This last Monday I was able to have one of those great Culinary experiences. Kind of like one of those religious experiences you here people talk about.  James from River and Glen (who we get our sustainable seafood from)  organized a trip to see where blue point oysters are from.  We left at about 4am from Hershey to meet in Philly with about 10 other Chefs. Once in Philly we took a “party van” to Long Island Great South Bay.  Once on the bus we enjoyed mimosas and caviar and salmon bagels for breakfast (not too bad if you ask me).  At the Great South Bay we hopped on a fishing boat where it took us to a small dock.  On this small dock was a small wooden blue looking house.  This was the area where the Blue point oyster Company was located.  Chris Quartuccio greeted us and gave us a great demo on how he grew and harvested the blue points.  We learned that Chris  the only person harvesting the blue points.  You could tell from how he spoke about the oyster that this was not something he did as a job but as a passion or a love for the oyster.  It makes it even that more enjoyable to be able to have this kind of experience.  I would love to be able to buy everything that we use in our restaurants from these type of people and not from a big company.  He told us he delivers about 30,000 oysters a week to the New York City area.  After the demo we able to enjoy a lite lunch of oysters and beer.  After about a hour of beer and oysters we took a boat out and spent the rest of the day fishing for Striped Bass. I must say it is one of those experiences that you will never forget and makes you really love what we do as Chefs.

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