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SWEET
TALK
A Conversation with Salty Oats Creator Terri Horn
by
Dianne Langeland

Terri,
elbow deep in cookie dough |
We
first discovered Salty Oats a few summers ago and were
wowed by the curious salty-sweet balance of the best
darned oatmeal cookies we ever ate. And then, before
we could get enough of them, they were gone, only to
mysteriously reappear the following summer. We had to
get the low-down from their inventor, Terri Horn, if
only to persuade her keep baking in winter.
How
did you get started baking professionally?
I baked my way through college while studying education
in North Carolina and continued working at a restaurant
when I began teaching. I soon discovered that my sense
of fulfillment, my curiosity, my inspiration was in
using my hands to create, so I left teaching to start
a small dessert company.
What
was the inspiration to add a sprinkling of salt on your
cookies?
The inspiration for salting the cookie was something
I had seen at a bakery I worked at in North Carolina.
However, I consider this cookie "mine" after
years of reworking the recipe and ingredients and making,
who-knows-how-many cookies over 14 years.
Where
else have you baked?
I first sold Salty Oats in DC in the 1990s when I was
working at Marvelous Market, the first real artisanal
bakery in DC. I worked at 21 Federal and Chanticleer
on Nantucket, and spent a long season working for Todd
English at Isola on Martha's Vineyard. I also worked
for 1789 in Georgetown for eight years. In addition
I was awarded two scholarships to study and work in
Paris at the Ritz and Le Notre for five months.
Paris,
Washington DC, North Carolina…what brought you
to Cape Cod?
All my life I've had a special affinity for the Cape.
It feels like home. I've been coming here for almost
30 years, but it's only been since I left the restaurant
life that I have been able to stay for a whole season.
This is my third.
How
did you develop your distribution channel on the Cape?
I knew and loved Jean Iverson and was thrilled when
we first discussed my baking for Kelly Farmstand [Route
6A in Cummaquid]. Each year I've expanded my offerings
there. This year the Salty Oats will return, of course,
along with their sister cookie, the Chocolate Salty
Oat. The new cookie is something I have wanted to do
for a long time. I also plan to bake pies, turnovers,
scones, maybe granola, and, I hope, some breads. The
beauty of baking for the farm is that I can wake up
and decide what I want to create that day. I use Jean's
rhubarb, raspberries, and veggies as I can in my baking.
Jean is getting me organic eggs from someone in her
gardening club. This also will be my third year selling
to Fancy's Market in Osterville and to the Lavender
Farm in Harwich. I'll also be selling my baked goods
at the Mid-Cape Farmers' Market and the Provincetown
Fish & Farmers' Market for several weeks. [You an
also order them by emailing Terri at saltyoats@aol.com]
Rumor
has it that the Food Network was following you around
one day.
They are developing a new version of Recipes for Success,
which will most likely air in the fall. I am going to
be featured in a segment about starting a cookie company.
Since summer on the Cape is the highlight of my year,
the producer and the cameramen came in May and followed
me for a day: to Fancy's Market, to the bank to open
an account, to visit with Jean on the farm, and to a
meeting with Jim Miller who heads up the Hospitality
Program at Cape Cod Community College. It included an
interview with my mom, and closed with my dog, Clementine,
and me walking into an amazing Cape Cod sunset.
What
about your relationship with Cape Cod Community College?
Starting this summer, I'll be working out of the kitchen
at 4Cs as part of their incubator program, which makes
available facilities and expertise to local entrepreneurs
in the hospitality industry, with emphasis on locally
grown and produced foods.
When
are you going to move to Cape Cod full time so we can
always have access to Salty Oats?
That is something I think over seriously each summer
and it seems each year I stay a little longer. Perhaps
it will come down to finding the right space for my
"summer bakery", or perhaps it's just a matter
of getting to the point in my life when I decide "This
is it, this is where I want to be to do what I love
most, and the time is now..."
