Oysters

Perring Parkway and Satyr Hill Road. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays to Sundays. Call (410) 661-8210. Travelers who stop at Pete's, where a sign hawks steamed crabs year round, might be surprised to find the carryout offers a variety of options, including subs, hot and cold sandwiches, pizza and spaghetti.While the menu lists fresh crab meat, rawand steamed shrimp, oysters and soft crabs, it's a good idea to call ahead if you want fresh seafood. We arrived too late in the day recently for steamed crabs, although they were available on an earlier occasion at $17 a dozen for medium and $22 for large.

If you're happy and you know it and your face really shows it, you must be a resident of Solomons Island in Calvert County. Coastal Living magazine's special 15th anniversary issue ranks the southern Maryland waterfront village no. 15 on a list of "America's Happiest Seaside Towns. " The magazine points to the town's history of fishing and exploration, as well as its boardwalk, sculpture gardens and of course, its hospitality. It also notes that Solomons Victorian Inn is the place to stay.

Dave Coakley from Baltimore was looking for the recipe for the oyster stew that is served at the Peppermill restaurant in Towson. He said it "is the best I've tasted. " I contacted the restaurant and spoke with Rick Ziegel , the owner of the Peppermill, and he graciously agreed to share his restaurant's recipe. He says he frequently makes this at home himself and was kind enough to help me modify the recipe for the home cook. He told me that at the restaurant they make large quantities of the soup base and steam the oysters separately.

Spring's time for planting more than flower and vegetable gardens.  it's oyster planting time, too. Last week, the Oyster Recovery Partnership put 31 million baby oysters in Harris Creek, near the mouth of the Choptank River. The oysters were bred at the University of Maryland's Horn Point hatchery , and primed for planting once they had settled as "spat" on old oyster shells. It was the first of a series of plantings the Annapolis-based nonprofit hopes to make this year, seeding Harris Creek, the Severn River and possibly a couple other spots in the Chesapeake Bay with a projected 300-500 million bivalves.

A watershed moment in Maryland history unfolded last month when Chesapeake Bay watermen marched on Annapolis to protest Gov. Martin O'Malley's Oyster Restoration and Aquaculture Development Plan. At stake was whether the bay's shellfish beds will continue to be in the public domain -- a public fishery -- or whether they will be reassigned, in whole or in part, as private leases available for aquaculture. Unfortunately, this issue is typically presented as a choice between preserving the watermen's way of life and promoting oyster restoration and aquaculture.

It is a custom in this town at year's end for folks to gather around a plate of raw oysters. The oysters are loaded both with tangy flavor and with zinc that puts fuel in your firebox. The gathering provides good cheer. As 2007 drew to a close, I visited several spots around Baltimore where bivalves were plump and the conversations friendly. There was nary a bad mollusk or moment in my expedition. That means, of course, I will repeat this ritual next December. Nick's Inner Harbor Seafood Address --Cross Street Market, 1065 S. Charles St. Phone --410-685-2020 Hours --11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday This raw bar in the colorful Cross Street Market features comfortable seats, prize-winning shuckers and easy conversation.

All the recent emphasis on enforcing our way to a clean Bay is completely misguided. Bay water quality will continue to fall short because the bay lacks oysters -- which are nature's primary way of removing excess nutrients. Everyone contributes to bay water quality impairments. We are on the right track with the point source investments that have been made as well as expecting greater efforts from agriculture, new development and urban storm water. However, we continue to deceive ourselves if we think attainable (and sustainable)

Is it time to clamp a moratorium on oystering in the Chesapeake Bay? The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's landmark report, "Turning the Tide: Saving the Chesapeake Bay" makes a persuasive case, noting that oysters have declined to 1 percent of their former abundance. Those bivalves, enough to fill 12 million bushels during the 1870s, once sifted all the bay's waters in a week, but now take nearly a year. What that does to water quality is a life-and-death matter for many plant and animal species depending on the bay.The report's author, former Sun environmental writer Tom Horton, joined other foundation members in demanding a three-year ban on oystering, similar to the ban on rockfish catches, to help bring back the threatened population.

Fells Point, a waterfront neighborhood, has had a historic shortage of good seafood restaurants. There are one or two very good high-end choices, but the casual options are meager and the mid-range options non-existent. Here comes Thames Street Oyster House , which in the few weeks since its opening has been drawing a steady stream of customers. Part of the instant success at Thames Street has to do with the popular owner, Candace Beattie, who developed a following behind the bar at nearby Alexander's.

Oysters taste better as the weather gets colder. A Chesapeake Bay waterman told me that once, and I have since accepted it as gospel. I believe almost anything that the guys who catch oysters tell me about the mollusks.I believe, for instance, that oysters "plump up after a good frost." That the "r" months, ones with the letter "r" in their names, are the prime time to feed on oysters. That you don't want to eat oysters and ice cream at the same meal, because the ice cream will turn the oysters into stone in your stomach.

