By Suzanna Leigh and Marj Watkins
Editors Note: We at the Loop thank Marj Watkins for her many years writing The Island Epicure and sharing recipes and her life in these pages. Best to you, Marj!
Marj: Now that I am 100 years old, I think I will retire.
Suzanna: Have you enjoyed writing “The Island Epicure” column over the years?
Marj: Yes (big smile).
Suzanna: You’ve been writing it since the early 1970s. I remember you told me you went to have lunch with some teachers at son Steve’s school …
Marj: Oh yes! Their menu wasn’t very healthy. So then I went to the newspaper, and I said, I would like very much to raise the level of nutrition (on this island). Jay Becker, who owned The Beachcomber at the time, allowed me a column. I told him, you don’t have to pay me anything. If you publish what I write you will raise the level of nutrition on the Island. In the next issue, my little article came out, and lots of people wanted to subscribe to the paper! Then he said he didn’t feel good getting my article for nothing, and so he would start paying me.
Suzanna: You wrote your Island Epicure column for the Beachcomber as long as Jay Becker owned it?
Marj: Um hm. Then when he retired, I started writing for The Loop for free. I should think up something to write for The Loop now.
Suzanna: Well, that’s what we are doing.
Marj: Oh good! Now that I am 100 years old, I should have some wisdom to depart.
Suzanna: Dispense?
Marj: Yes. Dispense.
Suzanna: You do.
Marj: Good. Tip me off (laughs).
Suzanna: We are in boating season now. What did you cook when you and dad were cruising the Puget Sound and San Juans in your sailboat?
Marj: It was a long time ago. I don’t remember. I do remember catching a fish once.
Suzanna: I remember when my son James and I went cruising with you, we put down a crab pot beside the boat where we were tied up at the dock in Mystery Bay, not far from Port Townsend. We caught a crab and ate it!
Marj: Wow. When we lived in Maine, we got big lobsters at a restaurant under the bridge.
Suzanna: I remember. We could choose our lobster from the tank and they would cook it for us.
Marj: Sometimes we went to a little lobster shack on an inlet where we ate the lobsters that the lobsterman caught.
Suzanna: Oh yes! One time Dad invited a young airman, that I think he wanted me to date, to join us at the little lobster shack. The airman suggested eating mussels off the pilings. We thought that was strange. We hadn’t heard of eating mussels then! Here, you can get them cooked for you in a restaurant, as a side dish or in a cioppino. Cioppino would be a very special dish to make at home, providing we could get the mussels. Crab cakes, though, we could make at home or on the boat.
Cioppino, an Italian Seafood Soup
Basic ingredients:
2 tbs olive oil
1 large onion
1 cup thin sliced fennel or 1 tsp fennel seeds
3 cloves garlic
Pinch of chili flakes
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme or ¼ tsp dried thyme
½ cup dry white wine
1 cup clam juice, fish stock, or seafood stock (From Suzanna: I use chicken stock)
Fresh herbs: ½ tsp thyme, 1 sprig oregano, a bay leaf, parsley
Unsalted butter
Tomatoes – 1 can, crushed
½ to 1 cup or more Marinara sauce, as needed (I buy it pre-made)
25 small clams – fresh, still closed
½ pound shrimp
1 quart mussels – fresh, still closed
Crab or lobster tails to make it special
½ pound fish – any white fish
Make the stock:
Saute onions and spices in olive oil, add clam juice, tomatoes, and wine.
Add seafood, first the mussels and clams. Cover and cook 5 min. When they just begin to open, add shrimp and crab. Add fish and cook until shrimp and fish are opaque. Add marinara sauce to taste. Serve with fresh-baked garlic bread.
Crab Cakes (gluten-free)
Mix together:
1 can of lump crab meat , or about ½ pound fresh crab meat
About ⅔ of an apple, diced
1 tsp dill salt
⅛ tsp cayenne
2-3 tbsp sorghum or oat flour
1 egg
Juice of ½ lime
Heat griddle to medium. Spoon crab mixture onto oiled hot griddle, forming 3-4″ cakes. Cook about 5 minutes, until crab cakes can be turned without falling apart. Cook another few minutes until firm. Makes 6 crab cakes. Serve with a slice of lime or a touch of your favorite hot sauce or tartar sauce. We like “Sweet Heat,” from All Things Rich at the Waterfront Market in Ruston.
