08.11.06
Making Mussels
I was born and raised in the Midwest, so seafood was rarely on the menu growing up. Now I’ve found myself in a place where I’m five minutes from the sea. Seafood is on every menu, and is always available to throw on a pizza. I’ve always politely declined. The smell, the look of a whole animal sitting there in my plate, and the taste is all just a big turn off.
But, it is a part of living here, so I’ve decided I better just get used to it. I’m slowly trying more and more things, and for the most part it’s been good. But last night I decided to take it up a notch and make seafood. We were in a city called Portonovo and our afternoon at the beach was quickly rained out. We passed by a little shop where they sell fresh mussels. So I bought some.
After I get them home, I looked on the internet. Allrecipes came through again. Except that step one is “1 pound fresh, cleaned mussels.” These things were anything but clean. Some of them had other animals stuck to them that we had to chip off with a screwdriver! So we headed over here to learn fun things like how to remove The Beard on a mussel (pretty much just pull) and how to get the sand out (put them in fresh water and let them breathe – they’ll spit out the sand themselves).
After an hour and half of cleaning these things (a lot of work), I threw them in a skillet with olive oil, garlic, and some white wine. Five minutes later, we had a pan full of delicious mussels. What surprised me the most was, I liked them! A lot!
So here I am, almost 29 years old, and it turns out that maybe I do like seafood after all!