The Manor Tavern in Monkton is teaming up with the Oyster Recovery Partnership for a Sunday afternoon Oyster Festival. The event will feature more than 20 types of different oysters, shucked by Maryland and World Champion Oyster Shucker George Hastings. The Oyster Festival will include displays of local arts and crafts, children's activities -- including a pirate ship moon, bounce -- and live bluegrass music by Slim Pickinz. Smyth Jewelers has donated a pearl necklace and earrings, raffle tickets are $15 with all the proceeds benefiting the Oyster Recovery Partnership . Admission to the Oyster Festival at Manor Tavern is free.

Ryleigh's Oyster in Federal Hill now has its own oyster -- Avery's Pearls, named after Avery McComas, the younger daughter of the restaurant's owners, Jennifer and Brian McComas. Ryleigh's itself was named after their elder daughter, Ryleigh. Avery's Pearls are a collaboration between Ryleigh's and the Shooting Point Oyster Co., a family-owned oyster farm located in a remote stretch of Virginia's Eastern Shore. All aspects of their cultivation, from size, salinity levels, shape and overall appearance were jointly developed in what is being called a first of its kind restaurant-farm partnership.

You'd expect a Baltimore restaurant to compete in crab cake competition, but Thames Street Oyster House is contending for a big lobster roll prize. The event is Tasting Table's third annual Lobster Roll Rumble, which will take place in New York City on June 7. You can take a look at event information and photographs of all 20 contenders here So, how did a Baltimore restaurant come to have a contending lobster roll. Turns out chef Eric Houseknecht stayed in Providence after graduating form Johnson & Wales University.

Efforts to restore native oysters in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay are about to begin in earnest, as state and federal officials air plans to conduct large-scale reef rebuilding projects in Harris Creek on the Eastern Shore. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources , along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US. Army Corps of Engineers , are scheduled to present their plans for oyster restoration work in Harris Creek from 1 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum inSt.

Parts of three waterways have been opened to shellfish harvesting after tests showed declines in bacteria there, the Maryland Department of the Environment announced Monday. An area of the Wicomico River on the Eastern Shore, at the border between Wicomico and Somerset counties, is now approved for commercial harvests. Waters below Bay Point had been closed because of high bacteria levels in the water. The headwaters of Broad Creek in Talbot County have been conditionally approved, meaning that oysters and clams can be harvested there except after a heavy rainfall.

The Chesapeake Bay'slong-suffering "smart" buoys , which have come back after being shot up and hit by boats and ships, now face perhaps their most serious threat yet - the budget knife. President Obama's spending plan for fiscal 2013 proposes cutting the $300,000 to keep the fleet of 10 buoys afloat in the bay, where they monitor water quality, weather conditions and serve as guides for the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail . The elimination of funding for the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System is just the most visible of the deep cuts planned in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Chesapeake Bay efforts.  Overall, the Annapolis NOAA office is proposed to receive $3.4 million in the coming year, down from this year's funding allocation of $5.1 million and less than half the $7.1 million the office received the year before.

THE LAST TWO decades have been disastrous for the Chesapeake Bay oyster. The shellfish population has been so decimated, mostly by disease but also from pollution and overharvesting, that the federal government is studying whether to declare it an endangered species and state officials are pondering whether to import Asian oysters to augment and possibly supplant the native stock. With that in mind, it's downright shocking to find out that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has proposed making it significantly easier for watermen to harvest the remaining oysters in certain areas of the bay. Admittedly, the DNR is under considerable pressure from Republican lawmakers to aid watermen and seafood processors whose incomes have waned as the oyster supply has plummeted.

With its leafless landscape and almost eerie yellow and pink light, the Eastern Shore in winter is wonderfully different from its warm-weather self. This time of year, it is stripped down to its essence — quiet and spare. Summer, with its crowds and ocean-bound traffic, seems very far away. And that's how a lot of us who live there like it. Not that the Shore is inhospitable in winter — far from it. It's the time of year we celebrate eagles, oysters and muskrats. And, thanks to winter getaway packages, praise be as well to dining and lodging on the cheap.

We've been slurping Chesapeake oysters, my Chesapeake Bay Foundation buddy Don Baugh and I, for more than 100 years between us. And while we've known the bay in better times, we never had better oysters from it than the dozens we downed - chilled and fat and bursting with taste - over the winter holidays. It was Chesapeake seafood at its finest, and all of it was farmed - some raised in floats in Virginia by Tangiermen Rudy Shores and Mark Crockett; the rest grown in cages in Maryland by Hooper Islander Johnny Shockley.