My family is very, very into cooking so it was kind of difficult for me to pick one thing to focus on. I was thinking of all the recipes my vegetarian sister has perfected over the past few years and her process of completly changing her diet. I thought of my mother's experience working as a chef. My mind snapped to the 4 inch thick recipe book in the cupboard, stuffed with recipes from my mother, her mother, and her mother, as well as friends and relatives everywhere in between. I could go beyond the safety of my family and venture out into Newport where there's enough restaurants to eat at a different place every night for a month. There were just so many directions I could go in, I decided to pick a dish and create a project around it.
My mother's fish stew, a deliciously brothy chowder (or chow-dah, if you prefer). Oh quahogs, what a quintessential New England food. Using quahogs as a central theme incorporates my family, it incorporates my home, and I hope it will open me up to a new culture (shellfishing) that I have yet to discover. I've dived for them on my own but I think it'll be really cool interviewing someone who harvests them professionally. I remember reading a great article last summer from RI monthly about oyster harvesters and I'd love to do something in that style focusing on quahogs. Besides that I'll include my mom's chowder recipe, a brief "history of the quahog" explaining their cultural significance, and a mock advertisement for a seafood restaurant pitting Manhattan chowder vs. N.E. clam chowder.
Today I'm going to a local seafood restaurant to ask them who their supplier is. I'm hoping that way I can get in contact with at least one guy who collects these delicious bivalves for a living.
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