Tag: Seafood

Cookbook Review: Dishing Up Virginia

When in Virginia, do as the Virginians do, right? When it comes to food, that means taking home a Virginia cookbook so you can replicate some of the best recipes at home, wherever that may be. Our choice was Dishing Up® Virginia: 145 Recipes That …

When in Virginia, do as the Virginians do, right? When it comes to food, that means taking home a Virginia cookbook so you can replicate some of the best recipes at home, wherever that may be.

Our choice was  Dishing Up® Virginia: 145 Recipes That Celebrate Colonial Traditions and Contemporary Flavors by  Patrick Evans-Hylton  (Author), Edwin Remsberg  (Photographer).

One of the things we liked about this cookbook was its knowledge of Virginia’s history. It divides the food by regions, so you get some of the Shenandoah Valley area that we have focused on in a series off stories, and you also get the Chesapeake Bay, Wine Country, and more.

You get not only the author’s recipes, but a compilation of some of the recipes from noted Virrginia restaurants, such as the Willliamsburg Lodge, which offers its Fried Green Tomato Salad. You also get a taste of Thomas Jefferson’s love of food, with dishes such as Monticello Apple Cake.

The book offers sample menus, unusual seafood recipes, a maple syrup-inspired Chicken Wings recipe perfect for this time of year, and, well, a whole state’s worth of delectable appetizers, entrees and desserts.

Check it out, whether you  are in Virginia or not, both for its recipes and for its travel hints and places to see when you go East.

About The Virginia Series

The Shenandoah Valley is nestled between the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains in historic and scenic west-central Virginia. It has the transportation infrastructure and connection to markets in every direction. One of their major areas of focus is the food processing taking place in the region. The Food Channel recently had the opportunity to work with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) to tour some of the up and coming places, and to talk with entrepreneurs as well as established business people eager to tell the Virginia story.

 

 

 

Destination: Rehoboth Beach, DE – Fin’s Ale House

Fin’s Ale House comes complete with outdoor dining and spacious seating inside. Ask around for a good restaurant in Lewes, Delaware, and the name Fin’s Ale House & Raw Bar is almost sure to come up. When it does, run, don’t walk. It doesn’t matter …

Fin's Ale House in Lewes, DE
Fin’s Ale House comes complete with outdoor dining and spacious seating inside.

Ask around for a good restaurant in Lewes, Delaware, and the name Fin’s Ale House & Raw Bar is almost sure to come up.


When it does, run, don’t walk. It doesn’t matter if you want to sit and the bar and shuck oysters, or if you want to sit on the dining side. Just go and enjoy being a bit pampered while you enjoy fresh seafood.

In our experience, the service was great, especially for a place where shorts and ball caps are not questioned. It’s tourist-town-casual-dine, but up a notch.

We spent time asking a few of our usual questions of the server. What is your favorite? What is most popular? Anything we should avoid?

Fin's Ale House Seafood BakeThe Seafood Bake is the perfect sampler if you want to taste it all.


He quietly warned us that the chefs often have a heavy hand with the white wine on the Seafood Bake, making it watery, not better. We dared it anyway, and it must have been a good night—the flavor combination was delicious. Shrimp, scallops, flounder, crab cake, and a light sauce with Florentine butter, which is a mix of cultured butter, olive oil, and lemon, often with other seasonings or a bit of brandy thrown in.

Fin's Ale House Crab CakesThe Crab Cakes were full of fresh crab, not filler.


He made sure we knew that the Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes weren’t your ordinary fried circles. No, they are pure crab, broiled and delicious. Hint: Ask for them to be delivered piping hot, as there appeared to be a tendency to let them sit just a little too long.

Fin's Ale House pastaThe Seafood Pasta from Fin’s Ale House.


We also took his recommendation and ordered the FINS’ Shellfish Pasta. It proved that you can take some of the same seafood and make it taste totally different. This dish had the shrimp, scallops, and lump crab meat, but was mixed with a delectable lobster cream sauce and served over penne pasta.

Specials when our party of three was there included a lobster roll made with “FINS’ famous lobster salad,” and a Spicy Grouper Scampi, using one of the daily fish selections. As good as it sounded—pan seared fillet, linguini, sun dried tomatoes, asparagus, garlic white wine, butter, capers, and crushed pepper—we stuck with the regular menu. We could also have gotten Pecan Encrusted Mahi or Horseradish Encrusted Halibut. All for another time.

Fin's Ale House Fin’s Ale House has a choose your own fish dish.


Fins is also known for its Build Your Own Fresh Fish aboard. The instructions are simple:

1. Select a fish from the daily rotating selection
2. Select a preparation (e.g. broiled, grilled, blackened, or even stuffed with crab imperial)
3. Select a sauce—citrus hollandaise, lobster sauce, lemon shallot cream, Creole sauce, and more


Just like that you can have the seafood dish of your dreams.


Oh, and if your tastes spin to the more exotic, they offered a Spanish Seafood Paella that sounded amazing. It was made with all the standards, including scallops, mussels, shrimp, clams, fish, lump crab meat, calamari, Andouille sausage, and saffron rice. This alone proves both the versatility of the restaurant and its commitment to fresh seafood.

We did feel the need for a crusty bread basket to sop up our sauces, but didn’t see it on the menu and one wasn’t automatically offered. Next time we’ll ask.

Because there will be a next time.


Photos by Paul K. Logsdon

‘It’s easy to grin, when your ship’s come in’: The yacht dubbed Seafood from the movie ‘Caddyshack’ has been sold

First listed for sale five months ago, the boat is now owned by a marketing professor from Rhode Island.

Seafood, the yacht owned by Rodney Dangerfield’s character in the movie ” Caddyshack,” has a new owner.

First listed for sale for $350,000 five months ago, the boat – complete with a Bushwood Country Club pin flag – was purchased by Jay Oliver, a marketing professor from Rhode Island, according to unitedyacht.com.

Oliver’s agent, tells the publication that when his client was growing up “his family bought their first VCR and the very first movie they rented was ‘Caddyshack.’ ”

Fandom has stuck ever since.

The boat was built in 1979 and then appeared in the iconic golf movie, which was released in 1980.

In the movie, Al Czervik, played by Dangerfield, carelessly steers Seafood just short of the new sailboat of Judge Smails.

Then Czervik drops an anchor right through the hull of the small sailboat.

Over the years, Seafood has served as a day charter as well as an Airbnb rental. Oliver intends to keep the boat in the Hilton Head, South Carolina, area and will keep it available for overnight rentals.

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