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Man
in Demand: Tim Friary's Organic Produce Scores with
Local Chefs and Consumers
by
Dianne Langeland

Tim
getting strawberries ready for farmers' market |
oke
around restaurant kitchens or farmers markets on the
Cape and the supplier of local seasonal produce most
frequently named is Tim Friary. Friary, who is the proprietor
of Cape Cod Organic Farm in Barnstable, supplies more
restaurants and is the linchpin of more farmers markets
than any other grower on the Cape. From June through
October, from Provincetown to Hyannis, you can find
Tim's toothsome produce on menus and market stalls.
If you enjoyed particularly tasty salad greens or young
asparagus at top-notch local restaurants this spring,
chances are they were grown by Tim.
Cape
Cod Organic Farm is located on two properties in Barnstable
with a total of 24 acres under cultivation. The largest
parcel is on Commerce Road where Friary rents about
20 acres of the old Lowell Estate. When Tim first toured
the property he was amazed to find a 1965 tractor in
the barn with only about 80 hours on it; it had not
been touched since the former farmer, Joe Novack, retired
more than thirty years earlier. The property also includes
a 72-foot greenhouse, a chicken coop, and pens for pigs
and ducks. In 2003, Tim also purchased 1.5 acres of
farmland on Route 6A in Cummaquid where he also leases
an adjacent 2.3 acres.
Although
he spent a lot of time on his Italian-immigrant grandparents'
farm in Taunton, Mass., when he was growing up, Tim
became a farmer in a round about fashion. After high
school, Tim went west, attending college in Colorado
where he studied forestry before moving to California
during what Tim euphemistically calls the "experimental
phase of my life." Ultimately Tim returned to the
east coast where for about three years he worked as
a farm therapist at a halfway house for schizophrenics
in Hyannis. One of his programs was helping residents
cultivate a kitchen garden. According to Tim, although
it was only a 'small' plot - about 80'x25' - it was
"strategically situated" over a septic system
and yielded an amazing quantity of produce. The program
was extremely popular among the residents; Tim claims
that it's very calming to work in dirt. Yet, despite
enjoying growing vegetables, he still wasn't ready to
fully commit himself to the life of a farmer.
Tim
next became a logger with a firewood business on the
Cape. After he cleared a 35-acre parcel in Barnstable,
he started growing Christmas trees and then native plants
like blueberry, bayberry, and native grasses such as
American Beach Grass, which was the main crop at Seabury
Farm in Barnstable where he was a partner for many years.
In 1996, after Seabury Farm closed and coincidentally
at about the same time as his marriage was dissolving,
Tim finally returned to his roots and became a full-time
professional farmer.
From
the start Tim never used chemicals on his crops. His
grandparents had always gardened organically, and, frankly,
the idea of using chemicals to grow something you put
in your mouth just didn't make sense to him. Being certified
organic requires a lot of record keeping and much paperwork,
and although many people sell organic without certification,
Tim believes the process keeps things "on the cuff
" as he puts it, so he sticks with the rigorous
program.
Initially
Tim grew mesculun, arugula, potatoes, tomatoes, and
squashes, which he sold at the Orleans Farmers' Market
and through a weekly CSA program. (Community Supported
Agriculture programs, or CSA's, enable consumers to
buy weekly "shares" of a farm's harvest before
the season begins. In return, throughout the season,
participants regularly receive a bag with a variety
of just-picked items from the farm.) For insurance reasons,
Tim couldn't have CSA buyers come to his farm, so he
spent a lot of time driving around to his customers'
homes dropping off their CSA bags - an expensive, time-consuming
proposition. That was the first and last year Tim offered
a CSA program.
In
his second selling season, to make up for income lost
by canceling the CSA program, Tim pursued upscale Cape
restaurants as regular clients and also started selling
at the weekly Chatham Farmers' Market in addition to
the Orleans Farmers' Market. It was what Tim calls the
height of the "mesculun craze" and he was
bagging about 250 lbs. of the popular mixed salad greens
a week. He also increased acreage for his potato crop,
offering customers 12 different varieties of spuds including
fingerling, banana, Yukons, Red Bliss, and Red Pontiac.
