you’re eating one of our oysters at Island Creek Oyster Bar in Boston, at Meritage in Minneapolis, or at Brasserie 19 in Texas we want you to get a little sip of pristine Duxbury Bay water in every shell; that’s part of what you pay for.  At the very least, you deserve to know if the oysters you’re eating have been wet stored and its noted on the shellfish tag that accompanies every batch, so don’t be bashful about asking to see those tags next time you saddle up to slurp a couple dozen at your neighborhood raw bar.

Slurp proudly and demand flavor, that’s the Island Creek way.

★ Chris Sherman is Island Creek’s vice president.  He is paid to be an oyster snob.  Follow him on Twitter: @moresaltplease ★

We are still early in the New England hatchery season but are already caring for millions of oyster babies with clam babies on the way. They may only be a few days old but just like human babies they are needy, they require lots of healthy algae to eat and lots of well oxygenated water and nurturing people to clean up after them.

Soon they will be at the stage where in the wild they would find an oyster colony and attach themselves to it. Since clumps of oysters are less desirable we trick them to singularly setting and from then on they shoot up like bean stalks. Their deep cups and rough ridges become more apparent with each day.

–Elyce is our resident Algae Expert.

But yeah, my mother is fantastic cook. She never met a mashed potato she couldn’t work with, teasing out an incredible array of flavors. She always goes overboard with amount and variety, and despite her deprecations, she’s got great intuition. Plus, if I’m eating there it means I’m relaxed, safe and supported on a level I’ll never consciously understand or appreciate, and surrounded by family and friends. There will definitely be a dog at my feet.

So that’s one huge caveat to the dinner I’m going to talk about now. One of the best I’ve ever had for a whole different set of reasons. Jess and I recently spent the weekend in Nashville. Island Creek is lucky enough to work with one of the best restaurants in the country which is located very unassumingly in the heart of some neighborhood Nashville I frankly can’t recall. It is not a city of visual standout’s to the Northern’s Eye. What it does have in spades is incredibly kind people, a totally deep and earthy music culture and an interesting juxtaposition between homey southern life and worldly internationalism. We set out to spend a weekend in Nashville, with one greatly anticipated dinner as the centerpiece of the trip.

The space. The Catbird Seat is accessed through a doorway inside of a bar. Behind the door, there is a small room with an elevator. After the elevator, there is a bright hallway and a small windowless room with a U shaped bar and one or two tables. That’s the restaurant. I’m not sure of the seat numbers but there can’t have been more than 30 or 40 of us total, and that’s all they’ll do in a night. Erik and Josh are the chefs, and all the diners (except the one rockstar table that won’t take their sunglasses off despite said windowlessness) sit around the bar/kitchen and eat as the chefs prepare, talk about, serve, the food. At the same time, Jane the beverage goddess delivers the wine pairings with each dish – I think there were ten?

The structure. Here is what you find on their website: “The experience can be as interactive as you wish; that part is up to you. The details of what you’ll be savoring at your meal won’t be determined until you’re there; that part is up to us.” So yes, eight to ten dishes that come as a surprise and some one else chooses what you’ll drink with each dish. There has been a lot of press on the tyranny of the tasting menu – a long experience where you pay through the nose and are offered few, if any, choices. And I say bullocks to that! If you don’t want a tasting menu, don’t go to restaurants that offer them. If you are indecisive and experimental and open like me, it is a singular pleasure to dine that way. It provides such a rich palate for chefs to express their creativity.

The food. Cod wrapped in pressed kimchi, with watermelon rind and some avocado and coconut. A fennel salad with cucumbers and almonds, over shaved ice that tasted of juniper and quinine. Beef in a savory vietnamese broth. A leg of peasant with the claws still clasping an imaginary branch. Hay yogurt. Ramp capers. What about the small gelatinous balls filled with bourbon for dessert? And of course, for us the most special dish, the langostine with Island Creek oysters and oyster leaves. What a surprise to see that they emulsified the oysters (heretical if it didn’t work so well) and that they found a plant leaf that tastes exactly like an oyster. Look it up, you can’t make this stuff up!

