One of my favorite things about my friend family - affectionately "The Gang" - is we are big on celebrations. We'll try something once and if it was fun a new tradition is born. For a while B & I have been bandying about the idea of doing a good old fashion Clam Bake. You know the ones with lots of seafood, corn and potatoes that is dumped into the center to the table and its a free for all. We all live in close proximity to the beach at Magneson Park on Lake Washington. And decided it would be a great way to spend a late August friday night.
Kismet lent a hand when I found the perfect clam bake pot at a random garage sale in June for $10. Sweet! Today was great fun running to get ingredients. B & I took the kids to QFC to pick out the lobsters and crab. They had a blast picking out dinner. Then I baked up a batch of gooey chocolate chip cookies, prepped the corn, whipped up a pitcher of mojitos and headed over to the beach. A whole 4 minute drive.
This was a new experiment for us all. And we learned a few things along the way.
1. We needed a WAY hotter fire. Charcoal briquettes didn't cut it.
2. Our pot was too full. We placed the lobsters on top originally and it didn't give the clams much room to open up. Think we ended up crushing some of them.
3. One can never have too many paper towels. And we quickly figured out why the picnic tables are supposed to be lined with newspaper. We omitted this detail.
4. A pitcher of mojitos is a great primer. Comfortably numb!
5. More fire!!!
6. Look into alternate methods of cooking the potatoes. Although Parker's dinner packet in foil was perfectly cooked.
7. Table clothes are disposable when newspaper is missing.
8. Chocolate cookie sandwiches with toasted marshmellow centers ROCK.
9. Version 1.0 always has bugs. Next year we will work out the kinks.
10. And to quote Eric " You can take Jeannette out of the kitchen, but you can't take the kitchen out of Jeannette"". This was in reference to my bringing saffron, old bay seasoning, kosher salt, a pepper grinder and smoked paprika to add to our spice offerings. Love it!
POSTCARDS from the Inaugural Clam Bake.
Waiting for dinner
Our view
Kids taking a summer evening dip
Harry
Katie
Parker adding the vino - which made a killer broth
Say hi to dinner
Jack & Catherine's Dungeness Crab
B & Eric manning the pot
Starting to fill up
Filled to the rim
Self Portrait
Katie found a fish - it was not pot worthy!
Eric - laughing
Jack & Catherine
Cory
B & I coordinated in reverse
Cool reflection in Parker's shades
Bill & Judy
Let the feasting begin! What you don't see is the big pot of clams & broth, 4 lobsters in various states of disarray, a steadily worked on crab and a grocery bag filled with bread. All of us lined the table and munched away. It was delicious, messy and a ton of fun.