Because circus animals live in misery behind bars. This socially responsible alternative promotes animals in fulfilling careers as chefs, lumberjacks, and banana expediters.

Although if I were a kitty, I would be nervous about all the log-rollin’, ladder-climbin’, omelet-flippin’ dogs in my land.

Our first errand was to visit all the shrimp docks and pick our favorite seller. We liked Charlotte Evans’ little shack and her namesake the Miss Evans.

Each afternoon we drove over the causeway with a head count for dinner.

Eighty-five percent of shrimp sold in the U.S. is the cheap mushy farmed stuff from overseas. Shrimpers on the Southern coasts are lucky to sell off the boat to friends and local markets for a few bucks a pound.  If the Evans’ catch goes to a processor,  they take home $.45 after freezing, packing, and shipping.

Charlotte sits on the Board of Brunswick Catch, a new marketing program aimed at bringing restaurants and grocery chains into the local seafood loop. (A half mile from the ICW the Food Lion freezer case was full of Thai shrimp.)

We bought as much as we could handle, because there’s no easier beachier meal—a splash of beer, a shake of Old Bay, a bowl for shells…

We mixed shrimp with grits, lunched on shrimp salad sandwiches, and stuffed tacos with fiery Diablo.

I missed my chance to make Charlotte’s fried shrimp and gravy. Friday the boat didn’t come in and she sent us to another dock down the road.  But the folks at Old Ferry had just sold the last of their haul, so we scooped up crabs and scallops instead.

We got the lowdown on the mullet that were jumping over us in the waves all week. (An air sac fills up when they leap out of the water so they can spend more time feeding on the bottom.) They “busted” a few for us to take home, and we promised to grill them with something called Carolina Treet. We tracked down the Treet, a vinegar-based, barbecue-flavored,  flour-thickened cooking sauce from Wilmington, apparently indispensable for our Brunswick County charcoal mullet.

More Treets arrived with family and friends, like real bagels and Bmore-style chocolate-top cookies. Home state visitors graced us with their garden bounty (tomatoes, chiles, melons, and scuppernongs), from-scratch margaritas and chicken enchiladas. The SC contingent smuggled yellow barbecue across state lines, not to mention much-missed breakfast casserole (baked grits with sausage, eggs, and cheese–they don’t know from breakfast casserole in CA) and the pride of Pee Dee, smeltin’ hot Blenheim ginger ale.

Salt air and sea turtles. Bocce and banjos.  A little reading, a little body surfing, and plenty of ping pong.  And many masterpieces, in pencil…

in sand…

and liquid media…

The South Carolucky

Pour one part Blanton’s  (but lower-on-the-hog bourbon does fine) and two parts Blenheim ginger ale over ice in a rocks glass. Old #3 is good times (he-who-coughs-first…) If you haven’t mastered Blenheim breathing though, go with the peppy but less-painful #5.

"May we be as full of good deeds as a pomegranate is full of seeds."

And may this year’s briskets be eaten among birds, blooms,  and moving souls. Shana tova!

Pot Roast
Mark Strand

I gaze upon the roast,
that is sliced and laid out
on my plate
and over it
I spoon the juices
of carrot and onion.
And for once I do not regret
The passage of time.

I sit by a window
that looks
on the soot-stained brick of buildings
and do not care that I see
no living thing—not a bird,
not a branch in bloom,
not a soul moving
in the rooms
behind the dark panes.
These days when there is little
to love or to praise
one could do worse
than yield
to the power of food.
So I bend

to inhale
the steam that rises
from my plate, and I think
of the first time
I tasted a roast
like this.
It was years ago
in Seabright,
Nova Scotia;
my mother leaned
over my dish and filled it
and when I finished
filled it again.
I remember the gravy,
its odor of garlic and celery,
and sopping it up
with pieces of bread.

And now
I taste it again.
The meat of memory.
The meat of no change.
I raise my fork in praise,
and I eat.

meat of memory

apples and honey for a sweet year, round challah for the circle of life

fig, cornmeal, and honey cake with frozen Greek yogurt

Summer is slipping away back east. We had to bundle up to crack crabs on the deck at Jimmy Cantler’s for my last night home. (Annapolis icon, still proudly serving only canned beer.) The air was cool and the boats rocked on Mill Creek under a full corn moon. The crabs were steaming hot and heavy—all fatties—and our waitress brought us giant cups of coffee to stave off the chill. I never like to let August go, but the farewell feast was notarization. We hammered and picked and sucked and slugged our beers and then lay down our mallets and (with Old Bay fingerprints) signed off on Summer 09.

Most crustaceans are sleepy, slack, and bland-tasting after molting. Chesapeake Bay blue crabs have plenty of fat to handle the cold water, and their flavor is never more delicate than when they’ve just shed. My father is legendary for his sauteed soft-shells, especially if there’s a crowd. He says it’s just Bawlmer blood but over the years I’ve observed some fundamentals, which I’ll call the 3 Fs:

1) Fresh—they have to be harvested before the thin “paper shell” forms—which is only a matter of hours—so they’re perfectly tender, not chewy.
2) Flour—with a little s&p. A batter or a bolder breading like breadcrumbs is overwhelming.
3) Fat—pan-frying, not deep-frying is the way to let the fragile sweet flavor of a soft-shell shine. He likes Crisco and a pat of butter.

Seriously perfect. More from my Welcome Home Feast, especially welcome after losing a day to the air travel demons…