Clams and Cannon Beach

Have you ever considered clams? Truly considered them? We have already established that I consider them from time to time. I considered what it would be like to dig them up, last time we visited Netarts Bay. I considered, at great length, the way they squirt out water as you run across their beds, like spouts as you run across a splash pad. I considered the weird way they burrow down into the sand. (Your life will never be the same after you watch that video.)

After all that considering, on this trip I finally felt it was time to try cooking some. I like clam chowder! And I like fried clams. But cooking them yourself is a whole different story. Still, I was ready. So (not being able to dig our own easily, with the tides being what they were)—I went to the fish store and bought some.

This was a Saturday, and I wanted to cook them on Sunday, and the first thing I learned was that the clams are alive till you cook them!! !! You want them alive. That is weird. You tap the shell and if it doesn't close tighter, the clam is dead and you should throw it out!And they don't have to be in water to stay alive, but they do have to be in ice…or in the fridge. The girl at the store did not seem concerned, as if there were a chance they might die by my negligence, when she told me this. She just said to leave them in the fridge till ready to cook, and then put them in a salt water bath for a few hours so they could spit out any remaining sand inside them.

!! Spit out sand? They do this, apparently, when resting in salt water. This is why pearls are a rare occurrence (yes, clams can make pearls! Non-nacreous ones, which means non-pretty ones. I learned this. But they are very rare), because clams naturally expel any foreign particles that get inside.

So, there are our clams above ⬆️ in the sink, having spit out any remaining sand. Nice of them!

Then you cook them in boiling water, and this is where they actually…well…die. Sorry, clams. You boil them until their shells pop open. You can't pry the shells open but when they pop open you know they're done.

Everyone was very interested in this process.

Then you cut out the meat with a sharp knife. Little muscles hold it onto the shell so you have to cut those.

Then you chop the meat up and it is ready to use!

The clam chowder was VERY GOOD. I was quite proud of myself for this meal because I just found a way to cobble it together with not very many ingredients (I had bought celery and onions and potatoes, but just took my chance on spices being at the house, and there weren't many so I was throwing in all KINDS of weird stuff), AND I managed to improvise some biscuits with what I could find in the kitchen, using a bottle for a rolling pin, like Jessie in the Boxcar Children. Everything was so delicious—or else we were all just very hungry—but either way, everything got gobbled up quickly!

Here is THE LAST strawberry shake with the last of the Oregon strawberries. Let us pause a moment and cry.

Daisy is appropriately sad.

Gus doesn't mind. He has a tuft on his head, just like a parrot.

Ziggy doesn't mind either. He is explaining something to do with a rocket, I believe.

And now we make a hard turn from clams (a fascinating subject, you won't convince me otherwise) to Cannon Beach. Sebastian wanted to get some pictures of tufted puffins there, but no such luck. (Wrong season, perhaps.) It's a beautiful beach, though, with lots of other good things to see. It was a warm-ish afternoon so the kids, full of hope, brought their swimming suits. (Of course Oregon Coast water is NEVER remotely warm. But the kids seem able to endure it.)

Purple hydrangeas!

On the way up the coast

The tide was high, so we couldn't walk out and see the tide pools by the rocks as we have done before, but it was so pretty to see rocks and sky reflected in all the water! There were hundreds of little jellyfish all along the waterline, and it was interesting to walk along and see the different types of them.

See that tiny group of four huddled children? That is Daisy, Junie, Goldie, and Teddy braving the deep waves together.

I love this picture. Clementine is floating!

In these pictures, it looks colder than it was. It was a pretty pleasant day, for the Oregon Coast.

Many children, all of them mine.

Clementine and Gus played in the water for about 15 minutes, saying "I'm not cold a bit!" the whole time, and then retreated, teeth chattering, to shiver in towels in my arms for the rest of the afternoon. Ah, the beach. These are my childhood memories of it as well.