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Island Creek Oysters of Duxbury Beach (~30 miles south of Boston), MA, supplies to many of the area’s fine restaurants. This year marks the 5th annual Oyster Festival, an event that includes oysters, beer from Harpoon Brewery, live music, and food stands from the 21 Boston chefs (listed at the bottom). 3,000 attended and 500 people volunteered.
As raw bar attendants, Richard and I had front row seats to oyster shucking action and got to snack our way through fresher-than-fresh oysters. I stopped counting at an half dozen. These beauties were lusciously briny and slippery. They were good even without the spread of usual accompaniments on the table. What a treat! At the end of the night, we even got a free oyster shucking lesson from the State Runner-up Oyster Shucking Champion. Ready for seafood week! Give me more oysters!
Chefs on board for the 2010 Oyster Festival:
(from ICOF website)
Jody Adams / Chef & Owner, Rialto
Ming Tsai / Chef & Owner, Blue Ginger
Jeremy Sewall / Chef, Island Creek Oyster Bar, Lineage & Eastern Standard
Seth and Angela Raynor / Chef & Owners, The Pearl
Tony Maws / Chef & Owner, Craigie On Main
Chris Schlesinger / Chef & Owner, East Coast Grill
Jasper White / Chef & Owner, Summer Shack
Chris Parsons / Chef, Parson’s Table
Greg Reeves / Chef, Green Street Grill
Eric Brennan / Chef, Post 390
Chris Robbins / Chef, Gaslight
Art D’Allessandro / Owner, Arthur & Pat’s
Art D’Allessandro / Owner, Arthur & Pat’s
Michael Serpa / Chef, Neptune Oyster
Barry Maiden / Chef, Hungry Mother
Louis DiBicarri / Chef, Sel de la Terre
Michael Scelfo / Chef, Russell House Tavern
Plate Magazine‘s gathering of chefs took place today at LCB Boston, featuring Mediterranean foods for 80 guest chefs.
I volunteered at the 7am-2pm shift and got to work in the school restaurant helping chef instructors prepare lunch for these distinguished chefs.
Here’s a look at the scrumptious spread.
Although there was plenty food allotted for staff, I didn’t have enough time to taste all the dishes. But all the ones I got my paws on were delish!
The plates pictured above were for display only. Guest chefs actually got a 2-3 oz tasting portions of each dish. It was still quite the feast. Life seems so much better when you kick off a week with a 10-course lunch on Monday. Additional activities of the day included demos and a “market basket” (iron chef/chopped-esque competition using ingredients in the mystery basket).
My point-and-shoot camera is getting a bit old and could not do the food justice. Can’t wait to see the professional pages in the magazine. There are so many beautiful photographs in this periodical. It was a great way to spend a no-school day.
There is a graveyard shift for everything — even for volunteer opportunities!
My breakfast shift was 12-6am.
This weekend was the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) where cyclists rode across Massachusetts in varying distances of >150-miles to Provincetown over 2 days to raise money for cancer research at The Jimmy Fund (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute).
Richard (hubby) joined his firm’s team and totally rocked it!
Instead of being a groupie for his 163-mile ride, I opted to volunteer for breakfast service on Day 2 and showed my support first thing in the morning.
Putting together the most important meal of the day for 5,000 cyclists for charity was great fun. The last time I pulled an all-nighter was definitely not for fun nor did it, in anyway, contribute to mankind.
Here’s the nutritious spread of breakfast items available to riders:
Biker buns (egg&cheese; bacon, egg&cheese on English muffins), muffins (blueberry & bran), bagels (plain, onion, sesame seed, with cream cheese and/or peanut butter), fresh fruit (melons, oranges, plums, banana), cereal, granola, yogurt (strawberry-pomegranate, French vanilla, blueberry, cherry), yogurt smoothie (strawberry, wild berries), juices (OJ, cranberry, apple), milk (1%, chocolate), coffee, and water.
One very curious item: peeled hard-boiled eggs in brine (chef grade?), but not exactly like the pickled variety of the Midwest. I kept wondering how that egg would taste since I no longer had appetite for the pre-formed, hockey-puck’s cousin discs of eggs after putting those biker buns together. Too bad no one opened the brined eggs.
Volunteerism is good. Just make sure the organizers got their shit together.
The Great American Food & Music Fest wasn’t so great. I was glad that I was working, not a paying customer.
Great hands-on training with LA-based Goldie's Churros
Vendors didn’t know cooking school students would come help? Strike One.
No water provided for volunteers? Strike Two.
Having to work a booth directly across from cold beer taps all day without a sip? Kill me.
Ace of Cakes Demo (Geoff, Duff, Elena, Mary Smith)
No Tom Colicchio sighting. I had to leave before the night’s out. Organizers should provide detailed scheduling and expectations for volunteers. To all event organizers out there — feed your volunteers!
On Friday LCB Boston’s executive chef, chef Mushin comes into our classroom and gave a spiel about community involvement and volunteerism. Fostering a close relationship with the community is crucial to the success of a chef. Volunteer opportunities are posted on a bulletin board and we were encouraged to sign up whenever possible.
The first event was on Sunday, May 23rd, 2010. I had to sign up right away. The Epicurean Club of Boston (only the oldest professional chef’s organization in the nation!) organized a restaurant run that ended with riders congregating at the Harley Davidson dealership in Everett. Proceeds would go to culinary scholarships and the Greater Boston Food Bank.
From 10am to 4pm, 6 of us volunteers represented LCB Boston. Including myself, 5 were from our class of first week newbies. So we won’t get to a kitchen stove in the classroom for 6 weeks but on this first Sunday after matriculation, we prepped, grilled, and served enough ribs, sausages, hot dogs, corn on the cob, pastrami and more to >150 people. How’s that for a crash course? After actually having to determine the food temperature and marking various things, I have a new found respect for the code of the side pocket: one must carry a pen/pencil, a sharpie marker, and a thermometer at all times.
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