AUGUST 31, 2020

HELLO EVERYBODY!!!

Well, how bout them swords. Lots of grilling all around in the city. I always find it kind of reassuring in these crazy times that there can be a few things that remind me that we live in a community. The fact that many of us are shucking oysters, grilling swordfish, roasting salmon or steaming clams together reassures me that we are all connected to each other. We are not just fish guy and customer. We are neighbors and friends and THAT may be what keeps us all together in the end. Relationships.

Speaking of all this, we are constantly asked if we will continue doing this when restaurants open. Well, there are two parts to that in our minds. First of all, when they open, how will they look and feel? Will we experience them in the same way as before? Will we want to sit inside a restaurant for two hours and feel stress free? At 25% or 50% capacity, will the restaurants be able to produce great food and survive financially or will they cut corners with smaller staffs and just try to skate by?

The second part of this is you (general you). You've been buying fresh fish and you know how much it costs now. You also have learned how to prepare a lot of things that you would've only ordered out previously. You've learned how to bake bread. You'vee learned how to shuck oysters. Basically, you've learned how to cook and opened your repertoire. The next time you go to a restaurant and order a branzino for $36, will you be happy about it knowing that you could've bought 3 fish for $36 and cooked it yourself as good as a restaurant? Restaurants are going to face a much more knowledgeable and critical clientele. Will they be ready for that? Will you be satisfied with just ok?

We are not sure of the answers here but i can certainly tell you the answer will not be coming soon.

Anyhow, all this to say that, yes, we will continue doing this. When you guys stop showing up, we'll stop showing up. In the meantime, we are still gonna do this so we are in a relationship and you can put THAT in your status bar.

So, fish. Just when you think that all the craziness couldn't get crazier, it just did. So, there is a tribe of indigenous people called the Mapuche who live in the south of Chile. They would like their ancestral land back and have been upset with the Chilean government's lack of attention. To get their attention, they have been setting commercial trucks ablaze in protest. Over the past couple of years, the number was 4 or 5 but this year it is closer to 100. The truckers are pissed at this and are now on strike blocking highways in order to force the government to send troops to protect them on their hauls. This happened last Thursday. Hopefully everybody can sit together and figure something out.

Now, Chile is the largest exporter of salmon to the States. Canada, being second, halted the hatching of salmon eggs 5 months ago because of Covid so there is very little stock of smaller fish necessary to make fillets. All this means no salmon this week. Of course, there will be some salmon around but why go hunting for a nice tomato in January? It is an exercise in futility. You pay way too much for something that is half as good.

Before some of your heads explode into powdered confetti at the thought of no salmon, we will have what was more commonly eaten before salmon took over in the past 30 years or so. Rainbow trout! Yes, people, before salmon, we ate trout. So, fillets as well as head on bone out fish! And the crowd exhales in relief.....Owmmmmmmmmmm...

And since we are coming up on Labor Day weekend, we have secured a shipment of lobster meat!! Yay!!! Plus, we will add Jonah Crab claws to the mix as a offering and now we can all say 'namaste' because it's all going to be fine. It's going to be just fine. Things may be crazy but I feel safe in knowing that we can all be crazy together.

Look out for the order form this Wednesday at 11am.

Best,

Robert Amar
Small World Seafood
Owner