Weekend Cookery

I've been working lots of overtime lately. Which means that during the week, by the time I get home and whip up something for dinner, I'm way too tired to blog about it. But, the good thing about OT is that I have plenty of extra $$, which means that I can splurge on whatever damn food I feel like and not feel too guilty afterwards.

Saturday morning, I woke up with a hankering for razor clams. It's razor season, so you'd think I'd be able to find clams for sale at any old store - but of course it can't be that easy! Concordia New Seasons, my trusty local grocery store, had nary a clam. Then I tried Costco, and they didn't have any clams either. Instead I came home with up a brand new knife set (!) and 2 pounds of Copper River Salmon, which we grilled for Saturday night's dinner. It was so good, I forgot about my razor clam itch, momentarily at least.

But I awoke this morning determined to find razor clams somewhere in the Portland Metro area. I called City Market in NW, which houses Newman's Fish Market. And as luck would have it, they DID have razor clams, so I jumped in my car and ran across town to buy a pound. Then as I walked to the register from the fish counter, my grocery basket mysteriously filled itself with: a liter of Sicilian EV olive oil, capers, parsley & cheese sausages and a container of lard from Viande Meats, french butter (they had the brand of butter I obsessed over in Paris, which I've never seen in the US until today) and a rhubarb flavored soda. Quite a haul.

Freshly cleaned razor clams look like crazy aliens:


Here they are tenderizing in buttermilk, pepper, garlic and Tapatio:


and right out of the frying pan, served with homemade tartar and buttermilk coleslaw:

These were the best clam steaks I've ever had, hands down.

When I tallied up what I spent at Costco on knives, salmon and various other sundries, and then add in what I spent at City Market, I've determined that my razor clam craving wound up costing me somewhere in the range of $50 per clam. But it was totally worth it!