Over
the years, Tim has continued to experiment with new
crops. Last year for the first time he planted corn,
however without pesticides, corn easily succumbs to
worms. Tim tried an organic approach to controlling
the problem, injecting each ear of corn with mineral
oil, but he was too late to save his crop. One-and-one-half
acres of wormy corn were turned over to the raccoons,
which, according to Tim had a real feast in his fields.
In
recent years, Tim has also started growing strawberries,
slender French green beans or Haricot vert, watermelon,
and asparagus in addition to potatoes, squashes, greens,
radishes, tomatoes, and carrots. This year, Tim has
expanded his offerings even further with fennel, leeks,
chives, and shallots. He reckons that he grows more
than 60 different varieties of produce. Tim is also
considering getting some sheep to add to his livestock,
which include pigs, ducks, and chickens that he raises
for his family's personal consumption. His children
have a healthy farm-family approach to livestock; rather
than adopting them as pets, the Friary kids look forward
to when the pigs will go to market thereby delivering
their favorite bacon to the breakfast table.

One
of Tim's Tibetan farm hands washing mesclun |
About
five years ago, Tim started getting help in his fields
from some Tibetan farmers, who were washing dishes during
dinner service at Abbicci. Although they did not speak
much English at first, they managed to communicate in
what Tim calls the universal language of farmers. The
Tibetans immediately impressed Tim with their work ethic
and their knowledge. For example, Tim didn't have any
irrigation hoses on his Route 6A property, so the Tibetans
showed him how to dust mulch, which is to apply a layer
of dirt over the vegetable beds to prevent water from
evaporating. After putting in a full day in Tim's fields,
these hardworking gentlemen still spend their evenings
washing dishes at Abbicci. Most of the money they earn
is sent back home to their families and villages from
whom they are separated for years at a stretch. You
frequently spot his farm hands riding their bikes to
and from work along Route 6A in Cummaquid and Yarmouthport.
Early
this season, we had a dinner party featuring Tim's asparagus
and strawberries, which elevated a simple meal to the
sublime. The buds on the asparagus were tightly closed
and the stalks firm and crisp with a pronounced nutty
flavor not found in bunches shipped from far away. The
humble strawberry shortcakes we served were consumed
in respectful silence after the first spoonfuls elicited
moans of pleasure as the brightness of the sun-ripened
berries hit the palate. Fresh strawberries are a taste
revelation the same way a genuine summer tomato is -
how we managed to exert such heroic self-control and
not devour the entire bowl of berries before our company
arrived is still a mystery.
This
year, Tim will be supplying fresh produce to many of
the mid- and lower Cape's finer restaurants, such as
Brewster Fish House (Brewster), Grille 16 at Asa Bearse
House (Hyannis), The Martin House (Provincetown), Naked
Oyster (Hyannis), Nauset Beach Club (East Orleans),
and The Wicked Oyster (Wellfleet).
For
those interested in purchasing Cape Cod Organic Farm
produce directly, Tim can usually be found holding court
over his fresh veggies at various farmers' markets on
the Cape: Wednesday mornings in Hyannis, Friday afternoons
in Provincetown, Saturday mornings in Orleans.
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On
Cape Cod, Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly is Just One Variety
by
Candace Byrne
he
relaxing properties of lavender soon begin soothing
drivers who turn at the small, white, lettered sign
at the corner of Route 124 and Weston Woods Road in
Harwich, follow more signs with small arrows marking
the way to the farm, travel past the Sutphins' house,
then park and enter the shed where lavender products
are sold. The Cape Cod Lavender Farm, owned and operated
by Cynthia and Matthew Sutphin, is the place on the
Cape to go for lavender plants, products, and, in season,
armsful of lavender's scented flowers.

Cynthia
holding court at the Lavender Harvest |
Cynthia
Sutphin has been cultivating lavender and selling lavender
plants for fifteen years on the twelve acres of Cape
Cod Lavender Farm. She began with 400 plants; this year,
she'll sell 8,000 gallon-sized containers, 12 varieties
of lavender. In late June and early July, when the plants
bloom, Cape residents and visitors will come to the
Farm to buy the purple flowers, whose scent evokes a
sense of well-being, calm, and balance.
Landing
on Lavender
For
Cynthia, arriving at this point in the business, when
the "blue gold," as the French refer to lavender,
is the focus of the Farm, seems itself a journey towards
balance and calm.
Prior
to 1990, she did the rounds of farmers' markets, on
the Cape and in Boston, selling snapdragons and other
annuals, but she found that adhering to those markets'
schedules, rain or shine, constricted her and left her
little time for her family. In 1990, she turned to lavender,
because, in her words, "it was unique." No
one else on the Cape focused on lavender. Even today,
no one else on the Cape offers as many varieties of
the plant, most from the English Lavender family, for
its hardy adjustment to the climate of Cape Cod.
In
the fifteen years that the Farm has been centered on
lavender, just two bad winters stressed the crop - and
Cynthia. This past winter, she said, snow blanketed
the lavender mounds in December, and they slept covered
and protected until snowmelt in spring.
When
Cynthia first started selling the plants, she sold them
from the ground. During bloom, she would take the flowers
to Cape markets. The first seven years focused on lavender,
the Farm operated the same way: selling plants from
the ground and flowers from local markets.
Then,
on June 27, 1997, just at "show," as Cynthia
refers to full bloom, the Harwich Oracle wrote an article
about the Farm, and in the article Cynthia invited readers
to visit the farm over the weekend, stroll the grounds
enjoying the show, and buy the flowers picked fresh
in the morning.
Entranced
by the Oracle article, customers drove out to the Farm
in a steady stream. Cynthia and her daughter Anna -
her four children all help on the Farm - said they were
astounded and could hardly keep up.
There
has been no looking back - and no regular sales at farmers'
markets, although Cynthia will sell the flowers at the
height of bloom at Provincetown's new farmers market.

The
Enchanted Garden |
The
Lavender Farmlands
Customers
drive right to the Farm, sometimes to buy plants or
other products, sometimes just to stroll the grounds,
which expand as the family clears land within their
wooded acreage and plants rows of lavender. One area
in particular delights adults and children both: the
Enchanted Garden, a shaded area of flowering perennials,
columbine, hostis, goatsbeard, designed by stone mason
Eddy Foisy. His skill with stone manifests itself in
the garden's centerpiece, a miniature medieval castle,
three stories high with leaded glass windows, in the
benches within the garden, and in the fairy portals
hidden in the Enchanted Garden's low stone walls.
The
lavender itself grows in several cleared areas within
the acreage, around 14,000 plants. Lavender thrives
in full sun, in soil with good drainage. Robert Kourik,
in The Lavender Garden: Beautiful Varieties to Grow
and Gather, writes of the three essentials: drainage,
drainage, drainage. Although very young plants need
water to get established, after a year most lavender
is drought-tolerant and low maintenance. Cynthia recommends
adding a bit of lime if soil is acidic and cutting the
plants back 1/3 in the fall. With the trim, the plants
form a low-lying mound, their green or silver-green
foliage lovely along borders or in groups.
Colors
and Scents
Gardeners
are most familiar with the range of purple flowers implied
in the name and evident in varieties like Hidcote's
deep purple and Munstead's lighter purple shade. Lavender
also blooms white in certain Hidcote and Provence varieties
and pink in the Jean Davis variety. Cape Cod Lavender
Farm has developed its own variety, from a rogue offshoot
of the Hidcote variety, with a deep purple flower. Named
Harwich Blue, these plants will be available at the
Farm next year.
Along
with the color, gardeners will choose varieties for
their height and the length of the spike. Varieties
grow 2-3 feet tall, some, like Dilly Dilly, with a long
spike of flowers.
