Late January, early February brings crab season to the Mendocino Coast. Every restaurant, bed and breakfast and hotel features some crab dish on the menu complemented by local wines.
Last week we get a call from our friends to come for dinner at 6. Donna Stornetta was headed to the pier in Pt. Arena at 4pm to be there when the fishing boats brought in the fresh crab.
Early evening we make the short drive to the Stornetta Ranch which borders the Pacific for quite a few miles. The ranch has probably one of the most beautiful situations in the world. Gentle farmland that rolls down to the sea.
We arrive at dusk and our hosts are pulling cooked crab from large pots onto equally large platters. This meal is simple. Fresh bread, black olives, crisp green salad, plates piled high with rosy crab and local red wine. We talk and visit, enjoying the evening. Donna comments how pleasant it was to wait in the sun on the pier for our fresh dinner to come in. So different from the choices at a supermarket, encased in plastic and usually old at time of purchase.
I think of a favorite anonymous phrase I have always liked describing seafood.
"Our exquisite, fragile and delicate forms are reared by the ocean and rocked by the storms"
A great evening, truly a gift from the sea.
