Clam Bake #Fail

Fresh Clams for Dinner!

I remember growing up watching Happy Days. You know...Sunday, Monday Happy Days. With the Fonze and Chachi. And man did I have a crush on Chachi. I always thought it would be fun to have a campfire at the beach and cook fresh seafood over the fire, while Clint played his guitar . The kids would sit on logs around the fire and roast marshmallows. Funny how ideas you dream up in your head are not as easy in reality.

I totally talked up the idea of having a fresh clam bake on the beach and as soon as we arrived at the house, the kids excitedly got busy digging for fresh clams on the beach. As we unpacked our bags and poured us glasses of wine, the kids would periodically run up to the house to proudly show us what they had dug up. It was low tide and the kids were able to walk 50 yards out to find the clams and soon they figured out that if they dug where they saw bubbles creeping up through the sand, they would find a clam. It didn't take long before we had a pot of fist sized clams to cook for dinner. Now, I had read that if you steam them over a bed of seaweed, they are super yummy. As we purged the clams of the sand and salt, the kids got busy collecting driftwood that was scattered all over the beach for the fire.

We got the beach campfire lit, then the rain started to sprinkle. As we tried our best to get a solid bed of coals going as a steady rain got stronger, we brought our pot full of clams out and got ready for the best clam we'd ever had...fresh from the beach! So how great was it, you ask?

Well, much like many dreams you cook up in your head years before you actually get to try them, it didn't quite work out like we planned. There was no seaweed to be found, the coal bed never got hot enough because of the rain and moist driftwood we were trying to burn, and so we just slapped the clams down in the bottom of the fire pit, which got sand all up in them. Ultimately, when the shells popped open, indicating that they were done, we tried the first one and it was salty, sandy, flavorless, and inedible.

#FAIL

We ended up eating Spaghettioes that night