Lavender's
calming scent lies in both the flowers and the foliage.
In talking of the different varieties, Cynthia runs
her hands along the foliage, releasing the scent. The
scent also wafts through the shed where lavender products
are sold. Many of the products depend on scent: candles,
sachets, eye and neck pillows, lavender soap, rain and
lotions. Posters and specially designed tiles and textiles
depend on lavender's color. And other products spotlight
its culinary appeal.
Parsley,
Sage, Lavender and Thyme

Lavender
Plants |
Lavender,
of the mint family, is related to rosemary, sage and
thyme. Whole or ground in a pestle or grinder, fresh
or dried leaves and flowers are used in both sweet and
savory dishes. From the shed, Cynthia sells a lemon-lavender
marmalade, made in Harwich especially for the Farm,
as lovely to look at as to eat, with the deep purple
lavender flowers and yellow lemon peel suspended in
the transparent jelly. Cynthia likes to baste the marmalade
on chicken before baking or grilling. Dried or fresh
lavender can be substituted for rosemary as a rub for
grilled meats, and meat or shrimp can be grilled on
woody lavender stems.
A
lavender lemonade mix, especially refreshing in the
summer, and a mix of herbes de Provence featuring lavender
are also sold from the shed. Cynthia uses the herbes
de Provence in stews and salads; summer salads also
take an addition of lavender flowers.
Lavender
enhances sweet baked goods as well. One method for baking
with lavender involves mixing lavender flowers with
sugar, letting the lavender infuse the sugar for a week
or so, and then straining out the flowers and using
the sugar. In season, also available in the shed at
Cape Cod Lavender Farm, a local baker supplies lavender
shortbread, which Cynthia says she can't keep in stock.
Lavender infused milk or water, made by steeping 2 T.
lavender per cup of boiling liquid, can serve as the
base for custards, crème brulee, ice cream, sorbets
and baked goods.
Cynthia
recommends experimenting with quantity to flavor foods,
starting with a little, as an excess will give too perfumy
a quality. If used dried, lavender is more potent, and
only 1/3 of the quantity is needed.
The
menu at the Sutphins' annual harvest party for family
and friends highlights lavender flavored foods. Cynthia
offers a glass of white wine or champagne with a sprig
of lavender blossoms in the glass. She uses the lemonade
mix plain and as a base to make lavender margaritas.
On the table are Swiss cheese quiche flavored with lavender
and lavender focaccio bread, with lavender leaves replacing
the more common rosemary. Naturally, armsful of lavender
blossoms grace the tables.
The
"Show"
"Show,"
when the plants are in full bloom, generally occurs
for a two week period around late June. Customers roaming
the farm during this time will see rows of mounded lavender
plants, the spikes rising 2-3 feet and topped with all
shades of lavender flowers.
Early
in the morning, family and a friend and seasonal worker
named Liz will move down the rows of lavender. They
gather up the spikes of flowers and snip them off with
scissors. They bunch the flowers in a thick handful
and return to the shed with baskets of bunches, sometimes
to waiting customers, who arrive early and continue
in a steady stream at this time of year. At the end
of the day, Cynthia takes the flowers that are left
and spreads them in very thin layers along a roll of
paper. She dries them by unrolling the paper in an attic
and letting the summer's heat work. Baskets of flowers,
fresh and dried, are available in the shed.
It's
the Farm's busiest time with customers, and Cynthia
and Matthew relish it. Directions to the Farm - and
other information about lavender - can be found at www.capecodlavenderfarm.com.
Some
time in the future, Cynthia and Matthew will build a
tree house on Cape Cod Lavender Farm, overlooking the
swamp maples at the edge of the neighboring conservation
land. They'll decorate it simply - a featherbed, some
lavender pillows - and have another area - a perch -
from which to enjoy the calm and sense of well-being
that lavender impounds.
