Button what? This recipe for Clam Chowder is my Dad's specialty, one he's honed and perfected since his days as a wee lad at his family's summer cottage in the historic summer colony of Buttonwoods, Rhode Island. Note: In Buttonwoods, the cottages are cottages, as opposed to the "Cottages" (i.e. palaces) of nearby Newport. At Buttonwoods we're talking wood-frame, no insulation, a single bathroom with a pull-chain commode. The shower is in the back yard.
Buttonwoods was officially incorporated in 1871 but the community was already a popular destination for day trippers down from Providence who'd come for the sea air and shore dinners (that's clam bake to you), a legacy passed down from the Narragansett Indians.
Here's the deal: Grandma Sullivan (Emilda, née Labbée) came from a swell family. Great granddad made his pile in shoe manufacturing. Our maiden great aunts Hi (Helen) and May told tales of their stately childhood home, a grand stone edifice with a majestic turret! Cool! They had their own art studio with a kiln and Dad still treasures his beautiful porcelain baby plate one of the aunts made. Auntie Hi and Auntie May proudly assured us that the Labbée girls always had the prettiest (and the most) shoes of any of the girls in all of Providence.
As the story goes, everything was just peachy until the '29 crash, but at least the family held onto the cottage at Buttonwoods. It looks small though on the trips we took as kids, all the aunts, uncles and cousins easily squeezed in (we're close). The last time I was there we were seven adults and no less than eight kids. The second floor was one long room with big screens on either end to catch the breezes. The back yard sloped down to a little dock on an inlet off the bay. It was a short drive to the ocean beaches.
Growing up in Rhode Island, Dad got more salt in his veins at the Navel Academy at Annapolis and his subsequent officer's commission with new bride Mary Pat in the then-territory of Hawaii. No Haole I — along with older bro Kevin, I'm a babe of the 50th State. Totally cool because when vacationing there I'm obviously pegged as just another tourist. So the inevitable "Where are you from?" is met with the most insouciant manner I can muster: "I was born on the north shore of Oahu, Kailua, you know? Right near Kaneohe Bay." That shuts them up.
BTW, Long Island-born Mom is no slacker in the seashore dept. either.
But now we return to the Atlantic side of this great country and the quahogs pulled from their idyllic innocence only to meet their final fate within hours. Every summer, the moment the 'rents arrive papa Dan's very first activity is grabbing the rake and his water shoes and heading down for a good dig in Three Mile Harbor. Our special spot never disappoints.
Quahogs this fresh give off a ton of briny juice. Let the broth settle and all the crud sinks to the bottom, making it easy to pour off the clean, clear liquid. All that rigamarole about soaking in water and feeding with cornmeal to dispense the nasties — sorry, that's just not the way we roll.
The intensely clam flavor of Dad's chowder is amplified by cooking the potatoes in the clam broth. Fresh clam juice and cream are the only liquids permitted in his chowder.
When you steam them open, make sure you lift them from the pot the moment they pop. To much cooking will toughen them. Once cool, pulse in your food processor just enough to chop into hefty chunks.
Salt pork makes its annual appearance come chowder time. We lucked out this year and got a nice meaty piece. We're not always this lucky, most often we end up with a slab of thick white fat with only the thinnest vein of meat running through. It was a red-letter day at the IGA!
Once things get rolling, its in everyone's best interest to leave the chowder maker alone with his preparations. Read into this what you will.
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This recipe for Clam Chowder, with its roots in old Buttonwoods, is the best you'll have. Forget all those thick, gummy pastes you've suffered though. Everything here is clearly visible, the clam pieces, potato chunks, bits of pork. For the most dramatic presentation, serve the soup piping hot and then float a slick of cream on top, creating an enticing swirl through the luscious broth.
I like a drop or two of Tabasco. Others enjoy a sprinkling of oyster crackers. Mom eschews any additional embellishments, practically purring as she puts it away, finally proclaiming "That was mighty fine, mighty fine."
No one can argue with that.
Click here for the recipe for Clam Chowder Buttonwoods Style.