OYSTERS IN TOMALES BAY

A little while ago I had to do a demo up in Point Reyes Station for a client. It was my first time visiting Point Reyes - an area north west of where we live, but it was a cute little town and not too far from our home. While I was doing the demo, I overheard some people talking about the place you could go and buy oysters and shuck them yourself. I was curious about it, so when I got home, I googled it and found out about the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. Actually, there are two companies, Tomales Bay and the more famous Hog Island. I had wanted to go to Hog Island Oyster, but not only do they charge you to reserve a picnic table ($8/person), but it fills up months in advance for weekend reservations. Oh, I'll also mention here that I don't eat oysters. Actually, the only bivalve I eat are scallops, but Tom loves oysters, as does my little sister, so when she and her boyfriend, Ben, visited last month, we decided to take them up to Tomales Bay.

So I actually did some major prep before our drive up - buying bread, supplies, utensils, etc. And the first stop we made before we even went to Tomales Bay was at the famed Cow Girl Creamery located in Point Reyes Station. Here we picked up some supplies, like cheese, drinks, and rabbit pate. We ended up at the Tomales Bay Oyster Company a little before noon, and luckily, not all the picnic tables were taken up yet - though plenty of people were already there- shucking oysters and preparing for their BBQ's.

Since it was our first time, I went on the guidance of reviews on Yelp, which in retrospect I probably shouldn't have done. While Tom heated the grill, we headed over to buy the bags of oysters. This is where they're kept:
This place only offers one type of oysters in like 5 different sizes. People online generally suggested getting the large oysters for shucking and grilling. So I ordered 50 of them (the previous day, Tom said he could easily eat 40 oysters). While I was fiddling with ordering some mussels and shucking tools, the oyster were gathered up. Only when I was handing over the money did I realize how enormous the "large" oysters really were.

We hauled the bag back to our picnic table, and Tom got busy shucking. Unfortunately, our oysters were like 2-3 times the size of the oysters we'd seen online for the shucking tutorials on Youtube, and it ended up being much harder in real life. Cathy and I left the shucking to Ben and Tom, and after eating a few raw, they decided that the best way to serve them would be cooked on the grill.

Meanwhile, I manned the grill, grilling our bread, to eat with the cheese. I had also bought myself a pack of chicken dogs, and happily ate those. Here's Cathy and Ben at our table - the view was pretty spectacular, and you couldn't have asked for a nicer day.
After a while, we started getting pretty stuffed. But I'd bought five pounds of mussels to cook for my little sis. I did it with some garlic, white wine and parsley and cooked it all over the grill.

Our neighbors at the table next to us were also really friendly and they had totally done this before. There were only two of them, and they had so much extra food that they started giving it away to all the surrounding tables. They gave us garlic bread and some seafood stew with more mussels. I also saw lots of groups of Chinese people - one party was grilling shrimp wrapped in bacon.

Overall, we had a really great time. I had bought too many oysters, and ended up hauling them back home and giving them to a friend. I've now learned my lesson that next time I have to buy the small oysters, and hopefully will actually manage to shuck one successfully. And I'm hoping to go back soon.