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Cultured
Eating: A Cape Cod Local Enjoys Life
by
Doug Langeland · Photos by Carole Topalian ·
Illustrations by Mary Ogle

Les
Unloading Oyster Spats |
Note:
While researching this article I had a unique opportunity
to spend time with the operators who cultivate shellfish
on the flats around the Cape. Unfortunately this was
right in the middle of the red tide that hit with a
vengeance this spring. I sure got a personal perspective
on headlines like "Red Tide Costs Cape Shellfishers
$2 Million per Week" when I saw the harm to these
small business people with families to feed and mortgages
to pay. Their worry was palpable and I really appreciated
the grace they demonstrated to a curious magazine guy,
as well as their gallows humor. Now that the beds are
open again I urge our readers to go out of their way
to support local shellfishers by seeking out Cape Cod
clams and oysters. Ask restaurants and fishmongers where
the shellfish comes from and urge them to buy from Cape
Cod growers.
ometimes
it takes someone far away to make you really appreciate
something that is right in your own backyard. Last year
we ordered a gift of local shellfish from Barnstable
Seafarms for our Edible Communities colleagues in California.
Their reaction was gratifying. "Amazing",
"delicious", "huge", "sweet"
and "perfectly shaped" were just a few of
the compliments we received about the oysters and littlenecks
we sent.
We
decided that we needed to learn more about Barnstable
Seafarms, so we called owner Les Hemmila, who, it turns
out, lives less than one mile from our house. We've
had the pleasure of interviewing him, spending time
on the water with him, and sharing a great meal - that
included some of his oysters - with him and one of his
partners at a Scargo Café, one of the restaurants
they supply. Les is a lot of fun to be around; you eat
well and learn a lot about shellfish, too.
Cape-Raised
Globe Trotter
Les's
grandfather, who immigrated to the Cape from Finland,
and father were both avid amateur shellfishermen, however
Les is the first member of his family to make it his
vocation. Les's biography gets very interesting because
of what happened next in his life. When he was 15 years
old, Les temporarily - or so he thought - left the Cape
to explore California; it would be decades before he
came back to live. Les ended up attending the City College
of Santa Barbara "majoring in surfing" as
he describes it. One day he overheard someone talking
about abalone diving and he thought it must be like
shellfishing, so he talked his way into a job working
on an abalone boat. When one of the divers quit, the
boat owner gave Les the job. Scrambling to gain knowledge
by reading books, Les was soon diving off the boat using
a "hooka" system that provides oxygen to divers
through pipes. He quickly became adept at identifying
and grabbing abalone off the ocean bottom.
Les
enjoyed diving so much that it became his profession
for the next seven years. Over time he identified a
market need and, drawing on skills from his Cape childhood,
began building abalone boats. The business took off.
Soon he was building many types of craft, including
specialty vessels like search-and-rescue boats for the
City of San Francisco and governments around the world.

Raking
in Oysters |
Once
when Les traveled to Indonesia to install some replacements
parts for a customer, he discovered that no one knew
how to maintain the boat properly, so he stuck around
to train the local staff. Les was so enamored of the
place that he remained and eventually he took over responsibility
for the entire operation. On weekends he traveled to
Bali to repair boats and ran a charter dive boat for
the local Marriott. Les also became involved in fisheries
development, leading local projects to develop low-intensity
shrimp farming operations.
In
total, Les spent 14 years in Indonesia. He met and married
his wife Valeria there and their children were born
there. Both Les and Valeria loved the people and culture
of Indonesia and their love for the island nation only
deepened over time. But as the years went by, they also
began to miss home. Valeria an American from New Hampshire,
who was doing an internship studying security issues
when she met Les, wanted to advance her career and they
both wanted their children to experience life in the
U.S. During a visit to their families, they became smitten
by Cummaquid and decided to move there in 1991. Les
and Valeria joke that most people travel later in life
when careers are finished and kids have married and
moved away from home, but that they "did it backwards".
Surfing
+ Abalone + Boat Building + Fisheries + Cape Cod = Shellfishing!
