Oysters, I once had to stab a man in his hand with my fork in defence of them.

I LOVE OYSTERS ON THE HALF SHELL. i would sing that at the top of my lungs on the highest mountain and it still wouldn't do my passion for the slimy little bastards justice. i guess i should just count the ways.

I have been known to eat ONLY raw oysters on a weekend, like brunch, lunch, and dinner. i would feel very accomplished and complete when my farts started having a distinct marine flavor, like low tide. when i lived in San Francisco i would drive up route 1 for an hour and a half to get to Hog Island in Point Reyes (technically it was Marshall California). there is a picnic area there where you can bring food and drink, and then buy a pile of oysters in their shells that were just pulled out of pristine water in front of you. i got incredibly adept at cracking them open with a knife and slurpy mcSlurping them down.


it was like i was reaching into the ocean and pulling these things out and just gobbling them. one thing that must be mentioned is that the pacific ocean tastes MUCH better then the Atlantic, at least in the US it does. i always taste the long island sound when i eat east coast oysters. and really, a mouthful of the L.I. sound is something i only tolerate when i have just fallen face first while water skiing, not for $2.50 a pop at a restaurant in NYC. so slurping a mouthful of fresh pacific is pretty much ecstasy to me. and doing it right at the edge of the water, with the smell, and the sounds to accompany the tastes is like a 5 sense extravaganza.

when i was too lazy to make the drive north, i would either go to one of several places where they serve them up locally or i would just buy some at Whole Foods and crack them open in my living room. i guess i can safely say i am a bit obsessed with how yummy they are. my obsession has even caused me to do a shameful thing. it's a sad anecdote to admit to, and i am still ashamed of myself about it. roughly 9 years ago, a homeless man attacked my three tiered oyster fest on ice and i ended up stabbing his hand with my fork. it was something of a caveman reaction for me. i didn't even consider what i was doing, or what it meant. the oysters seriously took over my body.

i was having a sunday fun-day brunch at Ocean Grill on Columbus avenue and i was sitting at a table right on the edge of the outdoor seating area, closest to the sidewalk. i was busily nom-nom-noming one of those ridiculous, completely over the top ice castle seafood bonanza's. like the one that might be meant for more then one persons and costs over 100 dollars. to be specific, it was the Chilled Shellfish Chateau for $125, with a 2lb lobster, 8 jumbo shrimp, 16 oysters, 8 littleneck clams, 1lb mussels, 4 crawfish, 6 crab claws, and bay scallop ceviche. and i WASN'T sharing. needless to say, i was a happy Zensteroni.

then i noticed him. he was kind of hiding behind a parking meter, lurking in the shadows and clearly eyeballing my shiznits. i knew he was scheming on my castle because hiding behind a parking meter is like trying to hide a full grown hippo in a miniskirt. i set my defense systems to defcon 3 and had him in my peripheral. but i was really too busy to fully disengage from the slurp fest at hand.

i think i was in the middle of tilting a shell back and letting a quivering, still alive mollusk down my throat, when the attack came in fast and hard. the guy leapt out from behind the meter and dashed at my castle. his dirty, street hardened hands dove deep into the ice on my second level tray. he had gone for the core. and he had gone for the deep trough. like he obviously wanted to grab up a bunch of my preciouses.

that's when my stone age oyster hoarding instinct kicked in. FOOD MINE!!! UGGA UGGA. i was holding my mini seafood fork in my right hand. luckily, my weak hand. but the hand lurched forward in an ancient ritual of the hunter gatherer. it made it quickly to its target and i felt the softness of his flesh as my fork stabbed him in the groping hand. i didn't break the skin, but i know it hurt him because he quickly pulled back, with just one of my oysters. there were a few gasps from the people sitting near me. i am not sure if the gasps came from my reaction or the audacity of the initial attack. the man ran backwards to the other side of the sidewalk and slaughtered the oyster. he ate it violently and almost with a gloating look of victory on his face.

it was at that moment, that i realized the real situation. here was a man who lived barely existing on food gotten any which way, and there was i. mr yuppy guy eating a village worth of food just because i wanted to overdue it on my leisurely day off. i felt terrible at how i had reacted, and that i might have caused him pain. of course, i don't condone his tactics, and i might have done something else if he had tried again. but i can understand what happened and what he did. thankfully my friend and the people around me were on my side and i wasn't made to feel ashamed except for my own internal chastising.

maybe if i had been eating anything besides oysters i might not have had that crazy gut reaction. except if it was Sea Urchin, Lobster, or Sushi of any kind. those are also things i lose my mind over a bit.