Last year saw the first of what has become an annual event: The NH Fish & Lobster Festival (fondly referred to as “Fishtival”). The number of attendees at the inaugural event blew away all projections, so this year’s organizers are gearing up for an even bigger and better day of celebrating our local fisheries and fisherpeople.

The day’s events will feature the popular seafood tastings (freshly-landed local seafood prepared by Seacoast chefs)  along with games, music and more. Tour a local fishing boat, learn how to identify and prepare local fish, watch an on-location cook-off competition, investigate the Gulf of Maine ecosystem, sing a song, and hear a tale or two.

The fishercrew at the 2009 Fishtival.

WHAT: NH Fish & Lobster Festival

WHEN: Saturday, September 25, 12 noon to 4 pm

WHERE: Prescott Park, Portsmouth

COST: Admission and educational activities are free; pay for tastings

MORE INFO: NH Fish & Lobster Festival on the Prescott Park website.

VOLUNTEERS: If you’d like to volunteer for the 2010 event, see what’s needed and register online using this nifty form created with Google docs! Or, email the NH Fish & Lobster Festival organizers to receive further instructions.

Hope you’ll be joining Slow Food Seacoast for its public potluck supper on March 7th. Bring a dish to share and your own reusable dinnerware, and share in a feast created by the whole group. After the meal, Erika Zollett, a marine scientist in fisheries management as well as proprietor of the sustainability consulting business Green My Restaurant, will be speaking on the topic of Sustainable Seafood. Discussion about seafood that’s both sustainable and slow will follow!

For those who’d like to prepare a seafood dish with a view toward sustainable sourcing, Erika has a few recommendations. “For fish that qualify as both sustainable and somewhat local, I would suggest Gulf of Maine shrimp, farmed mussels, clams (farmed is better), farmed scallops, or line-caught haddock.” She says. She also invites everyone to have a look at Seafood Watch, a site created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Check out our Events page for details about this Sunday’s potluck, and please take a moment to read About Our Potlucks if you’ve never attended before!

Summer CSA harvest

Seacoast Eat Local is sponsoring yet another great event to connect consumers and food producers in the Seacoast! They’ve planned a community-supported agriculture (CSA) and community-supported fisheries (CSF) event to coincide with the Winter Farmers’ Market to be held at Wentworth Greenhouses (141 Rollins Rd, Rollinsford, NH—a mile past Red’s Shoe Barn on Broadway in Dover), on Saturday, Feb. 27, from 10 am to 2 pm. (Similar events will take place at 12 locations in Maine and in Newburyport, Mass., on Sunday, Feb. 28.)

If you’ve ever wanted to know more about CSA and CSF, keep reading … then attend the event that’s local to you. Learn, ask questions, meet 15 participating farms and fisheries, make connections, and maybe sign up for your own 2010 share.

Learn more: Download the Choosing a CSA flyer (PDF) from Seacoast Eat Local.

Learn more: Read a comprehensive list of CSA farms in Rockingham, Strafford, and York Counties in Seacoast Harvest: A Local Food Guide.

Learn more: Get dates, times, and directions for all of the Seacoast Eat Local Winter Farmers’ Markets.

From a Seacoast Eat Local press release:

Seacoast CSA + CSF Day Coming to Winter Farmers’ Market

Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, is a partnership between consumers and farmers in which members buy shares of the farm’s harvest and receive regular allotments of food throughout the growing season. For farmers, this provides much needed cash flow for the beginning of the season, as well as a ready market and community of supporters. Shareholders join in the risks of the growing season but reap the benefits of the harvest.

Community Supported Fisheries, or CSFs (modeled after CSAs), are a way to buy seafood directly from fishermen and support our local fisheries by purchasing seasonal shares.

Each CSA and CSF has its own pricing structure and distribution schedule, and some farms have work requirements. Signups for CSA and CSF shares often begin in February by directly contacting the farm or sponsoring fishery.

