What is seafood as self care? Good nutrition is incredibly important to feeling your best self, but as we keep reading about the rise in depression and anxiety, we also need to think of living our ideal lifestyle. Think about what puts you at ease. Sitting down and enjoying a good meal? Getting in the kitchen and turning up the tunes? With help from the Seafood Nutrition Partnership, here are four ways delicious and sustainable seafood can be part of being our best selves. 1. Comfort Foods: As you seek comfort  — and comfort foods — while cooped up inside on colder days, it is a perfect opportunity to enjoy delicious, heart-warming flavors. Check out some comfort, sustainable seafood recipes in our seafood toolkit with Seafood Nutrition Partnership.  (and don't forget our own Official Olympic Coast Seafood Chowder) YUM! 2. “Spa” Pairings: We fully support spa days at home, and spa water with slices of citrus, cucumbers or berries is an everyday refreshment that helps make hydrating feel just a bit more special. While cutting those slices, put some to the side for dinner as they pair perfectly with seafood, such as this recipe for Slow Roasted Salmon with Minted Cucumbers by Chef Barton Seaver. And, here are 6 of our favorite seafood and citrus pairings.   3. Back to Nature: Release stress with a walk, getting both exercise and fresh air. Bring along some salmon, trout, pollock or rockfish jerky. 4. Mindfulness: For us, a large part of mindfulness means living sustainably. Eating seafood and the health of the environment are inextricably linked. If the saying “You are what you eat” is true, then eating sustainable seafood means you care about your health, the health of the planet, and enjoying truly good food. TIP: Enter "seafood" into the SEARCH THE LOOP! tool and drool your way to the dozens of Eat Local First - Olympic Peninsula fresh offerings found around the LOOP!

For our 10th Anniversary Celebration Olympic Culinary Loop will be conducting a year-long press tour in pursuit of identifying – and tasting - the quintessential Olympic Peninsula Chowder.

No longer will Pacific Northwest minded foodies be limited in their ordering of chowders named “New England”, “Manhattan” or seafood Cioppino hailing from San Francisco or Jambalaya influenced from Louisiana. Once crowned, the winning Olympic Peninsula Chowder is destined to be on menus, and taste buds, from coast-to-coast. 

Will it feature Geoduck or Razor Clams, Salmon, Spotted Shrimp, Oysters, Mussels, Crab or? Will it have a base inspired by local hard cider, creamery fresh cheese or? 

Our next stop of the quest is the 13th Annual Razor Clam and Seafood Festival in Ocean Shores. Saturday, March 16 - Sunday 17th, 2019

Clam diggers and food lovers will be heading to Ocean Shores, WA for the 13th annual Razor Clam & Seafood Festival!  FREE Admission!

The top Razor Clam Chowder winners will be invited to add their recipes to consideration for the ultimate prize - being crowned THE official Olympic Peninsula Chowder - this October during CrabFest in Port Angeles.

Our official Olympic Peninsula Chowder will have its own flavor profile that is just as unique as this place we call home!

Get Involved! Enter your recipe now and prepare your taste buds as you plan to join us at any or all of these delicious "Peoples' Taste" Chowder events!

 

 

 

 

Experience the bounty of Olympic Coast Cuisine with Chef Diane LaVonne and Puget Sound Express on a 3-day culinary tour of Washington’s Salish Sea.  Spend days onboard the comfortable, spacious Glacier Spirit, and evenings at the historic Ravenscroft Inn (October 19-21, 2018) in Port Townsend, Washington’s Victorian Seaport and Arts Community.

This is the ultimate trip for the foodie who wants to learn about Pacific Northwest Cuisine and tour the inland waterways that make the Pacific Northwest such a compelling destination.

• Register Online Today!

"Every 2nd human breath is oxygen produced by phytoplankton. Without phytoplankton, life dies." According to Dr. Boris Worm, marine research ecologist at Dalhousie University and head of the Worm Lab study of marine biodiversity: The planet has lost 40 percent of plankton production over the past 50 years, primarily as a consequence of climate change/global warming.

For a real time example of changing ocean chemistry, professional hatcheries of shellfish in America have already experienced too much ocean acidification. Ocean water intakes for inland shellfish hatcheries killed off shellfish larvae because of excessive acidity. Taylor Shellfish Farms (100 years of farming some of the World’s Best Oysters) Bill Dewey claims: “The rate of change that we’re seeing in the ocean and the changes it’s going to create in our food chain, it’s going to be dramatic and it’s going to be in our lifetime. The things that we’re used to eating may not be available any more, and we’ll need to transition to eating jellyfish or something like that.” (Source: Racing Extinction)

Bon appétit, tonight’s menu: Boiled Jellyfish.

“No one knows exactly how marine life around the world will fare as the seas continue to sour, but fear is spreading. ‘People who are aware are panicked,’ said Dewey, who recently traveled to New York to speak at the United Nation’s first Ocean Conference. ‘The level of awareness is increasing rapidly and the story is getting out there.” (Source: Lisa Stiffler, Investigate West, Climate Change Turns Puget Sound Acidic and Region’s Signature Oysters Struggle to Survive, July 10, 2017). Breath deeply and read the rest of the story.  https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/222413-A-creeping-threat