The drink. The wine was equally adventurous and inspiring – champagne with quince vinegar and honey, Riesling with the cod, Rioja with the peasant, Sake, Beer mixed with Coffee Liquor, Gewürztraminer touched with a mint tincture. I have never, ever come across someone bold and brilliant enough to combine flavors within a glass of wine. It worked so well, on it’s own and with the food. It was an entirely other delightful aspect to the meal. As much something to talk about as they food itself.

The skinny. Talking about food is so much less interesting than eating it. But hopefully that list gives a idea of how carefully considered and well executed this meal was. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not shy with my criticism. Jess and I talked about what we were seeing and eating, enjoyed the hell out of it and gave toasts on multiple occasions. We spent some time through out the meal chatting with the chefs. It was so great to see them at work – present but focused, and acting like real people checking their phones and cracking the occasional joke while executing such precise dishes. The atmosphere was relaxed, despite all the rarified cuisine. And since we’ve been working with them since their inception, it was especially rewarding to see that we’ve been talking to such accomplished artists all this time.

It being my first time in Nashville, you could say it’s as far from home as any place could be. And the hours I’ve spent with those chefs would take up less than five fingers. But the architecture of the plate, and the tastes of the food and wine were so sublimely combined. And all the hours it took to get there, to figure out the city, to get dressed, for god’s sake, made for such an unusual and over the top feeling.

And if there is one thing those Sunday night Hale gatherings imbue, it’s love for all things over the top. And the idea that one can shoot for the best meals, and achieve them, if only one is willing to taking things just a little too far. And then some.

Dana Hale runs the sales department here at ICO and goes by many aliases including “Oysteress” and “The Hale Storm”. Don’t get in her way.

Each year, while our little oysters are snuggly ensconced in a protective layer of mud, hibernating through New England’s meteorological dark side, the Island Creek marketing circus hits the road for a magical mystery tour.  Its an opportunity to spend some QT with our raw bar boat and most importantly our beloved customers and friends.

There are many perks involved when you decide to take the plunge and become and official ostreaphile: you’re doing your part for the marine environment andsustainable protein production; studies show you are perceived by your peers to be at least 30% more sophisticated; and you’ve got instant pH balance for your vegetable garden; but perhaps the best perk of all is a better love life.  Oysters are, after all, nature’s most powerful aphrodisiac and this is not lost on us.  We always like to think outside the box for Valentine’s Day, so we’ll be hitting the slopes this year on Thursday, February 14th for a shuck-your-heart-out V-day bash at Sugarloaf USA ski area in Maine.  A crew of us will be holding it down slopeside at the Widowmaker so come with your Valentine or looking for one, doesn’t matter, we’ll fill you with oysters and drink in a fitting pre-cursor to a romantic weekend on the hill.  We’ve also got you covered if you’re planning to be a little more homeward-bound with your sweetie this year.

You can also catch us shucking on  February 9th back in Boston at the House of Blues for the VIP hour of Big Brother Big Sister’s “Big Night Out” with musical accompaniment by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and Sharon Jones and Dap Kings.

Following these north-country shenanigans, the circus will be heading to warmer climes, namely, South Beach for the Wine and Food Festival with Food & Wine Magazine and the Food Network.  We’ll be yuking it up with the best and brightest in the industry.  We’ll be hosting the Island Creek Oyster Bash with good buddy Ming Tsai atop the Hotel Victor, shucking at the American Express VIP after party on Friday night, and waxing poetic on the link between oysters and wine in our seminar “Merroir – Terroir” with Union Square Hospitality Group wine director, John Ragan.  Odds are split 50/50 right now on whether or not CJ will bring his bikini.

