While there has been a resurgence of the crab in the bay, from something like 4% of historical level to maybe 10%, the population is far from healthy and the recovery is still fragile due to habitat loss and the lack of sea grasses. I think that anyone who eats poached crabs belongs in jail or should be fined heavily. The poachers should be cut up and fed to the crabs.

Same with rockfish fishermen who take the fish illegally. The only reason we have abundant rockfish today is great fishery management. Pro Fish was just convicted for illegal rockfish and any restaurant or retailer buying from them should know this and stop.

I eat Chesapeake crabs rarely now that the issues are better publicized. The Maryland Department of Fish and Game is working on Marine Stewardship Certification and if there are MSC certified crabs than you can eat them without guilt. But until then, I eat mostly gulf crabs for conservation reasons. And I only buy from responsible folk who are part of the restoration efforts on the bay. Harris Crab House is definitely one of the good guys, being a major part of the reef restoration and oyster repopulation efforts which will do nothing but help the crab population.

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Harris Crab House
433 Kent Narrow Way N, Grasonville, MD 21638

The fresh from the bay crabs were at harris Crab House where when we entered they only had Jumbos and then they came to our table and said that a boater had just pulled up with two dozen goiant sized crabs fresh from the pots and did we want some. 6 were as expensive as the dozen we had just consumed but they were some of the best I have ever had: huge, very heavy to the feel, incredibly meaty. The best gulf crabs I have had were at a dive bar in Baltimore and were just as fantastic: again, very heavy to the feel which means they had not lost much water weight and they had not molted recently.

Never having had the pleasures of pulling them out of the bay myself, I do not think there is an advantage. The reason you hold wild oysters in water is to allow them to purge sand as they are filter feeders. Crabs have a sac that contains all the sand & grit which you should avoid.

Most oysters these days are farmed and they are usually held in tanks with recirculating, filtered water from the water they were raised in so no purging is necessary when you get them. Most Mussels are rope grown, from the insipid small shelled blue & black varieties that most restaurants serve to the larger Mediterranean Black species which has less of an oval shape and more of a d shape to the shell. Again, don't purge as this will just dilute the flavors. A little grit won't kill you and most of it will be in the bottom of the bowl and easily avoidable. Clams tend to have the most sand and again, the small amount that you will see in commercially harvested/farmed clams is a small price to pay for the full flavor you get when the clams are not purged.

If you do purge at home or in a restaurant, you are essentially killing the shellfish slowly because the water is not the water they grew in and switching water kills them. I mention this not in a animal cruelty sense as I don't believe that shellfish has a developed enough nervous system to feel pain, but they do have a danger response which, IMO, reduced the positive flavors. Also, as the shellfish is in distress, off flavors develop.

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Crab House
305 Mulberry St, Saint Michaels, MD 21663

"Gourmet in terms of food quality" seems to be, if inelegantly written, a comment on sourcing food as much as anything else. And it is hard to find good Sichaun that also used top quality ingredients {heritage breed non chemically raised meats, local organic produce etc}. The places that do offer these high quality ingredients typically do not do "authentic" cooking so there is a dilemma.

I wouldn't need to know anything about any cuisine to determine if the ingredients were commercially grown or sourced from top quality producers. I would need to have context to determine of a restaurant is good. So if I want Sichuan, I generally suck it up and accept the fact that my food will typically not be sustainable and head to Joe's or Sichuan Pavillion or any of a number of joints n NYC or SF.

I'm a little confused. White wines breathing is an example of "dime store vino "expertise,""? Are you aware of reduction vs oxidation issues in wines? Wines, both white and red can be reductive or reduced. Letting them breathe, and even going so far as to decant them, will counteract the impressions of reduction which can include skunky, oniony and other off aromas. In addition, breathing a wine with tannins can also soften the perceived phenolic levels. Since so many wines today are heavily oaked, again both red and white, breathing can change some white wines as well as red.

Of course, the most typical use of breathing is in old red wines where letting the wine breathe has been shown in double blind studies, to produce negative results.

I was not aware elementary wine chemistry is a pick up line.Good thing to know if I need one.

I've had brilliantly done frozen fried and brilliantly done fresh. I have also had very meh frozen (Hell Burger's fries when they first offered them though I have never had them since, and Mussel Bar which were truly the definition of a waste of calories). I have had fabulous fresh fries as well.

By my experience, I would not make a blanket statement that one is better than the other. What I do believe is that the thinner the fry, the more likely frozen is to be better than fresh. Also frozen fries are pretty uniform (part of the processing typicaly standardizes the moisture content of a given frozen product-line). If your fry was made by Simplot, then its moisture content is exact, which makes quality control at the final frying much easier.

CD,

I go regularly for the oyster happy hour though less so as recently I have not thought the owsters up to their former level. During these many trips, I sometimes get something off menu or sometimes am given freebies by our generous batrtender. These items are enough to convince me that the Applebee's comparisons are fair. I have had salad dressing with lumps from sitting around too long, vegetebles with brown spots, chemical filled desserts, undercooked chicken etc. As to you opinion, plese do stand by it. But we have every right to comment on it based on our experiences.

L

Are you seriously stating that folk are putting up false impressions of OEG just to scare away tourists? Well, let me tell you, Michey Mouse isn't really a mouse and Snow White may not be a virgin. Now the next time I go to Disneyland, I will have it all to myself. Mwahhh Haaaa Haaaaa Haaaa!

Just remember that in every market they are in in the US, one of the businest restaurants is Cheesecake Factory (usually its number one) and Mickey D's is the largest seller of "restauant food" Do why are we not inlcuding these temples of gastronomy is our chow lists? Theyare packed with locals too!

Neither Costco nor Total is a place where you are likely to get great stuff buying at random.

Costco specializes in large production wines and closeouts. Not my idea of stupendious, but you can get good values. I have also sen really indifferent wines. Antd the local staff seems to know nothing. So Buyer beware. But you can score big time!

Total Wine is an "Everything to Everyone" experience, and their recommendations can reflect the pressures the sales folk are under to move the wines thay are long on in inventory. Again, you can score great wines and stupid good prices or get supermarket crud for a few cents less. They do have some really good wine specialists on the floor who if you develop a relationship with can give you incredible help.

Arowwine {Glebe & lee highway vicinity} and Schneiders {Cap Hill} are quirky stores full of passionate folk but neither are in the "largest" category.

I love Weygandt but its selection is very limited as it is th wines of one, albeit outstanding, importer. No US wines to speak of and very mlimited Italy, no South African or Aussie etc. Still if you want stunningly good Alsace, Southern French and Burgundy, they are superb.

One issue with MacArthur's is that a lot of their best stuff is in their warehouse and not at the store. So go on line, search for what you want and then call them to make sure it is in house. They do not raise the prices on older wines so often a wine that is 5 years old from a great vintage is far less than the same wine for the current vintage.

I don't think Walmart is buying from small family owned farms practicing sustainable agriculture. Corporate organics whihc is the bulk of what Whole Foods Market and almost exclusively what WalMart sells is jus the same old crap with a few less chemicals in it. IMO Earthbound Farm and Horizon Milk are neither sustainable or are they really concerned with the environment.

Take a look at most of what you see at a Whole Foods...

http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-or...

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Whole Foods Market
1700 Duke St, Alexandria, VA