beefeaters on sea safari

Both New Years that I've lived in Seattle, I've made the resolution of eating more seafood. Having been born and raised in the landlocked Midwest, my diet has been far more fowl than fin, when eating meat. Fish tacos or tuna steaks were easy favorites, while I felt like a pretty big wuss with many other sea-spawn. But how could I live just up the street from Fisherman's Terminal in the old Scandinavian-American fishing village of Ballard without dedicating myself to learning more about how to prepare seafood? At this point, I'm relatively brave with sushi, and my three-year-old knows how to peel shrimp. But tonight marks a new frontier for my household. A few months ago, a friend came over and grilled oysters. It was getting late, and we rushed the process, so the end result was more like the raw slurping that I usually associate with oysters, and I didn't feel up to having more than a couple, dipped liberally in lemon butter. Today, down at the Market, we bought a dozen, feeling brave and maritime. We grilled these heavy rock-like paws until they sprayed and popped, and then Zack tucked butter and fennel and garlic inside. With childlike delight, we sat at table and pulled them off their shells onto some grilled pieces of wheat baguette. The aesthetics got us through the first few, and then we started to admit to one another that we were losing steam. The unfamiliar texture, the pockets of olive-green mystery matter, the slug-like shape. But I persevered through four and a half jumbo oyster meats, enjoying it mostly. And that's the victory, I guess. A favorite book of mine contains the challenging line: ...all heroes are bold toward food. A small step, these oysters, but a refreshing shift from our usual.