Tag Archives: fried clams

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“Lovely clams! Wonderful clams!”

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Gorgeous cirrus uncinus (“curly hooks”) clouds – sometimes called mares’ tails – over the Essex Salt Marsh in Massachusetts adjacent to Route 133. I took this picture on a hot day in July and it was oddly pleasing to know that’s snow falling at 25 or 30,000 feet.

The Essex marsh is part of the 20,000-acre Great Marsh that extends from Cape Ann in Massachusetts north into New Hampshire (map at the link). The nest platform just visible at the lower left of the top photo is one of a few dozen set up in the Great Marsh for ospreys. The shot below, which I took in April 2012, shows mom and pop (one high, one low) getting some grub for the two chicks in the nest. The year after I took that photo, the Greenbelt conservation trust set up their OspreyCam next to this platform for a few years, later moving it to another nest in Gloucester.

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Ospreys are cool, but marsh wildlife is not my chief interest at that location, nor are esoteric clouds.

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I’ll probably be internally hearing the Vikings from the Monty Python Spam sketch singing the title of this post for the rest of the day now, but I don’t mind too much.

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An Essex boy at heart

Essex, Massachusetts, that is.

My view of the salt marsh during tonight’s dinner at J.T. Farnham’s; click for a larger version

This year’s menu:

I got my usual clam plate with fries and onion rings, plus a quart each of clam chowder and haddock chowder to bring home. Market price on the clam plate was US$24, lower by a few dollars than last year.

I was more interested in eating than taking pictures, so here’s a plate they made earlier. They look this scrumpdillyicious every time. This is what I think of whenever I use or hear the phrase “golden brown and delicious”.

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Better than no clams

Before picking up the repaired Boop standup this week, I was disappointed to learn that J.T. Farnham’s closed for the season on Christmas Eve, but the nearby and year-round Woodman’s, more touristy but in relative terms quiet as a ghost town in late December, is a helluva lot better than no clams. Their combination plate of clams, buttery soft scallops, shrimp, cod, onion rings, and fries (US$31.99) was huge, nearly three times what you see here, so I saved some and had the leftovers just now.

The informative part of this post: I usually reheat fried food in a convection toaster oven at 225F/110C for 30 minutes, more or less, after taking it out of the fridge an hour ahead. The fan heat at a low temperature restores a good amount of the crispness without drying the food out. To be sure, it’s not like fresh, but it’s half to two-thirds of the way there – again, better than no clams at all.

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It’s like Christmas in December

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I was a fair bit off in my fried clam estimate the other day – it was more like thirty clams on the clam plate today, which was the same US$28 as last time at J.T. Farnham’s. The total was $72 for that plus the lobster roll and quart of seafood chowder that I brought home – four meals in all.

It was strange to see ice on the salt marsh and 29°F/-2°C on the outside thermometer, but the food was no less delicious than on a hot night in July.

A more traditional view from one of the picnic tables at Farnham’s in May 2014:

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Click below for a behind-the-scenes video at Farnham’s – please excuse the Fieri: