If you’ve had a steady diet of reading my columns and cookbooks in the past 24 years, you know I’m a fervent fan of oysters.
They can be broiled, as in oysters Rockefeller, baked into a savory sage dressing for holiday menus, boiled in a creamy oyster stew or served simply raw, exposed and chilled on the half shell.
My older sister Pam, along with myself, sampled our first raw oysters on the half shell in February 1993, a year after my college graduation, when we trekked to New Orleans to experience the decadence of the Big Easy at our first Mardi Gras adventure.
The hotel in the French Quarter where we stayed featured a daily happy hour at the lobby bar and a large, wooden wheeled canopy covered cart of freshly shucked oysters on the half shell, neatly packed in ice garnished with generous lemon slices, all of it offered as complimentary bar food fare to pair with the imbibed cocktails, beer and wine, all the latter free flowing at a modest price.
Using the tiny provided forks, we’d skewer each oyster to flop onto a pedestrian saltine cracker and finished the one-bite delicacy off with a dollop of tangy homemade cocktail sauce. Delectable.
Even as a child, I was fascinated with oysters, both because of the potential of finding pearls, and also because of the favorite poem of my youth by Lewis Carroll titled “The Walrus and the Oyster,” written in December 1871 to appear in Carroll’s storybook “Alice in Wonderland/Through the Lookingglass.” The poem, which has a finale of the hungry walrus and carpenter gobbling up all of their oyster friends from the beach, is told to the central character Alice by the propellor-beanie cap wearing twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Reader Marykay Jasinski of Highland contacted me with a shell-shocked question about when is the ideal season best for enjoying oysters, shellfish and seafood menu dining in general.
“Hi Phil and I hope this note finds you and your family well,” Jasinski wrote.
“Your columns are the best, and my Robert just loved and respected your writing. I have a question for you about ordering seafood. In movies and television shows, including an old episode of ‘I Love Lucy,’ they make references that seafood is best enjoyed during months that contain the letter ‘R,’ and I’ve never understood this rule. Thank you for your help.”
Thank you Marykay for your question and I’ve tracked down the episode of “I Love Lucy” that contains the reference you noted. It’s from the CBS sixth season of the series, episode 22 titled “Lucy’s Night in Town,” which originally aired March 25, 1957.
Characters Lucy and Ricky, along with their friends Fred and Ethel Mertz, ordered tickets months in advance for the hit Frank Loesser Broadway musical “The Most Happy Fella,” only for Lucy and Ethel to discover, as they dine at a nearby restaurant just hours before the evening curtain, that their tickets were for the matinee performance earlier in the day.
The ladies attempt to stall during dinner, with their hope being they arrive so embarrassingly late to the theater, their unknowing husbands might just suggest they not try to attend the show.
“To save time, I already ordered four roast beef dinners for us,” Lucy tells husband Ricky.
“I thought it was a good idea at the time, but now I don’t know. Steak might be nice or maybe some broiled chicken. What do you think about broiled chicken, Ethel? Or maybe we should have some seafood? What month is it? Is there an ‘R’ in it?”
To get a detailed answer to the ages-old rule of seafood is best enjoyed in months that contain the letter “R,” I asked Chef Arthur Wiggins, the executive chef at Council Oaks Steak and Seafood restaurant, which is the fine dining anchor of Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana in Gary. The restaurant, which has fresh seafood flown in two to three times a week and sometimes daily, is celebrating a fifth anniversary and my oldest sister Carol (who does not like raw oysters) dined at Council Oaks with her family earlier this month to celebrate her 72nd birthday and I had her snap photos.
Carol described her seafood feast, which included lobster bisque and a seafood extravaganza she explained as “the chilled seafood tower,” featuring raw oysters on the half shell, chilled lobster and king crab legs, cocktail shrimp and homemade zesty cocktail sauce.
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Chef Wiggins, an Army veteran and graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Chicago, says he has “cultivated a culture of excellence at Council Oak, inspiring his team to pursue perfection detail.”
Wiggins’ predecessor was Chef Cristian Viracucha, who was with Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana when the property launched in March 2021. Born in Loja, a small city in Ecuador, Viracucha left Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana in November 2022 to join the kitchen team at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Chicago.
Wiggins reminded me that the month of October is National Seafood Month as designated by a U.S. Congress declaration in 1989 and first observed in 1990.
He said the stipulation of the “R” month rule mostly applied to eating oysters and shellfish, which should ideally be enjoyed September through April, assuring cold water harvest of product and comfortable transport without the fear of warm summer months of May through August.
This rule began back in the early colonial days and is less impactful in today’s world of proper food handling and controlled temperature transportation.
Council Oak is among the five restaurants featured at The Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana, including the signature Hard Rock Cafe, YOUYU Noodle Bar, The Fresh Harvest Buffet and Constant Grind, the latter being a coffee shop with lite bites.
Chef Wiggins emphasized his custom created menu also has 28-day dry age steak cuts and wet age steak options, with the added culinary entertainment that as guests dine, they can enjoy the preparation of everything being served through the glass observation wall of the specially design exhibition kitchen. Chef said among his favorite sides are creamed spinach, buttermilk infused mashed potatoes and fresh grilled asparagus, and bacon and parmesan topped Brussel sprouts drizzled with smoked honey.
Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana is located at 5400 W. 29th Ave. in Gary at the I-80/94 Burr Street Interchange and the steakhouse is open every day. Guests have to be 21 or older to enter the Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana. Call (219) 228-2383 or visit www.hardrockcasinonorthernindiana.com for more information.
Chef Wiggins makes his own shrimp cocktail sauce and has a precise formula for the poaching of shrimp to create his chilled shrimp cocktails, both recipes he agreed to share with readers this week.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a weekly radio host at WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at [email protected] or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Poached Shrimp for Cocktail Serving with Zesty Sauce
Makes 4 shrimp cocktail
Ingredients
Shrimp:
1 handful peeled and cleaned shrimp
2 gallons water
1 gallon orange juice
8 ounces lemon juice
3 shallots, peeled and diced
8 ounces pickling spice
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of Salt
Cocktail Sauce:
2 cups ketchup
2 cups chili sauce
1/2 cup prepared horseradish, drained and squeezed
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 drops Worcestershire sauce
A generous pinch of salt
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Directions
1. Combine all ingredients, except shrimp, in large stockpot and bring to a boil.
2. Add shrimp to boiling water and poach just long enough to cook through and test for tenderness and assure shrimp have reached 145 degrees internal temperature. Remove and chill for one hour.
3. To make cocktail sauce, whisk together all ingredients and chill before serving.
4. Assemble and layer in cocktail serving glasses.