Razor Clam Day
Ktula fund out this is the last weekend of razor claming season in Washington. His obsession catching shellfish alike kicked in. That meant by 3:00 am, we were on the road to Twin Harbors.
2.5 hour later, we arrived at state park beach just before sunrise. In the darkness, already you could see people with their flashlights scattered all alone the beach line.
We must have “rookie” written all over. A guy approached us and pointed to a couple spots next to ktula and told him to dig. And that’s how we got our first and second clams. His name is Alex, he geared up like a Mt. Everest climber and he sure knew what he was doing. The beach was freezing cold and the wind were consistently blasting.
Alex was one of the many friendly clamming enthusiasts we encountered at the beach. He made clamming look so easy. For the next hour and half, we were digging wrong holes and finding nothing. Ktula almost had one of our clams stolen by a black lab puppy. Damn cute dog, we were laughing and cheering when the puppy attempted stealing from our bucket again.
After few more friendly clamming pros shared their tips, we finally get a hang of it. Most of the clams were found in the last 30 minutes. Just one after the other, in areas we searched earlier but didn’t see a thing, crazy!
We were done clam digging by 8:00 am. But digging these babies out and getting them home were just half of the work. Ktula spent couple hours rinsing clamming gears and cleaning the catch. I’d offer to help, but I hate cleaning.
After a much needed nap, we went to ktula sister’s place to prepare a razor clam feast. First, the clam meat were processed to get rid of parts that’s not edible, the process was messy and time consuming. After that, rinsed the clam pieces thoroughly to wash off all the sand. Then hand padded each piece before its 3 batter coatings, then into the frying oil.
The end result was 3 big plates of Japanese style clam tempura. It was meaty and tender, definitely passed our tasting test.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
[...] earlier and made it to Seattle Marine and Fishing Supply Co to purchase the following items for Smelly and [...]