BOAT-TO-TABLE FRESH with THE PASTA WENCH

LOCAL SEAFOOD

Hey, it's beginning to happen here in the South, just like in metro areas such as New York City - fish and other seafood that were swimming in the ocean yesterday can land on our plates today, even on our tables at home.

It's the latest trend to hit the Fresh and Local scene. Shrimp, clams, crab and fish get loaded onto refrigerated trucks as soon as the boats hit the dock, and take a cold ride to inland farmers markets for lucky consumers like myself in Raleigh. Many CFAs, that's community supported fisheries similar to the CSAs that provide produce fresh from the farm, also give lucky subscribers boxes laden with the fresh catch of the week.

I've talked before about several of these fishermen-based co-ops, like Core Sound Seafood, www.coresoundseafood.org, based out of the Morehead City area, and also Walking Fish, www.walking-fish.org, a CFA that provides central NC customers with fresh seafood.

This Wednesday, I discovered LOCALS SEAFOOD, www.localsseafood.com at Raleigh's Downtown Farmers Market. They offered ice chests laden with tuna, mackerel and other fish. Shrimp was from Dare County, in the northern Outer Banks. The shrimp were huge and as fresh as could be, so two pounds went home with us.

Recipes started stirring in my head, esp. after I remembered some locally made dried tomato and basil pasta I had brought home from the farmers market at the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis. In fact, the fresh basil growing on the deck and tomatoes, fresh from our little garden, would be perfect paired with that pasta. And a nice wedge of crusty sourdough bread from La Farm Bakery's stand across the way would be perfect, too. A baby watermelon cut into chunks, sprinkled with almonds and basil, and feta? A perfect salad.

Yum, dinner was on the way!

THE PASTA WENCH

Fresh pasta is just, well, awesome. And business is awesome for THE PASTA WENCH, a home-grown business out of Boone. Andrea's Organics is their farm that provides seasonal and sustainable veggies and herbs for the fresh pasta made in small, artisanal batches. In fact, the company boasts that 85% of ingredients used for ravioli, fettucini and other pastas are from North Carolina organic growers.

Just recently, the pasta production was moved from the dining room to a large business facility, after contracts were made with Whole Foods and a few other stores. You can still find THE PASTA WENCH products at many farmers markets from the mountains to the sea, from Boone to the Wilmington area. Check them out at www.pastawench.com.

RECIPE *** SHRIMP with Tomatoes, Fresh Corn and Basil ***

I love mixing it up with fresh shrimp, adding whatever may be in season or in my pantry, like the few ears of fresh corn in the fridge. So I cut the corn from a few cobs to add even more taste to this awesome pasta dish.

And here's a handy hint I just read about myself: Get out a bundt cake pan or what I call a pound cake pan, the one with a hole in the middle. Place the cob on top of the "hole", and when you cut the kernels away from the cob, they'll fall into the cake pan rather than go all over your counter. Works like a charm!

As usual, it's best to have all your ingredients prepped and chopped and ready to go, because this recipe comes together fast. So go ahead and start to heat up the water for the pasta, and chop away!

SHRIMP with Tomatoes, Fresh Corn and Basil

9 to 12 ounces fettuccine, dried or fresh

1 small to medium onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined, washed and patted dry

3 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Optional:

1 cup of fresh corn kernels

handful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half, or a handful of sun-dried tomatoes

2 to 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or parsley

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta. While preparing shrimp, add pasta to boiling water and cook for the recommended amount of time. Pull out one strand and taste to see if done. Drain and set aside.

2. Add olive oil to a large saute pan, and add onions. Cook over low heat until onions are tender. Add garlic, and stir for about a minute.

3. Increase heat to medium, and add shrimp and butter, and corn if using, and stir frequently, until shrimp are pink and firm. Season with the Old Bay and salt and pepper. Add tomatoes, if using, and stir to heat through.

4. Sprinkle the basil or parsley over the pasta just before serving. Spread a mound of pasta on each plate, then spoon the shrimp mix over.

