Late last week a double whammy hit our stretch of the West Coast. In the space of a couple of days, word landed that crab season won’t start until after Thanksgiving, and salmon hatchery numbers are dismal.
California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s announcement that the 2024-25 crab season will be “delayed” from Nov. 15 until at least Dec. 1 to prevent whale entanglements was reported widely. (I put “delayed” in quotes because this marks the seventh year in a row that’s happened. Delays are the not-so-new normal, so it feels disingenuous to call them that.)
Less broadcast was an update from Scott Artis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Association, who shared a statement titled, in part, “Upper Sacramento Fish Hatchery is a Salmon Ghost Town.”
“It’s not a good sign when the hardworking hatchery staff have only been able to procure less than 10% of the total egg take goal by this time of year. They’re using what they’ve been given as a result of failed state water policies,” said Artis, noting the Sacramento Valley provides nearly all of the salmon caught in California and coastal Oregon. “The fishing industry, conservationists, and entire fishing-based towns and communities have a right to be really worried.”
Communities also have a right—a duty, even—to do what they can to support local fishermen. The play there is to embrace the bounty beyond crab and salmon.
Two great strategies to do so would be 1) tapping local community-supported fisheries like Real Good Fish (realgoodfish.com), Ocean2Table (getocean2table.com) and H&H (hhfreshfish.com); and 2) workshopping memorable recipes around them—with help from the likes of Seafood Watch (seafoodwatch.org) and Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust (montereybayfisheriestrust.org).
Call them good tricks to turn haunting realities into seafood treats.
RISING DOUGH
A toast to Aptos-centered Cabrillo College, ranked best community college in California, according to SmartAsset, a financial technology company, which studied a cool 616 community colleges with at least 500 full-time students and awarded points for low tuition ($1,262 per year for CC), full-time retention rate (74%) and student-to-faculty ratio (16-to-1), and could’ve gotten additional props for a vigorous kitchen curriculum. A few upcoming extension classes to consider for November: “Tantalizing Thai Food” and “Knife Skills, Selection, and Care,” extension.cabrillo.edu/classes/culinary.
QUICK BISCUITS
Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a bill to standardize food date labels and block the use of “sell by” dates, marking another moment California leads the nation on food-forward policy, in this instance targeting food waste. AB 660 helps consumers better understand the shelf life of their food by allowing two categories: “Best if used (or frozen) by” equals peak food quality, and “use (or freeze) by” notes food safety…Immediate action on that front, with flavor to spare (but not throw away) is possible via food-waste-warrior app Too Good to Go keeps on connecting area eaters with surplus—and tasty—food from participating restaurants like Original Ferrell’s Donuts, Pono Hawaiian Grill, Poke House and El Rosal Bakery, for around $5, toogoodtogo.com/en-us…Santa Cruz native, UCSC alum and longtime Ridge Vineyards collaborator Eric Baugher has a new wine label with fellow Ridge veteran Shun Ishikubo—learn more about Deauratus (Latin for “golden”) at deauratuswine.com… Taco Bell has a wedding chapel in its Las Vegas location, which just makes me happy…Harry Middleton, late, legendary American outdoorsy author, ground us on the way out: “Fishing is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it.”
