Oyster Blog

Introducing Ruby, the newest member of Team Hama! This beautiful refrigerated truck arrived last month from Arizona. She has big plans to revolutionize our local oyster and clam delivery. Seattleites: keep yer eyes peeled for Ruby and her faithful companion, Louie. Own or manage a restaurant or store? Want Ruby to stop by? We deliver to Seattle every Monday and Wednesday. Call our wholesale office at 360-877-6938 and speak with Diana or Adam for more information.

Hood Canal has had a tremendous barnacle set this year. The little guys are everywhere! Barnacles attach head first to rocks, shells, pilings, boats, buoys, etc. When the tide is in, their feathery legs, called cirri, sweep through the water for phytoplankton. Although they look like mollusks, barnacles are actually crustaceans, like shrimp and crab. They spend their infancy as free-swimmers and molt several times during their lives, which is why you occasionally find free-floating barnacle drifting through the water. When they're safely in their home they're very sharp, and count as the number one reason why you should always...

On Thursday, May 1st, the Martha Stewart Show featured guest chef Emeril Lagasse, who cooked up a fried oyster salad using Hama Hama oysters. Watch the show, get the recipe. Here are some of our favorite quotes from the show: "We're actually not using oysters from Louisiana today, we're using oysters from the Pacific, from Washington State... just because when we tasted these—they're called Hama Hama—and when we tasted these..." -Emeril "Look how plump" -Emeril "Oh so gorgeous!" -Martha "Look how beautiful they look" -Emeril "Oh my gosh" -Martha "They smell like the sea; they smell like salt... they're briny,...

Mystery solved! And it wasn't actually that great a mystery. The egg cases below were laid by a drill snail, a voracious oyster predator. The beautiful orange drill snail in the middle of the photo is native to the Pacific Northwest... the two drab-looking snails on either side of it are non-native Japanese drill snails. Here's a better photo of Japanese drills. On an unrelated note: normally, after four or five hours of work on the beach—bent over at the waist in blinding summer sun or soaking winter rain—even the most ardent tideflat fan is happy to call it quits....

Appearance: 1. "Like the leathery snout of an aardvark" 2. an "eye-catching," "monster . . . thing, of incredible longevity, with a certain . . . charisma." 3. a "homely" "behemoth of the beach" Texture of neck when live: 4. "much like the skin of your elbow when your arm is straightened" Taste: 5. Like the lobster of the clam family. 6. Rich without being at all fishy. Fresh, crisp. Surprisingly delicious. There's a lot of geoduck information out on the triple-W. Some of our favorites, which we quoted above (#1 and 2): this Seattle Times story, and a CDNN...