Hey Artex

“Eeeek!
Well you lose 50 Maineiac points (worth WAY more than cool points!) for making New England clam chowder in a CROCK POT!
I never heard of such a thing...

LMAO!

o(=D”

“Hey, it turned out pretty good! :-)”

“So what! >:p

Don't you be teaching our kids that flatlander stuff...
(j/k!)”

“LOL!!!”

“I made a big pot of shrimp stew yesterday, it's aging in the fridge for supper tonight, yum-mee.

I didn't catch many fish Sunday pathetic fisherman so I got 10lbs of shrimp. Somewhere along the line they started reminding me of the worms I'd been fishing with and I lost my appetite, LOL.
>:(”

“Ice fishing is the first thing on my "to do" list for my first winter up there. I'm psyched!”

“I can't wait til Artex needs a ride. I'm gonna play that CD over and over and over...

I SAID HEY!!

btw - taking away only 50 Maineiac points was generous. Who ever heard of NE Clam Chowdah outside of NE???

HEY HEY Buddha and Twiggy!”

“What's goin on?”

“Bigger, Better, Faster, More!

LOL!!!”

“NE Clam Chowder is clam chowder. The other stuff is vegetable soup with clams.”

“What "other" stuff?! Are you talking about that nasty Manhatten stuff?

I went to a conference in Rhode Island once, and they had a lobster bake (why is it called a "bake" anyway, we boil'em alive and we love it!) with NE clam chowder. It was like nothing I've ever had in my life - clam juice with clam bits in it, weird stuff.”

“Yeah, what I said, vegetable soup with a few clams.”

“Yeah, it's gotta be thick, that's key. That's why I was kinda disapointed with the batch I made. Next time, I'm using heavy cream, dammit!”

“I want twigeater's recipe!”

“Noooooo...just regular milk and a stick o' real butter and let it age a day.
skim milk in chowder - gawd! and those sissy spices? black pepper is all you need.
I saw that recipe and I object!!

I'm so bored at work today...hehe”

“LOL @ Twiggy!”

“And to think, I have to sit in this chair all weekend long, UGH!

My clam chowder recipe:

Take a stick of real butter, melt it in the pot. Throw in some chopped onions and black pepper, and cook 'em up. Add diced potato and enough water to cover.

While the potato is cooking, get yer clam diggin' boots on, grab the rake and hod and head to the mud flats to dig some clams. Breathe deeply through your nose cause clam flats smell soooo freakin' good! While digging, please refrain from sucking the clams from their shells, or commenting on how that engorged clam neck you just ripped from the earth is "enough to please a woman."
clams!

Back at the house, steam clams in and inch or so of water until they open. Shuck 'em and pull all the black stuff off. Rinse 'em good.

Once the potatoes are about done, fill the pot with whole milk and add clams. Cook 'til the milk boils. Remove from heat. Refrigerate overnight.

Never mind that the butter hardened over the top looks like a heart attack waiting to happen. Reheat (do not microwave!) add crackers and eat!”

“Thank you Twiggie. No clam flats around these here parts, so I guess I'll have to buy the freshest ones I can find at the market. And if there were clam flats around here, I would not want to eat the clams in it.

Now if you can tell my why the fried clams I ate in Maine made me sick as a dog all night long I will be totally obliged. I was so green around the gills next day I had to get on a boat rolling in the Gulf of Maine before my innards settled down. Everybody else was getting sea sick and I got better!

Did I run into bad clams or is it something that makes you sick the first time and then you can eat them after that?”

“Because fried clams SUCK!
that's why.”

“I'm sorry to hear you were sick Geobeet. My mother always told me I was alergic to scallops (shame on her) because I got sick on them once. Never since though. Some people can't handle the richness of some shellfish, others really are allergic - to the iodine I guess. But clams don't have that. So I guess you musta just got a bad batch.”

“Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. :-)”

“YO ARTEX WHATS UP??????

8o-----SCREEM!!!!!!”

“It was crazy. My brother got sick on them, so I tried them figuring he was a wuss. I spent the night on the can. A year later my brother took his wife up and neglected to tell her not to eat the clams. She got sick too.

I think it's something down-easters sprinkle on the clams when they sell them to people from away, ayuh! Keeps 'em from eatin the good stuff, don't ya know!

Not a big problem though. On my second trip I was forced to eat lobster every night, but I survived nicely. Mmmmmmmm, lobster. Washed down with Sam Adams. Life was good.”

“mmmmmmm, lobster...”

