I didn't do it. I was busy having the time of your life, knee deep in oyster shells and garlic butter, and self-satisfaction. I was very pleased with everything. May all of your days be dipped in the bronze of clarified butter. The raw pacific oysters have never tasted so briny. I contend that the best foods in life come from the sea.
Would you believe that Oysterfest is the second seafood specific superbash I have attened this summer? The first was SHRIMPFEST, in Brinnon, up Hood Canal. SHRIMPFEST celebrates the spot shrimp harvest, which sounds like an incredible thing right? I thought so much. After paying for parking and entering the grounds, we walked booth to booth and looked around, and realized that there was one tent selling shrimp, and they were not even cooking it up. That's right. It was the single most disappointing moment in the history of shrimp festivals. What a colossal travesty. No shrimp at SHRIMPFEST. What? I've twisted my brain thinking about how the world does not make sense anymore. Because there were no shrimp at ShrimpFEST. This is three months removed...I remain befuddled.
Saturday was marked by the celebration of the OYSTERFESTIVAL, my new second birthday and personal anniversary of enlightenment. It was celebrated simply through attendance. The weather was fine, with sun at times, that October crisp was in the air. It was Drizzly Adams. Getting there early was the right decision. It allowed us to beat the crowd and get to the vendors early and quickly. Entering OYSTERFEST was evocative, nostalgic, of a christmas morning, but for the tastebuds. It is all for non-profit and community re-investment. So there is an incentive to drink heavily.
Here is what happened to me this year:
11:20 - Arrive at OYSTERTFEST.
11:23 - Find ATM.
11:30 - Finish the last of 3 grilled oysters, with garlic butter.
11:35 to 11:37 - Eat a cornonthecob with garlic butter and parmesan cheese.
11:42 - Discard empty container of five alarm chili.
11:50 to 11:55 - Annihilate 3 raw Kumamoto. Drain a bottle of Pail Ale.
12:04 - Watch a man shuck a dozen oysters at ludicrous speed, shattering Carl
Lewis's 29 year-old olympic record for Oyster shucking.
12:20 - Oysters Rockafeller, filthy rich flavor, and the right amount of east coast
establishment, preteniousness. Terrifyingly delectable. The good life.
12:27 to 12:26, or 12:27ish - Set my own new world record for fastest bacon wrapped
oyster disappearance. It was a happening. I did about three in what
must've been a mere rift in time. It was so fast that it was either
illusory, a lucid dream, or that I traveled shortly back in time through a
motion vortex of my own creation, and then traveled back and convinced
myself that it didn't happen just so I might repeat the entire experience.
12:39 - Order the local favorite, the pan-seared or other grilled oysters, with the
cracklin's and the spices. I do not know what savory seasoning they put in
the flour, but it does me right every bite. Same as last year, when I had 12
of them.
12:58 - Trudge back to car defiantly, with fist raised, shouting.
Are you hungry for a tasty piece of irony? There was shrimp all over this place. It was a like a coconut shrimp explosion, like they were just giving it away. The line was notiably and considerably longer than any of the others. Here is why: the shrimp were enormous, prolific, and golden fried crunchy. And fairly economical. I doubt they were local, but they may have been frozen spot shrimp from the canal...the ones that were missing at SHRIMPFEST. I have never seen so many people holding shrimp or queing up for fried seafood. It makes crazy sense for me, but I was still somewhat astonished given the variety of tasty options at the bivalve bonanza. All of the oysters were local and donated. But, the best seller of OYSTERFEST was shrimp. It was as if a crazy seafood pinata full of coconut shrimp and cocktail sauce made everybodys day brighter. People were ordering for groups and hauling back these treys piled high. One lady had the nerve to walk right next to me, lifting up her share as she sqeaked past. I almost grabbed one with my teeth. She don't even know about it. See, this is proof that the world is not all that it seems, and possibly that other dimensions and realms exist, places where logic regins and things make sense, simple things. When is the next shrimpment due? Makes me think linguine. Yeah, I'm doing that this week.
I almost talked myself into a hat specifically assigned for OYSTERFEST volunteer staff. It made me want to join the rotary, to be a part of all that gustatory glory.
The band pictured above is from last year. The smoothest electronic keyboard around. Wild stuff. Reminded me that I need to re-kick the smoove jams on my keyboard sometime soon, to retain these naturally smoove rhythms.
What a magnificent thing this festival of oysters is. I swore a sacred oath with myself, and drew up legal documents to sign, that I did then sign, that essentially have me committed for the first Saturday in October for the next several decades, to one purpose and one location only -- celebrating the best food ever at Oysterfest.
Oysters are my favorite food. No hesitation there. Imagine if you liked pizza, and that there was a pizza festival? There almost certainly must be. Or how about a donut fest, or a cotton candy pillowroom, or trees that grew biscuits and gravy? How would you respond, if you found the actual kool-aid man, at an actual kool-aide lake?
Imagine if the sky cried mary, and hailed down peanut butter cups. Peanut butter cups filled with liquor.
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