After a brief restbit back in Boston seeing old friends at the Seafood Show, its off to Austin, Texas for the legendary South by Southwest Tech/ Film/ Music Festival where we’ll be teaming up with Getty Images, Berklee College of Music, and Boston friends Chef Louie and My Secret Boston for a series of parties spanning March 12-16.  And don’t worry, team Island Creek will definitely be “keeping Austin weird”.

And then we’ll come back and it will be spring… and time for another blog post.

★ Chris Sherman is Island Creek’s vice president.  He likes oysters almost as much as he likes hyperlinks.  Follow him on Twitter: @moresaltplease ★

Within this vicious cycle, which to be honest exists at moderate levels throughout most of the year, there is very little time or energy left for being “healthy”.  It is important to here note that being healthy is neither fun nor does it pay the bills.  So after a mad dash through the technicolor world that is an Island Creek summer, fall, and holiday rush we all, arm in arm with the rest of Western Civilization, trudge back down the yellow-brick road into the grayscale world of diets and sobriety.

There is something to be celebrated in this annual January thaw, though.   Finding ourselves struggling to pull away from the allure of the Winsor House‘s warm fire and its meatloaf-and-shepherds-pie menu (not to mention the accompanying draft beer and brown liquor)its time to explore our oft-neglected Puritan roots–quite literally in the form of root vegetables.

Oysters are, naturally, our favorite winter food.  With much fresh water locked in ice and snow most years, there is very little flowing into the Bay and the oysters are hibernating, living off of stored up fat.  This means they are very salty and very plump, just the way we like them.  For all other winter produce we are fortunate enough to have not one, but two rival winter farmer’s markets just across the Bay in Plymouth with more than enough gourdes, beets, potatoes, and other subterranean specialties to get us through the long dark.

Alas, truth be told none of us would have made very good Pilgrims and by February I for one can get about as excited about root vegetables as I can for another weather forecast of “wintry mix” (also know colloquially as “snain” or snow + rain).  This year we’re heading to Miami’s South Beach for the Wine and Food Festival (shameless plug: come see at us at the Island Creek Oyster Bash with Ming Tsai at the Hotel Victor) but for those who are constrained to the barren north country you can now have your cake and eat it too.

You will find both health and gustatory enlightenment at New York’s Michelin-starred, Rouge Tomate.  Indeed, they have developed a (wait for it) labeling system called SPE (“Sanitas Per Escam” or latin for “better health through food”) to let you know what items on their menu (and eventually on cruise ship cartes and light-up drive-thru ordering stations) will not do anything to hinder your ticker from ticking or your waistline from thinning.  Now, this is very exciting for yours truly–a seasonally reformed foie-gras addict in search of a guilt-free fix before the weather warms–who will go into a place like Rouge Tomate and for a handsome price, purchase the best of both worlds.  Thus, is the nature of my food addiction.  I would even argue that asking a chef to execute cuisine at that level without excessive amounts of salt, butter, and cream is like asking a ballerina to dance with one leg tied to the other and, thus, all the more impressive when its pulled off on a level such as that at RT.  Forgive me, however, my skepticism when it comes to labeling pretty much anything else in this way.  As the Times article on SPE linked to above suggests, it doesn’t really seem feasible that health will be so cheaply bought in other venues where corporate budgets and lagging consumer confidence have more to do with menu writing than things like flavor and seasonality.

As farmers and fishermen we live in a label rich world; Certified Organic, Commonwealth Quality Protection Program sealed, Whole Foods Responsibly Harvested, MSC approved, GAA approved, red green blue and purple level fisheries courtesy of every aquarium in the country, dolphin-safe, and just about any other pocket guide or sticker you can think of has passed across our desks.  In  our experience these are almost all incredibly well-intentioned programs that provide overly simple answers to complex questions bought at the price of third-party auditing fees or forward-striving bureaucracy.  Difficult issues like sustainable food security and personal health are just not that easily or cheaply solved unfortunately.

