How to love an oyster

Oysters. They've been a topic of conversation around my home lately, mostly on whether it's okay to hate something that is supposed to be such a delicacy. It seems the texture is at issue --the certain vaguely gelatinous quality that doesn't set well with some of my family--in fact, the word "wretch" comes to mind when they think of the shellfish.


Personally, I think oysters are wonderful, like blasts of fresh seawater, as inviting as the spray blowing off of a wave while you're out at Rodeo Beach. A splash of mignonette sauce (champagne, shallots, red wine vinegar) and the oyster captures the best of the ocean. At least for me. But I have to honor those in my home who strongly beg to differ.

Solution: oysters fresh Tomales Bay. And my barbecue grill.

A summer at my Marin home means barbecued oyster,s a solution for the (alledgedly) unpleasant gelatinous quality of the bivalve, and a wonderful way to avoid the frustration of trying to pry open the @(&$# things. I've watched the guys at Hog Island Oyster in the Ferry Building Marketplace wield their oysters knives like sushi masters--flick flick flick and the shell pops open to reveal the nugget of meat inside. Me? It's more like hack claw stab, as my futile attempts to open the shell prove completely and utterly fruitless. Then again; I shouldn't feel so lame: there are things known as shucking gloves that look like fashion statements for King Arthur--definitely more armor than glove.

Ah yes, but that's where my barbecue comes to the rescue. First, buy a bag of insanely fresh oysters from on of our region's local oyster farms. True, you can buy them fresh at Whole Foods or other outlets but fresh oysters make a nice excuse (as if you need one) to head to Pt. Reyes and Tomales Bay.

Bring an ice chest (you'll need one to bring the oysters home). Buy enough to feed everyone at least 3 or 4 (a dozen costs $14 at Tomales Bay Oyster Company, one of my favorites if only for the fact that they have their version of the St Pauli Girl, here a buxom brunette with a startling resemblance to Jane Russell, holding aloft a huge back of oysters like it weighs about an ounce).

Oysters on ice, head home quick. Heat up the grill. Have on hand your favorite barbecue sauce, or just melted butter and garlic. Toss the oysters--still in their shells, onto the grill. Close the lid, but keep an eye one the oysters--soon they'll pop open all on their own. Akin to Woody Allen's Annie when she tossed lobsters into boiling water, it might feel a little murderous, but it works. When they open, use a turkey baster to squirt a little of your sauce into each oyster; cook about 2 minutes more. Remove carefully with tongs (they are VERY hot). Cool slightly, then eat. Beyond perfect.


Sound like too much work? Head out to Olema and order up some barbecued oysters at Olema Farm House, or continue north to Marshall and dine on the deck at Nick's Cove. There might not be anything better.

Let me know if you try to barbecue your own oysers, and what your family thinks. Or share your summer barbecue favorite, especially if it takes advantage of something as distinctly Marin as fresh oysters from Tomales Bay.

Marin's 2-Pound Bigfoot

There's a furry beast lurking in Marin's darkest corners, living in self-made tunnels snaking through the County's densest brush and chapparal. It's that shadow you can't quite see, that fleeting "what was that?" as you turn the corner on a lonely trail, the phantom of Pt. Reyes.

Okay, perhaps I oversell a bit. After all, this "beast" weighs in at a modest 1 to 2 pounds, has almost no snout and a little wudge of a tail, and, even if it stands on its hind paws, would probably not be able to sniff your knee.

It's a beaver, a mountain beaver to be exact, which isn't really a beaver but a muskrat-size rodent with large teeth, dull brown fur, and a propensity for soft greenery like the young cow parsnips and fern fronds poking up all over Pt. Reyes National Seashore right now. As a lifelong resident of Marin, I'd never even heard of these little critters, scientific name Aplodontia rufa phaea, but I prefer mountain beaver or another endearing nickname, "ground bear." That moniker would fit the little bundle that I saw scurrying across the trail as I climbed up the Drakes View Trail on Mt Vision at Pt Reyes last weekend.

Apparently I'm very lucky to have seen it. The mountain beavers at Pt Reyes are a very select subspecies of mountain beaver--they aren't found anywhere else. And they were almost wiped out by the 1995 Vision Fire; apparently retreating to a little burrow carved out of blackberry brambles and coyote brush isn't a good place to retreat in a wildfire. Of the roughly 5,000 individuals that called Mt. Vision home, less than 20 were estimated to have survived. Less than 20. Maybe I saw one of those hardy (or just lucky) originals. Maybe one of their babies, or grandbabies. All I know is I hope to see more. Marin needs more ground bears and mini-Sasquatches.

Alice's Other Rabbit Hole

If you are one of the roughly 26 million people in the world who saw Alice in Wonderland over the weekend, then you've seen the current interpretation of Lewis Carroll's entry to an altered reality. But here in Marin, we've got our own twist on the classic porthole, this one experience on a walk down the western flank of 1,282-ft Mt. Vision, within Pt. Reyes National Seashore. Burned to a crisp in 1995, the peak isn't really a peak, but more of a sizable a bump in the Coast Range as it ripples through West Marin--the same as Mt. Tamalpais. While the "Vision Fire" certainly proved devastating--several homes were destroyed and the endemic mountain beaver was nearly wiped out--it had its inescapable pluses, most notably, it breathed new life into the elegant bishop pine.

Towering, twisted, and wind-carved, the endangered bishop pine makes a noble sentry in Pt. Reyes National Seashore. But it doesn't reproduce very well. The tree's grenade-like cones don't open like most cones we know; they need heat, either from a very hot day (and that happens, like, NEVER at Pt. Reyes) or fire. And so we turn to 1995, when mature bishop pines (like the skeletons shown above) burned as their cones cracked open and spewed thousands of seeds into the mountain's quartz-diorite soil (primo habitat for finicky bishop pines). Baby trees sprouted everywhere: easily 20 or more in a square yard. They grew, and grew, spidery and dense, like spindling toothbrushes with pine needles for bristles, first 5, then 10, and now, a decade and a half after the burn, towering 15 feet tall. Bending in gentle arches over Bucklin Trail, they create--you guessed it--the illusion of Alice's magic portal.

Check it out now and you'll also see lovely and rare Marin manzanita in bloom, plus Douglas iris, enormous wild lilac (ceonothus), day lilies, yellow violets, and a tangle of other wildflowers. We didn't see a rabbit or a hare or a hatter, but we did see one of those rare mountain beavers. More on that next time. Until then, have fun in the rabbit hole. Trail map and directions: Take Mt. Vision road and park at the end of the road; hike down Bucklin and up Drakes View trails, then back on Inverness Ridge Trail to your car.