Oyster Stew Season is now open!

Welcome back to Season 2 of Oyster Stew.  I've been busy eating, learning, trying, scooping, traveling, and working hard to bring you fun, interesting stories about oysters.  This season, I freshened up the blog site with a new look.  I also added a calendar of upcoming oyster festivals and, coming soon, an easy directory of oysters I've reviewed.

Here's a sneak peak of the upcoming season:

• A two-day, nine-stop oyster tour of New York City.  I'm not going to lie, I probably ate one too many oysters.  I also found my favorite oyster of all time.    
• A superfood?  I think you'll be surprised just how good our favorite bivalves are for your health.  
• Oysters under investigation.  How do you know the oyster on your plate is the oyster you ordered?  I have some simple tricks to make sure you're eating what you think you are.
• Honest, down-to-earth reviews of oysters.  If this is the beginning of your oyster journey, I try to make oysters easy.  I truly want you to love them as much as I as do.  If this ain't your first oyster rodeo, I hope I've found a couple of new oysters for you.  I always say that I've never met an oyster I didn't like; but there are a few I don't care to see again.  
• The latest in oyster conservation and preservation. I love to eat 'em, but I worry about the long term prognosis for oysters.  Without them cleaning the water, protecting us from storm surges and balancing the ecosystem - we're screwed.  

Oyster lovers, oyster lurkers and anyone else who spends time with us at Oyster Stew - thank you. Starting Sunday, I'll be here every week with original content. Be sure to sign up for email updates and feel free to talk back. I want to hear from you!

Cheers, oyster lovers!

---

Seamus Heaney  (1939 - 2013)

I want to pay tribute to the brilliant Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. I wrote about him at the end of Season 1.  Heaney is the Nobel Prize winning author of Oysters, my favorite poem.  Moran's Cottage, where Heaney ate the oysters that inspired the poem, is on my bucket list of Top 25 Oyster Experiences.  Heaney died Sat., Aug. 31 at the age of 74.


From Oysters:
Alive and violated
They lay on their beds of ice:
Bivalves: the split bulb
And philandering sigh of ocean.