Oysters on the Half Shell



The view from our upper deck.

My mother-in-law just left after 5 day visit.  She lives in the desert and loves to be on the water, so we always spend a lot of time near the ocean when she's here.  Her visit coincided with her birthday, so to celebrate we rented a cottage in Bolinas.  It's a beautiful, unusual town that long ago put a moratorium on development, where half the residents are life-long, hard core hippies ( I felt like a total square) and the other half one percenters, surfers always dot the water, and the houses and farms resemble a pastoral New England village.  


Noah working hard to feed his family:)





Evening stroll on the beach near our house.



It's become somewhat of a tradition that when Meria visits us, we go to Pt. Reyes and have oysters on the beach.  This time, we decided to get our oysters to go from Drake's Bay, and grill them back at the house.  I set up some side fixings, and Noah got to work shucking the oysters.  Oysters are incredibly easy to grill - you just place them on the half shell on the grill and they cook in their water.  For toppings we added lemon, hot sauce, cocktail sauce, or once they were almost cooked, some soft cheese to melt over the top of the oyster.  You can tell once they are done because they feel firm to the touch, appear a little darker, and look a little shrunken.  Our streak of family visits continues, with my dad arriving this evening.  He's not much of an oyster guy, and as anyone at my wedding knows, he sure hates quiche, but we love him anyway.