Hmmm….does cracking open oysters count as cooking?

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Most of my days recently had been around busy crazy working and figure out when can i get tipsy. Or rather, work was planned around getting drunk, as i am a responsible adult…

I placed my second order of wine and the cellar had reached 100% capacity so it is time to bring that down. Wine pairing is an interesting activity, also give me a little more to do during self isolation than just open the cork and pour. Cooking or looking for good food to go with the wines became a hobby and i came across a website called PokeMarche that connects fishermen and farmers with consumers, selling fresh product through e-commerce in Japan. Many of them were asking for support as Covid-19 closed their usual supply channel. I really have to say the logistics network in Japan is incredible because guess what i ordered?

Oyster. From? Hokkaido, the northern tip of Japan. And you bet, it was awesome fresh.

I got 16 oysters the size of my palm and 1.5kg of fresh mussels at 4000 yen. I was so excited when i opened the box, then realized that i don’t know how to open an oyster………luckily the oyster farmer sent the manual too. Still it was a epic battle between kitchen knife and oysters with my hand praying not to get caught in cross fire, to open 6 oysters.

The mussels i bought together were interesting as they were technically not the farm’s product. The farmer wrote on his page that the mussels like to attach to the net of the oyster farm so every year they get random amount of mussels for sale, if anyone wants. I don’t understand…mussels are so tasty. I had met quite a few Japanese lady who love mussels and said the fresh ones are hard to come by. But apparently the mussels are attaching themselves randomly on oyster farm’s net in Hokkaido?!

Anyhow, i cracked open a bottle of white wine with the oysters and save some to cook mussels the next day. They were both phenomenal. And i had unlocked the achievement of oyster opening skill!