4 to 6 servings

As usual, be nice and give credit for this recipe to Elizabeth Wiegand, CarolinaFoodie, 2011.

I GOT CRABS

I had a big, significant birthday this week. One present I had to open on the spot because it came straight from the fridge. Inside was one of my favorite foods ever......crab claws.

These blue crabs were just caught in pots baited with mullet and thrown over their dock at the mouth of the White Oak River outside of Swansboro, NC. Norva boiled up a mess of them for a magnificent crab dip for her dinner party, and Mike got the job of "picking" the backs, saving the claws for another event - my Birthday Gift! What a great present for this foodie!

Bring out the newspaper and the cocktail sauce and crab crackers and forget the damned candles, the number of which could burn the house down! What a treat!

TIS THE SEASON

When the waters start to warm, the crabs crawl out from the mucky muck of the sounds and creeks where they've spent the winter. Folks all up and down the Carolina coast start baiting their crab pots and throwing them into their favorite spots usually sometime around Tax Day, April 15th, or earlier.

This year, the crabs were on the move a bit earlier. On April 8th, I was down in Southern Pines with THE OUTER BANKS COOKBOOK to "advise" participants on the Sandhills Farm to Table Co-op about what to do with the wonderful bounty supplied by Core Sound Seafood, a wonderful CSF or community supported fishery that delivers all over the state. Eddie and Alison Willis of Harkers Island brought some very active jimmies, male crabs, along with flounder and scallops for co-op members.

Eddie is the fourth generation to fish from Harkers Island. He and Alison tend to crab pots, hunt down clams in the wild (rather than farm), and tend to soft shells 24-7 during the season.

There's an old saying that the soft shells crabs start coming in at the first full moon in May. That would be May 17th, but already the soft shells have headed north from Core Sound toward the Pamlico and Albermarle Sounds. Just this past weekend I stopped in to see the Willis's soft shell operation at Mr. Big's Seafood, to find them gone like the soft shells, in search of more peelers.

PEELERS PEEL OUT

"Peelers," what those in the know call crabs ready to shed or peel their coats, have had a very early season.

But the hard crabs are out there and are filling up baskets headed to markets here and further north in the Chesapeake.

There's nothing finer than spending an evening after boiling up a mess of crabs doused with Old Bay, or as the old timers do, with onions and potatoes and sometimes corn. Spread newspapers on the table, melt some butter and dish up some cocktail sauce, then sit, pick and enjoy while sipping on a cold beer.

DO YOUR OWN CRAB BOIL

adapted from THE OUTER BANKS COOKBOOK: Recipes & Traditions from NC's Barrier Islands by Elizabeth Wiegand, Globe Pequot Press, 2008.

Boil up a big pot of live crabs, spread them on newspapers and provide pliers, lobster crackers, small hammers, and plenty of towels to extract the marvelous meat from the bellies and claws. A meal will take hours and dozens of crabs, so make sure you’ve got some good conversations going.

And picking crabs yourself will earn newfound respect for the art and hard labor required for providing cleaned, cracked crabmeat in one-pound containers. Just decades ago, the older women in outlying communities of the real Down East, like Smyrna and Atlantic, spent hours each day, sitting and chatting and carrying on while cracking crab for commercial distributors. Now, women from the Yucatan in Mexico come up by the busload to spend each season standing for hours at huge metal tables, cracking and extracting crabmeat.

Big pot 2/3 full of hot water

3 Tablespoons Old Bay Seasoning

1 Tablespoon crushed red pepper

12 live crabs

melted butter

cocktail sauce

1. Bring water to boil. Add Old Bay and crushed red pepper. Stir. Add crabs, reduce heat to medium. Cover and boil for five to 10 minutes. Drain crabs into sink or pluck from water and place in extra large bowl.

2. On the table, have lots of small knives, forks, pliers, lobster crackers or small hammers and a roll of paper towels. Have small bowls of melted butter and cocktail sauce within easy reach of each person.

3. Place crabs directly on the newspaper. Let guests have at it, let conversations roll, and hope no screaming babies demand attention, for you’ll have to wash up first.

Serves 4 to 6