Oysterfest 2010
Oysterfest XVI
Photo credits: af, arto, baker, peoples, and smash
The Cooking conference held its 16th annual Oyster Fest on May 23, 2010. About forty people gathered to feast on our favorite bivalves, to share dozens of delectable side dishes, to raise toasts to friendship, to the food, to the return of the sun, and to enjoy the beauty of Hearts Desire Beach at Tomales Bay State Park.
In past years we’ve gotten our oysters from Tomales Bay Oyster Company, which offers all sizes of Miyagi (aka “Pacific”) oysters, but no other types. This year we made our oyster purchase from Santa Rosa Seafood, which supplied us with a wide variety of oysters, including Blue Points, Malpeques, Steamboats, and Kumamotos, as well as the local Miyagis.
Leaving Inverness, the car climbs up to the top of a ridge, where the ocean is visible to the west.
Wild foxglove is in bloom on the ridge above the beach
The turn to Hearts Desire (note the lack of apostrophe in ‘Hearts’)
flash pulls into the beach’s parking lot on his bike.
oz and doctore are ready to eat
artlife heads for the barbeque
Time to eat!
flash and doctore eyeball jayson’s oyster-opening technique
ode, needtono, woodman, and reet
Clockwise, from lower left:
ellen, mm, Angus (notw), Alan (notw), peony (standing back to camera), frako, af, rik
Carol (Mrs. doctore) relaxes with Cooking conference cohost baker and her son, Davey
baker’s beautiful corn and barley salad
woodman and rik with their respective partners, Ellen and Norma
Bob (notw) and ode take a break between rounds of oysters
mcb protects his shaved head from the afternoon sun
A beautiful plate of oysters
Late arrival kurtr joins the oyster table
Delia (Mrs. gower) and the deliciously roly poly Daphne
arto wears Alan’s ‘hair hat’ visor
Alan, sans hair hat visor
Delia and Nef play with Daphne
ellen
af hunkers down to get a shot of cooljazz at the barbeque
frako and smash
The melt-in-your-mouth 48-hour sous vide short ribs from smash
arto snaps a photo of ellen, nanlev and himself reflected in smash’s glasses
At some point during the gathering, it’s become a tradition to have a group reading of Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter.’ We take turns reciting verses until we get to ‘The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things’ verse, which we all shout out together
Readers, from left: jayson, Cooking confererence cohost peoples, woodman, mm, Angus, nanlev, frako, jloree, karish, Alan
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Readers Angus, nanlev, and frako share a copy of The Sacred Text
Before the afternoon concludes, flash takes Davey to fly a box kite on the beach.
Check out previous years’ oysterfests