Initially
unsure of what field to pursue upon returning upon returning
to the U.S., Les says it became pretty obvious once
he thought his experiences around the globe. In his
mind a Cape upbringing, abalone diving, fisheries management,
and boat building added up to shellfishing. So he built
a boat and went to work on the flats. For a few years,
Les succeeded with wild shellfish harvesting but he
soon learned the vagaries of that approach when supplies
dwindled. Les figured he had to start growing his own
spats and, thus, Barnstable Seafarms was born.
Les
has been growing shellfish in the cold clear waters
around Cape Cod for about ten years now. He has grants
in Barnstable Harbor on the northside and in the Five
Bays area on the southside of the Cape. He cultivates
the Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica), a naturally
occurring and fertile oyster native to the Cape. You'll
find them listed on restaurants as either "Cotuits"
or Barnstable Oysters.
Many
wholesalers tend to view oysters as a commodity, but
some appreciate quality differences. To the discriminating,
taste and consistent shape and thickness of shell are
important. Restaurants prefer oysters that have a clean
taste of the sea and also an elegant look. The steps
taken during the growing process are key to creating
oysters with such distinguishing qualities. For example
during part of the maturation process, Les has a rule
of thumb that each oyster should be touched and moved
or turned once a month to ensure consistent, nicely-cupped
shapes and intact shells. When you consider the hundreds
of thousands of oysters he raises, the amount of labor
involved is incredible. But Les has a goal is to create
a Cape & Islands Shellfish brand, with national
recognition, similar to that associated with Wellfleet
Oysters. The brand identity he seeks would be one of
high quality and perfectly-shaped, large oysters.
To
grow the business and ensure a consistent supply of
quality of oysters and littlenecks, Les has joined forces
with four other local shellfishers to form the Cape
Cod Cultured Shellfish Group. The group includes John
Conners in Wellfeet, Bethany Wallton in Eastham, Scott
Mullin in Barnstable, and Andrew Cummings in Wellfleet.
All the group's shellfish are farmed with environmentally-sustainable
techniques on local family farms. In addition to joint
marketing, working together allows them to sell a variety
of local oysters including Wellfleet, Cummaquid, and
Eastham. It also provides a steady supply since local
temperature differentials cause oysters to spawn and
grow at different rates. Also diseases tend to be highly
localized. This was illustrated recently when the entire
northside of the Cape was closed due to red tide while
the southside beds in the Five Bays remained open.
Probably
the most important part of working as group is that
they have abundant supply to service large national
orders. Using overnight shipping from their new federally-inspected
processing facility that is HACCP approved (Hazard Analysis
Critical Control Point) the group can offer freshly
harvested shellfish to gourmets anywhere in the country.
With
their new strength in numbers, the group is taking advantage
of programs that help them market regionally and nationally.
Last year they attended a chef's event at Dan'l Webster
Inn in Sandwich sponsored by SEMAC (South East Massachusetts
Aquaculture Committee), a state-funded center whose
mission is to foster the sustainable development of
aquaculture in the region through education, research,
technical and economic assistance, best management practices,
and demonstration projects. The event was so successful
that the Cape Cod Cultured Shellfish Group received
a "flood" of orders from restaurants in Boston
and New York. Based on that success, they are continuing
to focus on chef events like the New England Food Show
and the International Boston Seafood Show.
But
you don't have to attend food shows to find shellfish
from Les and his partners. Many Cape restaurants prominently
feature their oysters in raw and composed state, including
902 Main (Route 28, South Yarmouth), Hearth n' Kettle
(multiple locations across the Cape), Naked Oyster (Hyannis)
Scargo Café (Dennis), and Wimpy's, (Osterville).
If you prefer to eat your oysters in the privacy of
your home, you can find Cape Cod Cultured Shellfish
Group shellfish at Cape Fish and Lobster on West Main
Street in Hyannis.
You
can also order a sampler of shellfish varieties by calling
508-280-4125 or visiting barnstableseafarms.com.
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