cook: seaweed foraging

My friend, Cybil emailed me a link to a class from forage sf on seaweed hunting. I said, yep, let's sign up and go. And so on a very early Friday, I got up at 4:00 a.m. and we drove at 4:45 a.m. in the dark to Miramontes Beach to meet up with the instructor and 3 other students at 5:30 a.m. Luckily, I had walked this beach before, and so we weren't too lost in finding the instructor and our other classmates. Tanya, the teacher and herbalist showed us her favorite guides and handbooks. 

  

And so I'll be checking them out from the library and buying an identification handbook. Wished the Bookshop Santa Cruz had had it. At this low a tide, I got to hike a stretch of beach I could not previously, and so I appreciated this "new" beach. I watched an heron fish along the algae-covered rocks.

 

Then the foraging began. I gathered lots of of the mazzaella, which I've since cut--for a seaweed salad and some which I laid on a sheet pan to dry. And I tasted and chewed everything pictured in this post.

 

I liked the Ogo and Sea Spaghetti a lot, which I rinsed in the saltwater and didn't rinse in fresh water (as it would then start to degrade the seaweed) and promptly put the mesh bag of seaweed in the back of the refrigerator.

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Tanya had said the stipes can be pickled from the Feather Boa (I didn't and just took the fronds for my salad) and put the rest in the compost. I really liked the Sea Lettuce, and so that went into my salad.

 

I promptly labeled my photos as Tanya told us the common names. She mentioned that her Korean friend considers the Rock Weed a find which she loves to fry--yep I'm gonna hunt for more of that on my next forage and try that recipe.

 

Tanya said I was cracking her up with my calling the seaweed below, the anal beads seaweed, and the photo on the right with all the mussels but isn't labeled is Dulse.

  

Further out in deeper sea is the wakame, which we couldn't forage and that was disappointing. But it was cool to identify later the red seaweed or nori or what the English call laver.

After all the seaweed gathering, I explored the tidepools. The mussels were tiny and unfortunately are in quarantine or not to be consumed this time of year. And we were told to step on bare rock or on mussel beds and not squash anemones and starfish.

  

If low tide happened at a later time, I would certainly have Meral come and help identify sea creatures with me in the pools.

I parked in the coastal access spaces of the Ritz Carlton parking garage, and I showed Cybil where I used to hike alongside artichoke farms on one side and the Pacific coast on the other side during the pandemic.

We'll see if Cybil ever wants to go seaweed foraging again, but certainly we saw more kinds of plant life on this excursion than we did in the Cabrillo College class. Afterward, I said let's go find breakfast. I googled and found my new breakfast and brunch diner in Half Moon Bay. I liked the lemon and hummingbird decor, especially these throwback yellow chairs at the white quartz counter- and tabletops as well as the light fixtures (wondering if they came from Schoolhouse).

I'd been craving a Benedict, which I didn't order at the Harbor Cafe in Santa Cruz (because theirs was atop a croissant rather than a split English muffin).

 

I loved the lemon-iness of the Hollandaise sauce and that there were the vegetables of spinach and tomato in addition to the ham in this Eggs Benedict. I'm thinking of telling my neighbors that Johnny's in Half Moon Bay is where I want to go for my birthday breakfast. And maybe I'd take them afterward to Miramontes Beach before or after.