When you’re new in town, it helps to latch on to a really great family that knows the area, explores it often, and is kind enough to drag you along. We’ve got that in Jan and Chris and their two kids, who are living this kind of bucolic southern Salem life at a suburban location just out of town.
(Read: They keep chickens legally).
A more cynical person would suggest that you befriend people with a boat. Or a vacation house. Or access to water sport equipment. But since I’m not that person, I’ll simply say that I hope I have the chance to give back to them someday — or at least give back in a similar way to some down-on-their-luck boatless younger couple.
This isn’t the first time they’ve invited us out to the coast, by the way. It is simply the most godly time that it’s happened. Until now, Chris has been leaving for the Pacific as early as 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday to dig for clams or go tuna fishing.
Uh uh. Sorry. Not going to make it.
But we can do leaving at 8 a.m. So we joined the family last weekend on theirDungeness crabbing trip to Siletz Bay on the Oregon Coast, bringing along little more than two shellfish licenses picked up at Fred Meyer for $6.50 and one half hour a piece (don’t be so shellfish! Get your license!), a German chocolate brownie dish, two bananas, some books, and sweatshirts.
Lesson 1: Never bring a banana on a boat. We had never heard this old wives’ tale before.
By the time we got to Siletz, Chris and Jan had already laid out six Dungeness crab pots at locations throughout the bay and had taken to hand-fishing to pass the time.
Now, I’m an old hand at crabbing from my days growing up vacationing at Fenwick Island, DE. We used to hand-line fish Maryland blue crabs with chicken necks and eel heads off the back of our dock on the Delaware Bay. Nothing pleases me more than the angry tug of a tiny crab that appears to be far larger than his breathren when still swimming below murky bay waters.
But my new “condition” has made boat-walking a precarious task, so I set back as the kids (husband) pulled in too-small crab after too-small crab, hanging for their dear lives onto the back legs of a festering chicken.
Lesson #2: Use a crab pot.
After about an hour we tired of playing around and circled back to pick up the first of the seven crab pots. Now, I have to say that Dungeness crabs are the ugly older sisters of the Maryland blue. But what they lack in sheer beauty and grace, they make up in pure, unmitigated anger.
Adam or Chris would pull up the pot, open them and dump the teeming crabs onto the floor of the boat, where they would writhe in waterless fury as everyone (except for me, I’d fall over at this point) would grab them, measure them, throw out the too-small crabs and the females, and dunk the keepers in the boat’s hull.
Lesson #3: You go to the Oregon Coast to get crab, not to get crabs.
Some pots gave mightily, some did not. But after a few hours of circling back to retrieve pots, refilling the festering chicken bait, pulling crab, and weeding out the keepers, we had amassed 41 Dungeness crabs. That number is, incidentally, less than the 12 per person which we are legally allowed to haul in.
Later that night, we joined the family again at their home in south Salem, where Jan and Chris had been faithfully steaming the crab while we showered at home. They like to eat the crab cold, with cole slaw and French bread. I like to eat it with crab juice running down the side of my arm and my husband squirting his crab juice in my eye.
I’m guessing I ate four crab and Adam ate eleven.
Still, there was too much. So Jan and Chris packed up some for us to take home, which we picked and cleaned with some guests who were passing through and did up last night a la Chris Czarnecki at the Joel Palmer House.
With a cream sauce and Truffle oil over pasta, Dungeness crab is rich enough to put you out of commission for the rest of the night. It’s a pleasurable food coma.
Were they as crabby as Crabby Chuck? The pasta looks like yum, but it’s definitely not on the wedding diet. Ah, Fenwick Island. It’s a lovely little place. I have a great recipe for crab salad with creme fraiche and herbs, served on a nest of lemony endive and avocado. It’s from Bouchon (The French Laundry’s little sister – also in Yountville).
Funny… I actually told the story of Crabby Chuck — the first crab we ever caught — and his sex change into Crabby Chuckina (after we learned how to sex them). This dish was almost too much even for me. I was practically delirious. It’s on the pregnancy diet, which I recommend for all eaters.
hmmm, I have been wanting to go fishing – purchased a license months ago after buying poles at garage sales with Adam the first time I visited you guys, but haven’t found anyone to go fishing with up here. Do you think Chris would be amenable to taking me out sometime? It wouldn’t even need to be on a boat, I just want to fish. And I would be willing to get up at 4am……or if he’s interested in coming to Seattle sometime I could offer him quarters for a knowledgeable fishing buddy….thoughts?