Featured Story

Richard’s Almanac: Season of the scallop

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO | A basketful of bounty: It’s almost scallop season. Will this year be a boom or a bust?
CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO | Local scallops — a basketful of bounty.

After reading last week’s Reporter story about Steve Lenox and the opening of  scallop season and listening to Billy Gremmler telling Gary Sapien on WLNG about all the scallops he’d be serving this weekend, I just had to have some.

It was Thursday afternoon so I went to see Jimmy Hayward at Commander Cody’s. I saw some recently opened shells outside — a good sign — but the place was closed. 

I then looped around and drove to Bob’s fish market. It was also closed. No success yet. Then I figured I’d try the Eagle Deli. After all, Mike Zavatto used to sell scallops. They did not have any scallops.

I was ready to go to Greenport to get some when another idea came to me.

I decided I’d pay a visit to Marie Eiffel’s market on Bridge Street. Marie told me she just had a delivery of local scallops an hour ago. I bought a pound and was able to satisfy my craving for dinner that night.

They were so good!

When I noticed the board in front of Isola advertising scallops for Saturday night, I could not help myself. They were also excellent and paired with a variety of vegetables from Sylvester Manor.

Unless you have seafood allergies, I urge everyone to eat these delicacies that are in the water all around us. And from what I understand, this is going to be a good season.

My favorite way to prepare scallops is to saute them in butter and a bit of oil. Squeeze some lemon over them and stir in a liberal amount of parsley. Then serve over toast points. Pure and simple.

And scallop shells can be used for numerous arts and crafts projects with kids.

First they must be cleaned and dried and left to bake in the sun for a few days. If they are not free of flesh, the crows and gulls will be swooping down to grab them. Then they can be painted and drilled and made into pendants, Christmas ornaments or other types of jewelry.

On another subject, I served, once again, as an election inspector during last Tuesday’s voting. There were about 20 of us to cover the four Island election districts. We had to be at the school at 5 a.m. to set up for voting which began at 6 a.m. It ran through 9 p.m. I am always amazed at the high number of voters here. It’s reassuring to see so many taking part in one of the fundamentals of democracy.

We wrapped up about an hour after the polls closed, giving our counts to the appropriate officials and the press. Everyone knows the results by now. But one thing we need to know is who’s going to succeed Chris Lewis on the board as the senior citizen liaison. Chris retires at the end of this year. Who’s going to take her place?