It is my wish for 2013 that fewer new labels are created and more people like me will learn what it is to truly eat a healthful and responsible diet so that when it comes time for a tasting menu or  a late-night pizza it can be a guilt free indulgence rather than a way of life.  Better health though better education, better choices, and better policy feels a little more realistic to this glutton–who is going to continue to eat as many oysters as possible and try to make it through to March on root veggies.  I will also probably make a pilgrimage to Rouge Tomate.

★ Chris Sherman is Island Creek’s vice president.  He is grumpy when he’s dieting.  Follow him on Twitter: @moresaltplease ★

Thus, by the time I finished answering emails at day’s end and actually stepped out of our office and onto the dock, all the boats were gone.  The dock was completely vacant as every one of us had succumb to the same compulsion.  So, I wandered over to the harbormaster shack on the town pier and asked the nighttime guard if I could borrow their dinghy.  Dog in stern, I rowed out to the edge of the harbor and dismantled the elaborate anti-bird gear our family boat is rigged with each fall in my father’s perpetual war against avian poo (known colloquially in the American northeast as “bird shit”).  This year, he appeared to be losing.

To the south, just on the other end of the boat basin, I could see a large flock of birds materializing, so I followed it (rather than wait around for them to come drop their stinky payload on the boat).   A combination of drifting and gentle motoring after diving birds and splashing fish led me into a part of the Bay called Eagle’s Nest.   Just this past weekend I had landed quite a few striped bass out of the same boat with the same tackle; however, I was doing something wrong tonight.  Fish were breaking all around me and no matter how many times I changed my lure they wouldn’t bite, which is one of the most frustrating things to happen to any fishermen.  In this bountiful time of year even the fish can be picky about what they eat.  Both the dog and I watched each cast intently.  Ultimately defeated, I had the chance to enjoy the night for what it was.

The air was moist and crisp at the same time—on the brink of being able to see your breath.  Before I went out I had pulled on a black, wool sweater I’ve had since I was 16.  I was glad when I yanked it off the shelf where it had been stowed for the last few months and now I was glad I had it.  The tide was so high that it felt like I was floating around town—Duxbury: Venice of New England.  The water connected each of the houses where warm lights were beginning to blink on as the sun set and the moon dappled the water.

I saw my mother-in-law, in her driveway atop her old Christmas tree farm on this part of the bay, arrive home from work.  Wood smoke wafted languorously down the hill in the cold air, crossed the water and filled my nostrils with the smell of autumn.  The TV flickered in CJ’s window as I drifted by.   After some time a call emerged from the dusk.  I searched the greying horizon to find my wife greeting me on a dock that extended from the marsh.  I picked her off the bank and the three of us—man, wife, and dog—sped off across the Bay to lap Clark’s Island in an attempt to sop up the beauty of this night.

In a Bay that spends most of its time draining out or filling back up, getting a few hours to bomb around at the right time of day in good weather feels like you’re getting away with something.  The Bay feels small and easily crossed.  This compared to snaking one’s way preciously through the tiny guzzles and channels that wind their own way through the many bars and flats—the mess of waterways that grant us access to the shellfish beds where we make our living.  One is work, the other play.  It’s liberating to dash boldly across this marine geography to which we are normally so beholden, like tracking up freshly fallen snow.  It feels both reckless and incomparably exhilarating.

You see, at Island Creek, the end of summer and the fall of the year is really a new beginning.  It’s a time of incredible bounty and bright futures.  The grueling work of summer is over.  The heat is gone and off.  Sure, the cold bite of winter lies ahead, but for now its high tide, the air is clean, the bay is full of fish, there’s a fire going in someone’s wood stove, and we have more oysters than we know what to do with.  In short, life is good—damn good.

This night the water is so calm that as we round the southern tip of the island at 30 knots we can hear the splash of our own wake.  The dog is on the bow, ears flopping in the wind, left one red, right one green from the bicolor nav light.  The two of us are huddled in the lee of the helm.  Skip’s cottage at Saquish stands alone on the point.  It is brightly lit both by the moon and the warm glow from within as he, like all of us, is probably enjoying the peace and solitude that comes with a near-frost.

