Colchester: No Maybe To It
No Maybe to it
We are all aging, but surely no one else is growing this old. The heart episode two and a half years ago put me in a different mode when other things arise; e.g., poor night vision, so visiting the eye clinic to get a new eyeglasses prescription only to find out the problem was not eyes but droopy eyelids keeping out half the light. Eyelid muscles stretched with age, surgery required to tighten them so the lids will stay up for better vision, but surgery required advance approval by the cardiologist. What next?
Next actually was a haircut, then late lunch at Hunt’s Oyster Bar for two dozen steamed. They do it so well that I no longer miss raw oysters on the half shell. After the first one, two drops of Tabasco into the empty shell then dip each oyster in Tabasco, dip in lemon butter, pop in mouth. Don’t share these with anyone but Kristen.
My best oyster experiences. Nicked from the iced gallon bucket in our fishhouse in the 1940s. Sometimes those were Apalachicola oysters, sometimes Chesapeake Bay oysters. The Chesapeake oysters were always shipped down to us by train, arriving at the BayLine depot where Beach Drive meets Sixth Street.
Sydney rock oysters on business trips down under in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. Apalachicola oysters from July 1984 through September 1998.
Possibly the most delicious, oysters in Colchester, England, early spring 1995. Linda, Tass, Jeremy and I visited the town one morning and, for a surprise for me, Jeremy popped into a fish and chips shop and asked that they have oysters for me when we returned for lunch in a couple hours. The shells are more curly than American oysters, and several came home with me. A highlight of the trip and a happy permanent memory. Colchester oysters: maybe the best ever.
Judging by Charles Dickens, oysters are, or were, big in England. Oysters from the Thames, oyster stands scattered all over.
Judging by Charles Dickens, oysters are, or were, big in England. Oysters from the Thames, oyster stands scattered all over.
But yesterday for four o’clock lunch, steamed at Hunt’s is as good as it gets. Not sure whether they're serving Apalachicola or Louisiana oysters these days. Doesn't matter. It's all good.
TW