TARVIN SEAFOOD
N E W S L E T T E R
OCTOBER 2021
After a long stretch of waiting for the big shrimp to arrive, the wait is over! So far October is looking very promising and plentiful! Mother nature always calls the shots for each shrimp season and some are better than others. And, we always want what we cannot have so when the small and medium shrimp are in abundance, everyone wants the big ones, when the big ones finally arrive those medium shrimp lovers seem to flock in. There is good news for all of you; we work very hard beginning to end of each season to process as many sizes as possible into one pound trays for retail sales and larger bulk supplies for our loyal restaurants. Speaking of restaurants did you all know that you can find our beautiful shrimp in restaurants all over the Lowcountry? That’s right, we deliver daily to our restaurants so they can create fabulous dishes featuring our shrimp for you to enjoy!
Many of you have started to follow along with us on social media and see our daily offerings “at the door” inside the fish house so you may have noticed some beautiful brown shrimp being featured the past couple of months. We have a great working relationship with a boat out of Florida where one of our boats travels seasonally. While the brown shrimp are dwindling we will start to see some of the gorgeous Royal Reds coming our way later this Fall. This weekend we are cranking back with oysters and will feature Lowcountry Oyster Company as our season opener! We also look forward welcoming Barrier Island oysters and Lady’s Island oysters very soon! Littleneck clams made a comeback this past weekend and quickly sold out in one afternoon-have no fear, we will order lots more for the upcoming weekend and try to keep them in stock each week!
With the Holidays just around the corner, we are putting the final touches on new designs for t-shirts, long sleeve t-shirts, hats, and koozies for purchase in the retail shop (the retail shop being the fish house, but we like to sound fancy sometimes, ha!). So many fun things in the “retail shop” these days, grits, sausages, fish fry dredge, cocktail sauces, hot sauces, and dry spices! In fact, this months featured Chef, Ty Kotz, has created an amazing Shrimp Curry highlighting a very special single origin Curry that you can purchase along with your shrimp! One stop shop! Be sure to CLICK on our Featured Recipes to make this amazing curry at home! Chef Ty is a private chef who curates intimate or larger dinners in your home highlighting all of the bounty of seasonal produce, seafood, and meats found across
the Lowcountry. Make his Shrimp Curry at home, just follow his easy recipe!
JULY 2021
They say “shrimpin’ ain’t easy and we are living that truth right now! With lots of inclement weather these past few months we are seeing a sporadic catch with the shrimp. It is Brown shrimp season and these little guys while sweet and delicious, they aren’t ideal for those seeking Jumbo shrimp! We are as always grateful to have an excellent working relationship with a boat in Florida as well as our own freezer boat to continue to try to provide us with shrimp.
With the restaurants back in full swing after some relief from Covid-19 we can hardly keep up, but we are doing our best! As many of you are aware we are a retail and wholesale small business so when the demand is greater than the supply we try to stay loyal to everyone as best we can. We want to thank everyone for the continued support and understanding. The Miss Paula is still down with a few different issues and we hope to have her back up and running out on the water very soon, hopefully just in time for when the shrimp come back in abundance. The Carolina Breeze will most likely be setting out to travel the coast soon, provided they can find the big shrimp and load a full boat! Our normally stocked freezer is looking like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard!
Some good news; we are working with a graphics person who will soon be providing us with a fun new design for HATS! YAY HATS! We have quite a few awesome locally sourced retail items on our shelves still to go with your shrimp, so don’t forget when you stop by whatever your dinner plans are we have you covered on cocktail sauces, hot sauce, rubs, boil, broth, sausages, and grits!
Speaking of dinner plans; or really any time of the day plans, we have a yummy new dish this month in our FEATURED RECIPES section! This recipe is for a Custard Cornbread with Miss Paula’s shrimp, feta, and cherry tomatoes! You could bake these baby off in the morning and eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner; a sort of “spoon bread” type vibe! Chef Caitlin Schumacher has been working in restaurants for over 15 years, to include the James Beard award winning restaurant FIG, where she helmed the pastry kitchen as Executive Pastry Chef. You will soon be able to find Caitlin behind the wheel (in the kitchen) of her brand new food truck that will feature small-batch baked goods and savory pastry treats on James Island! Look for her Truck, Girl Next Dough late summer, but for now-go check out her easy to create at home recipe with our shrimpies!
MAY 2021
Shrimp season 2021 has begun! Offshore waters are open! The Shem Creek fleet has been having a good run so far! A few boats will wait to shrimp when inshore waters open slightly closer to the beaches. This will be there may be more varying sizes to catch; currently we are seeing about a 16/18 count which means larger shrimp! Have no fear all of you medium shrimp lovers; your time is coming! We are happy to see a few more boats tying up to the dock this month. The MY GIRLS, run by Captain Timmy Hewett and crew is back in town and Paul Richardson will Captain the WITS END. Our very own Carolina Breeze is back in town and Captain Donnie Brown will remain here until he goes South to keep up with the big shrimp.
