mussels

I had a hankering for mussels, and there were some nice-looking ones at the grocery store tonight. I brought them home, trimmed the "beards" off, gave them a good bath and scrub in cold water, and then set them to steam in a bit of chardonnay laced with olive oil and garlic. When the mussels were done (about 8 minutes), I scooped them out with a slotted spoon and set them aside while I reduced the cooking liquid and then added some butter and black pepper to it. I ran the sauce through a strainer into a little bowl, then sat back and happily nommed on mussels dipped in butter sauce. If you were a pasta person, you could pick all the mussels out of the shells and toss them with the sauce in some linguine...but I liked them just fine plain, with a nice cold beer. The only thing better would have been eating them on the beach up in Maine with my toes in the sand.

Maine wild-caught mussels with butter sauce