SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

 GOOD MORNING EVERYBODY!!!!

What a beautiful weekend! The weather was amazing. The lobster was amazing. The fluke was so elegant. Outdoor restaurants were packed. The beaches were full. Thank God Covid is over...

After every dreamy weekend or vacation, the crude reality of life emerges. Schools are starting virtually for many kids. Work is going to start to become more intense and a huge election is going to battle for our attention. Yup. Two months of commercials about candidates or Halloween candy. Both are a little too saccharine for me. (Side thought- although i like the match up, my secret consciousness would've loved to have seen Donald and Bernie in a debate...would there have been a more epic show to watch everrrrrrr????? Don't hate me...)

So, the week after a holiday weekend is always a little tricky for fish. It is hard to know what is available until Tuesday late in the day. This problematic for us because we like to secure fish contracts by Monday or Tuesday morning at the latest. So, after a few hours of pounding the phone and getting a lot of "I don't know yet"s (it can be plural!) I have secured some salmon and some halibut!! 

Yes, salmon is back. The strike in Chile lasted four days but the restart of the supply chain takes a little bit longer. We went without salmon for a week and survived. Amazing. Lots of people got tuned into what is happening down there. It's important to know about some of the socio-economic and political conditions that influence our supply of food. I think that being aware of these things helps us understand and appreciate what we eat. The food comes from somewhere and we have to make decisions that have moral components. Hopefully the Mapuche in Patagonia can be taken seriously and find a solution that is good for everyone.

As for halibut, we will only really get another month and half of good season ahead of us so let'd take advantage while we can. This halibut will come, once again, from our friends up in Novs Scotia. Great wild fish from a MSC Certified fishery. 

Clams are back this week. Shiny Seas oysters will get it's turn. We will keep smoked trout as a feature for the rest of the month. Then next month, we will feature another smoked product.

Now, we've been feeling a lot of anxiety coming from people over the past two weeks and we completely understand. Transitions are never easy. It is the end of summer and back to reality, whatever that is. One thing that always hits me at times like these is something I read in a book called "Born to Run". 

You see, the author was writing about super marathon runners (great book by the way) and felt he needed to try to learn how to run a marathon himself in order to really understand what he was writing about. He had assumed that people who ran marathons were much more determined to get to 26.2 miles compared to others but, in fact, that was not the case. 

Marathon runners told him that they could run ten to fifteen miles pretty effortlessly and then it got hard. Now, if they thought about getting to the finish line, they wouldn't keep going. It would be too difficult to believe they could reach it. Their minds and bodies wanted them to quit. So, instead, they changed their mindset to think about simply reaching the end of the block. And then I am going to run to that tree. And then I will just keep going to that pole, and so on until their bodies and minds set them free and they could finish.

Well, I think this year is kind of like that. It is too hard to look far forward and imagine a finish line. So we've got to simply get the end of the month. Mostly, it's the end of the week. Sometimes it is the end of the day and often it is one hour at a time. But look! We made it to the end of summer! Now one week at a time, one day at a time, we'll make it to the end of the year. And we've done it together so far through our shared experiences with seafood. Cooking together and seeing each other every week. Just amazing. It is hard to think of the summer of 2020 without all of you in our lives. I thank you all for your generosity of nature, smiles and encouragement.

One thing i want to share with you is the song that I will always link to this summer. So catchy and pretty groovy. Enjoy this big hit of 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb0L24QXY4s

Look out for the order form Wednesday at 11am

With love,

Robert Amar

Small World Seafood

Owner