There are a few times in the life of any Duxburian when it feels as though you are truly living out someone else’s fantasy.  You look up and wait for snow to swirl up around you as some giant child shakes the globe in which you are living.  There are other times, generally on rainy days in February or March, when you wonder in earnest why anyone lives here at all.  I would like to tell you we caught a big striper and shot a goose and brought them home and cooked them over a fire made of a tree we cut from a stand of healthy hardwoods last year, but we didn’t.  We took a cruise, burned some gas for no reason, and went in—beat by the fish, cagiest of creatures.  It was the spontaneity of it all, the very imperfection of it that made it feel just right.

Like everywhere else, this feeling of infinite balance is seldom realized in Duxbury.  Its ephemeral and its like trying to catch a snowflake (or chucking a lure into a school of stripers) but it happens at least once a year and here it’s called autumn.  That annual guarantee is a little bit of the magic that makes this place so special.

★ Chris Sherman is Island Creek’s vice president.  In some circles he is known as “Mr. Autumn Man”.  Follow him on Twitter: @moresaltplease ★

Bycatch is an easy one.  If you walk down the dock in New Bedford or Montauk or Stonington, CT or any one of the redoubts of the New England ground fishery and ask what each boat is heading out for, you’d probably get the same one word answer depending on the time of year (and not just because fishermen are generally men of few words).  It could be scallops, it could be cod, pollock, haddock, whiting, you name it, but because of seasons and catch shares it certainly wouldn’t be a long list of species per trip.  In reality, though, it’s hard to pick and choose the fish you are catching in a net 180 feet below the surface.  The ISABEL S. may be steaming out of New Bedford in search of whiting, but on a multi-day trip she’ll haul in thousands of pounds of other sea creatures (both edible and not) that her crew will have to throw back, dead or dying, either because they truly shouldn’t be caught (read: porpoises, sea turtles) or frequently  because well-intentioned regulations simply don’t allow her to land perfectly good fish legally.  These discards, my friends, are bycatch and last year in the Northeast alone, there was 156 million pounds of it.

Part of this problem is the nature of the gear that commercial fishermen use and there are successful efforts in progress to change this both here in New England and elsewhere.  While activists and industry alike are trying to change fishing methods and regulations, though, we as consumers can do our part to eat fish that makes sense—fish that isn’t necessarily something you’ve heard of before.

Whether it’s because of cultural history, ignorance, or particular marketing (or anti-marketing) campaigns I don’t really know, but seafood eaters are in lockstep marching into restaurants and grocery stores looking for the same old fish—cod, snapper, bass, tuna, salmon.  As a result, these are the species that are most threatened by overfishing.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing quite like a hunk of wild salmon on the grill or cutting a steak from a huge bluefin; however, there are, excuse the pun, other fish in the sea.  And here’s the thing: they taste good (and are often much lighter on your wallet and on our ocean).

Chefs in Houston are getting a lot of press these days for being a little more adventurous with their fish offerings; their businesses and reputations are benefitting.  They are considered the seafood avant garde, though, when really they should be the norm.

Earlier this year, the Boston Globe’s exposé on fish mislabeling caused quite a stir after alerting New Englanders to the fact that much of the local, traditional fish appearing on menus was in fact nothing of the sort—cod dishes contained hake, snapper was actually perch.  This piece was long overdue as such a scandal is bad for local fisherman and consumers alike.  Unfortunately, it missed out on a huge opportunity by focusing on the outrage of being served less flashy fish without making the subsequent point that lots (not all) of those fish should actually be on menus anyway–without all the subterfuge.

Consumers absolutely deserve to know what they are buying and in certain cases like escolar they are in fact getting a raw deal (and potentially an upset stomach).  But the bad rap that the media give these B-list and farmed species (whether they are actually bycatch or just cheap, plentiful alternatives) is the very reason chefs and suppliers have resorted to re- and mis-labelling them in the first place.  Essentially, mislabeling is just covering up a truth that the market has already revealed: A-list, wild fish is good, but it is prohibitively expensive because it’s scarce and is being overexploited.  The corollary to this truth is that when it actually hits the plate diners  frequently can’t really tell the difference between the marquee species and their lesser-known stand-ins.