“Hey, hey, hey, did I ruin the "Hey" thread with my degenerative talk of chowder? shame on me. :(
And no comments on that sweet little clam picture, lol? you guys are slipping!”

“Degenerating a "Hey Artex" thread? Ha! I feel like I'm hosting a party here, come one, come all! Yahoooooo! buuurp!”

“Is this another one of those parties in your mouth...???”

“Whoops, party's over, Artex and Twigeater need some time alone.”

“The bad thing about Michigan is that there's a definate shortage of seafood. We need freshwater lobsters around here.”

“Sass, can you say crayfish, crawdads, crawfish, crawdaddies? Same thing only smaller.”

“Yeah, I was surprised to see some crawdads (or similiar species) at Lake Colden in the Adirondacks last summer. I didn't know they had them this far north.”

“Geobeet - I had a similar occurance with clams on Tilghman's Island in the Chesepeake. It was an all you can eat dinner and I thought they said soft-shelled crabs, but they were soft-shelled clams! I ate a batch (fried clam-things) and spent the night in the bathroom! I can't help but think the locals were having a good laugh at me, whadda they scrape them things off incoming vessels?!?
and it happened to be the evening I proposed to my Girlfiend..... Coincidence????????????”

“Is it the clams or just the fact that they were deep fried?
I don't like deep fried foods anyway (especially seafood, what a waste) but no food battered up and deep fried agrees with me.”

“It was an exciting night. I'd get off the can, reach for the doorknob, and run for the can again. I lost some weight that night.

If anybody else finds themself in this predicament, I highly recommend taking a boat ride in 2-4 foot waves the next day. It settled the ol' tum right down again! Everybody else was seasick, but I was in fine mettle, standing in the bow, king of the world!”

“Twiggy, I don't think it was the deep-frying (although you never know) I eat alot of deep-fried foods without getting those results! I am still perplexed as to what a "soft-shelled" clam is? I had to get the guy at the restuarant to repeat himself over and over, "soft-shelled crabs? No, clams. Crabs? NO, clams. Crabs?? NO, CLAMS!! uhh, OK, I guess I'll try some...".

What this has to do with the Hey Artex thread.... no clue!”

“Hee hee... this thread is like a party at my house, and everyone's invited! Even soft-shelled clams..”

“I think it's just what they are called - there are razor clams, mohogany quohogs (which have a harder shell) and the soft shell or little neck clams.
These ones have a long neck, but we don't have them here:
geoduck
>=O

IMO clams are at the bottom of the seafood list anyway, the bellies are kinda yuckky. Maybe it's that belly stuff that makes you sick - who knows what they eat.
They're kinda fun to dig though!”

“And funner to eat in chowdah'!”

“Holy crap, a geobeetduck clam?? That's gotta leave a weird taste in your mouth.

For the record, I LOVE real clam chowder, but I do not care much for steamed clams. I LOVE fried clams (sorry Twiggy, but they ROCK!).

I ain't that crazy about lobster, but I love broiled scallops.

I don't like crabs. It took me weeks for the itching to stop the last time I had them.

I SAID HEY!!”

“STEAMED CLAMS WITH WINE SAUCE


Oh and hey.”

“Dang, if I-da knowed about the geoduck I would have used that for my handle! Who-da thunk it? Damn copycat clam!”

“You might find this interesting, geo:

Geoduck FAQ”

“Thanks Bit. I feel better now. I'm not gooeybeet!”

“Exactly...”

“Clams HAVE to be alive when they are cooked as does lobster and shrimp or you can get food poisoning most quickly. Clams can be shucked and put into refrigeration, but if they die in the shell...problemas. All shellfish deteriorates rapidly, so you might have had some "old" clams, or the clams might have been tainted with a bit of "red tide" (dinoflagellates) that kill fish and contaminate shellfish.”

“Apparently though, down easters eat these things with no ill effects. It's us folks from away who get it. If everybody got it, they'd have to shut the restaurants down. I sometimes think it's a gut thing. Once you eat them and get sick, the gut adjusts to something or other and you're okay. But I'll be damned if I'm going to eat clams in Maine again to find out, unless I'm suffering from constipation. Those things worked like dynamite on a beaver dam!”

“Hmmm. I had clams up in Maine, but it didn't make me have to "open up a can of soup". Perhaps it's yet another sign that I'm supposed to move up there. ;-)”

“ARTEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SCREEM!!!!!!!!!!!

WHATS UP??????????

8)”

“WHAT'S UP CRAZY MIKE!!!! :-)”

“GOING TO GO BACKPACKING AND SNOWSHOEING THIS WEEEKEND!!!

8)”