Vitamin Sea Martini

If you can’t make it to the beach this weekend, you can at least sip on this Vitamin Sea Martini. In my case, I live near enough to the water to be able to enjoy it on a regular basis, but will more than likely be drinking this martini this weekend and watching the fog creep in off the coast. It seems that summer is taking its time getting here this year. Regardless, we’ve been able to enjoy all the great things the Oregon coast has to offer.

Last weekend, we were fortunate to be included in an excursion for some out-of-town guests (students from South Korea) to go crabbing. As you might know, one of the culinary highlights of living in Oregon is access to fresh Dungeness crab. And in theory, you can bait a crab pot, dump it off a dock, tie it off, and catch some crab. The catch is that the crabs need to be a particular size and male to be legal to keep to eat. As it turns out, this is easier said than done. After nearly four hours of watching crab pots go down and then come back up, we ended up with zero Dungeness crabs. We did, however, get a close up look at the Charleston (Oregon) fishing fleet, saw several harbor seals playing in the bay, and learn that Dungeness crab are really feisty and pretty grumpy about being caught. I also have a whole new found respect for why Dungeness crab is expensive. We gave up, bought stuff to grill, and bought some already cooked and cleaned crab from the seafood shop at the dock. Totally worth it – sunburn and all.

The experience also inspired me to create this Vitamin Sea Martini. I’m all for blue-green cocktails this time of year. To me, the quintessential summer drink is one with plenty of pineapple juice and blue curacao. For this cocktail, I also used a hearty couple of shots of vanilla vodka. So wherever you might be this summer, make a Vitamin Sea Martini and imagine relaxing in a light sea breeze.