Participating Farms & Fisheries:

Brookford Farm
Connolly’s Organics
Eastman’s Local Catch
Farmer Dave’s CSA
Heron Pond Farm
Meadow’s Mirth
New Roots Farm
Riverside Farm
Riverslea Farm
Stone Wall Farm / Osprey Cove Organic Farm
Touching Earth Farm
Two Toad Farm
Wake Robin Farm
Willow Pond Community Farm
Wolf Pine Farm CSA

What’s the easiest, quickest way to learn how to peel and clean your fresh NH shrimp? Watch this great, 4-minute video by Padi Anderson of the F/V Rimrack. Nothing to it - pretty soon you’ll “pull, pinch, and flip” your way to your next shrimp dinner. Or buy plenty of extra shrimp, clean as shown, and freeze for later - they defrost in a flash!

Learn how to peel, cook, store, and enjoy the delicacy that is Northern shrimp in a 2-hour workshop on February 10! Chefs from the UNH Thompson School Culinary Arts Program will demonstrate how to prepare these locally wild-harvested gems in many ways for you to taste. You will leave the workshop with recipes and educational materials so you can enjoy Northern shrimp at home.  Register online at the UNH website.

Shrimp Local, Eat Local

Date: February 10, 2010

Time: 6-8 pm

Registration fee: $10

Registration form: www.tinyurl.com/localshrimp

A shrimp preparation and cooking demonstration workshop for February, 10th will be presented in collaboration with the UNH Thompson School’s culinary arts program.   The link for more information and to register is www.tinyurl.com/localshrimp

Shrimp Local, Eat Local Workshop
February, 10th, 2010
6-8pm
UNH Thompson School culinary Arts Program
Cole Hall Room 219

Come to this event to learn how to cook, peel and store the Northern Shrimp delicacy!  Chefs from the Culinary Program will be demonstrating how to prepare these local gems in a variety of ways for you to taste.  Leave the workshop with recipes and educational materials so you can enjoy shrimp at home!

Don’t miss this great piece in NH Mag about the new seafood brand, “NH Seafood Fresh & Local,” an initiative of the Portsmouth Fishing Industry Committee with partners across the seacoast, including Slow Food and Seacoast Eat Local.

At Slow Food Seacoast, we love local shrimp. The Northern shrimp are small, sweet, meaty, and succulent and taste amazing in everything - shrimp cocktails, curries, pastas, stir-fries, you name it. And what’s more, the Northern shrimp are a very good fishery for Slow Food folk to support; the shrimp (especially when trap-caught) are a sustainable fishery, with healthy population levels and low environmental impact. And as if that weren’t enough, purchasing these shrimp really helps local fishermen stay ‘afloat’ during a winter season in which not many other fish are available.

So we’re very excited to hear that this year, the Yankee Fisherman’s Cooperative is offering a Shrimp CSF (Community Supported Fishery)! They write:

The Yankee Fisherman’s Cooperative (YFC) will be offering shares for the upcoming Northern Shrimp season. As a participant in the community supported fishery, you will be supporting the NH commercial fishing industry and a sustainably harvested resource. Your shrimp will also carry the NH Fresh and Local brand which ensures that it was landed in NH and is the freshest available.

WHAT YOU WILL GET
- An 8-week subscription to the winter CSF (January - February)
- HALF share of whole shrimp: 5 lbs per week
- FULL share of whole shrimp: 10 lbs per week FULL shares are $128 ($1.60 per pound), HALF shares are $72 ($1.80 per pound)

Please use this link to fill out the interest application and a member of the fisheries cooperative will contact you.

From Seacoast Eat Local we received the following exciting bulletin:

Northern shrimp, also called native or Maine shrimp, are fast cooking, inexpensive, tasty, very local, and incredibly sustainable. You can buy them at many fish markets all over the seacoast, including Seaport Fish in Rye and Sanders in Portsmouth [and in many other local markets as well]. You’ll also be able to buy them directly from the fishermen at the next winter farmers’ market on February 7th in Exeter. For more information about northern shrimp, including cooking directions and recipe ideas, visit the Slow Food Seacoast blog.