In the end, it took DNA testing to identify which fish were actually mislabeled because they are so gosh-darn similar.  So, let’s loosen our centuries-long death grip on the poor, besought cod.  Make like a Mainer and give pollock and whiting a warm embrace.  And bring on the bycatch—its good for the fish, good for local fishermen, and most importantly good for you.

★ Chris Sherman is Island Creek’s vice president.  He wants you to know he is one with the sea. Follow him on Twitter: @moresaltplease ★

At ICO we start with great product. Perhaps you’ve heard us talk about that a few times? Our oysters are our foundation, the bottom line that everything else rests upon. It’s the water, the choices that the community makes in keeping the water clean. It’s the farmers hard work and decisions in caring for the animal. It’s our shop guys insanity in keeping the product perfectly stored, handled and monitored. These are all crucial elements to our work.

Taking these elements into account, however, the fact is that there are lots of other people selling shellfish. And a handful of those people sell great shellfish, from the Acadian Peninsula to Assateague Island. Beautiful, clean, happy places with salty, stubborn, charming oystermen and women. How can we make Island Creek shine among this esteemed company?

And beyond that, how can we give our work here meaning beyond the dollar? It’s a well documented fact that money is important. Period. But also that the intangibles of our work life are just as important, if not more. Relationships with co-workers and customers, the quality of daily interactions, adequate time off and a huge heaping pile of humor. These are the puzzle pieces of a healthy working life. Creating community within Island Creek and our extended family of shellfish lovers has proven itself to be one of our most satisfying and successful pursuits.

So that’s where the sales question comes back into play. The oysters aren’t going to sell themselves, and there are other folks out there that have nice product. And if relationships and community are a pillar of a meaningful workplace, and it’s the sales team’s job to work with chefs, how can we create a chef community? And if we haven’t met 50% of them face to face,

How can we make a community with people we’ve never met?

What I enjoy about this question is that it is so timely. More people have relationships based on computer interactions than ever. I just read an article talking about an on-line community of 35 million users each month. Thirty Five Million users, or people, as they are commonly known. It’s an inconceivable number.

My co-worker Jess and I come up with all sorts of schemes to bring together a group of people who are loosely affiliated by their love of oysters, deep desire for quality and love of small scale farming. These schemes include weekly emails with farm related events and weekly if not daily phone calls checking in with chefs. We throw parties for chefs. We talk about chefs to other chefs, we relate stories and share issues that we hear about. “Things are slow? I’m hearing that from everyone right now.” Jess and I visit restaurants and keep detailed records of chefs likes and dislikes. We begin to understand their general temperament and what they have in common, and we talk about it. To them. We pick on them, tell them they are a crazy group of people. Remind them that they are artists. And at the level we work at, brilliant artists. Essentially, we let them know that there is a community. We create it, we reinforce it and slowly it becomes something real.

The fulcrum is the sales team itself. Here is what I love: that one of the most potent and least tangible ways that we develop community between these disparate people is that we are ourselves. And that means that we are honest, caring and smart. And we love a good joke. We are genuine, so that every interaction we have is real and is consistent. And every time we talk to one chef vs another, or we get the pleasure of speaking with them at the same time, they get the same people. The people, us, that are grounded solidly in the character of their work culture, of their one of one relationships with the other folks at ICO and the people of Duxbury. These elements are consistent themselves, and they provide the perfect platform. The community is already there, we are just expanding the circle. It’s effortless and the only way this kind of energy is created. And all one needs to do is look at our 200 plus chef network to see what it is capable of.

Sales, yes. But all we ‘do’ is be the kind, trustworthy and sardonic people that grow naturally here in New England, in Duxbury, and at Island Creek. How easy is that?!