The title refers to a label on the wings of the older planes in the Southwest fleet. That label was an inspiration for what is now astrofish.net’s End User License Agreement. It’s really a Two Meat Tuesday kind of entry, that’s my thinking, only it’s more about Point Barren oysters as compared to Pink Cove oysters.
“The Pine Cove oysters are sweeter tasting, the Point Barren have a more metallic tang,” explained the capable Gemini server.
Unlike the Gulf Coast oysters, which are larger, juicier, and taste just like petroleum. With a subtle hint of Mercury and Arsenic as a whimsical finish. It’s where we get our heavy metals and trace minerals. Builds strong bodies 12 ways.
After the exquisite repast, complete with formal trappings, Sunday evening, overlooking Puget Sound, watching the ferries ply back and forth, it was a challenge to find more fresh seafood that good.
Took the ferry to Kingston, and from there, it was a short, breathtakingly scenic drive past Port Townsend and up towards Discovery Bay. My uncle and a couple of cousins live up that way. Met them for lunch. Thought about what The Fat Guy said about people who live on the coast, wherein those denizens are coerced to learn to interface with humanity. Or grow gills. That’s cold water, the northwest corner of America. At least, the furtherest northwest corner of the unfrozen states.
Over the years, as I’ve bounced around, I’ve tried planes, trains and automobiles. This trip was a car – a hybrid with an Oregon tag – but I watched an Amtrak liner roar past. Might be the same engine and cars I’ve ridden before, when its service is called the Texas Eagle, and I would take it from Dallas or Ft. Worth to Austin. Or San Antonio to Austin, back and forth. Marginally cheaper than air, and depending, can be cheaper than gas, these days.
On one trip from Dallas, a long and heart-breaking tale in and of itself, but then Dallas is a cold-hearted (and mean-spirited) woman, I was watching the scenery slide by, and as the train slowed down, didn’t stop, but slowed down, there it was, an image straight from Steve Fromholz’s Texas Trilogy, which I had, at the time, been reacquainted with through Lyle Lovett’s Step Inside This House cover album.
“The sounds of trains only remains in the memories of the one like me who have turned their backs on the splintered tracks…”
Texas Trilogy – Trainride (Steve Fromholz)
The scene is a station in Bosque County, right before or right after the Brazos, which, according to Robert Earl Keen, still runs muddy.
The trains, the entrance to the ferry briefly blocked as an Amtrak liner went speeding past, brought the thought about the train songs. And the Brazos. And the Steve Fromholz songs, I’ve tried to recover for years.
Saturday night, in Seattle, in a place called Silver Platters, I found that remixed CD. $20 is steep, but to have those songs on CD? Worth every penny.
“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
A tale of fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailing man
The skipper brave and sure
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour…”
A three hour tour…
Across the sound, maybe someplace on this side – or that side – of the Hood Canal, there’s small town called Poulsbro. Supposed to have a fabulous restaurant called Mor-Mor, or MorMor, or something like that. Pitched as the best on the Olympic Peninsula, I gave it a try, hoping to match those superior oysters Sunday night. (With the Aquarius couple.)
The deal was, it was a nice place, with a “price fixe” menu at a paltry $25 with wine included (tax and gratuity not included).
Ordered “lightly fried oysters” and Dungeness Crab Cakes (lightly fried).
The oysters, might very have been Gulf Coast Oysters, since the “lightly fried” tasted a lot more like “Southern Fried,” which, while I love, wasn’t what I had in mind. The other option was the crab cakes, and there’s a place at the airport, local chain, and that place, it’s crab cocktail is better than those crab cakes.
But that’s the problem with following all local advice, as a rule, the seafood is good. But not always. Might’ve been an off night. Or it might be better hype than product.
Or maybe it was Monday Night football?
Projections:
Coming in from that furthermost point, late at night, the car’s temp thing said it was a balmy 59 degrees. Central Texas? More like a harsh 50.