We had a quick but plentiful first season of Soft Shell crabs right in our very own backyard; look for round two of those coming this Fall! The Fish House has been all hustle and bustle leading up to the season and off to the races now catching up on freezing and processing the shrimp! We are happy to have Cindy and Taylor’s youngest son, Kola, and fiancé Christine on board this season as well. Kola has a long background in the shrimping business. Like his brother he spent much of his young adult life on the dock, shrimp boats, and fishing. Christine has background in fly fishing and is excited to learn all about shrimp, shrimp, shrimp! Joining them are their two dogs, Argus & Dixie who will add to the occasional “bring your kid to the dock day.”
For all of you John’s Island and close by residents who don’t make it to the dock as often as you would like due to traffic and distance, great news; we will now be at the Sea Island Farmers market every Saturday 9:30-1:30 with fresh shrimp and some other rotating goodies! Please note our regular ours at the dock have also resumed, we are now open Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 10am-4pm! We are happy to see many of our restaurants doing well again after a very long scary year. We will continue to do our best to provide fresh local shrimp to everyone while we are catching up from the offseason.
As you know, we have been featuring a professional Chef each month from one of our supporting restaurants, private Chefs, or caterers; this month we bring you a recipe by Phil Brenner. Phil curates in home culinary experiences to clients all over the Lowcountry. Chef Phil wanted to highlight as many local ingredients (found at the dock to note) as possible for this easy to make at home spring dish of Miss Paula’s Shrimp & Butterbean Salad! Click on our Featured Recipes button on our HOME PAGE to make this at home!
MARCH 2021
Whelp, it seems appropriate while still in wild times that we may run a little late on our “monthly” newsletter! Spring is in the air and we couldn’t be more ready for warmer weather, longer days, and fresh shrimp to start rolling back in! As many of you already know, we have started our shellfish program and added a few locally sourced oyster and clam choices to our menu. When growing our business it is important to us to truly know our products and support other small businesses like-minded to our model. Small footprint, hand raised or caught locally, and other sustainable practices. We are excited to be partnered with our friends at Barrier Island Oyster Co, Lady Island Oyster Co, Bulls Bay Seafood, and Evan Dockery’s Folly River Clams. So far, everyone has been super happy at their table with these amazing items!
Readying the boats for Shrimp Season 2021, all Captains and crew are hard at work looking forward to getting back on the water. As of now, the annual Blessing of the Fleet is set for April 25, 2021. This is a fun and lovely ceremony to commemorate the start of the shrimping season and wish the boats “fair winds and following seas.” A lot goes into preparing for each season to include sending nets off to be dipped, mended, and weather protected. The boats often get hauled out to the boatyard for a bottom paint coat, cleaning, and any touch-ups necessary. Rigging gets cleaned; routine maintenance on winches, cables, and engine work is done. There is no shortage of activity inside the Fish House this time of year either!
We are grateful to have thrived in such difficult times and we have amazing fish house staff and our loyal restaurants and retail customers near and far to thank for that! We are working on a “meet our team” element to our website so that you may get to know further our people that keep things moving like a well-oiled machine. Our shrimp is caught, handled, and sold to your table all by our small staff. You may have noticed a more consistent social media presence that is informative of our
daily offerings and keeps you visibly in touch with all things dock, water, boats, and goodies!
If you do not yet follow us on Facebook or Instagram, jump on board! As always, we have a new Chef adding some deliciousness to this month's newsletter in our “Featured Recipe” spotlight! Emily Hahn, our in house multitasker and amateur I.T. gal is the eyes behind the lens for most of our pictures and has shared her recipe for Marinated shrimp & clams on the half shell.
January 2021
Wow! We made it to 2021, feels good to write that date above! We want to thank everyone who supported our small shrimping business through what may have been the toughest year for many. We look forward to fulfilling all your shrimp needs and more in this new year!
Speaking of more, we are excited about a few new additions to our product list! We are now carrying OYSTERS! Our heart has always been local, and small businesses with like minded practices, so we teamed up with Barrier Island Oyster Company and Lady's Island Oyster Company to bring you two unique tasting delicious oyster options. Barrier Island SEA CLOUD Selects are raised in floating cages close to the open ocean provides the oyster with constant wave action which provides a perfectly "tide-tumbled" oyster clean, salty, briny, and beautiful. They jumped into the wild harvest game just a few months ago to bring the us a super clean cluster sold by the half bushel. Lady's Island Oyster are our newest addition. Coming from Beaufort, SC, the Coosaw River. Their signature SINGLE LADY oyster is hand nurtured from seed to harvest. We are happy to have this sweet & salty beauty at the dock! We will now be carrying ROYAL RED SHRIMP from a boat & Captain we work closely with out of Florida. Royal Reds are sweet flavor like a lobster, crab, and scallop made a shrimp baby! These beautiful shrimp are bright white and red all over. They take a gentle hand in cooking as they cook twice as fast as White Shrimp and can get mushy if overcooked. Don't over do it, a tiny bit of butter, salt, and fresh squeeze of lemon are all you need!
A word from the water! The season is slowly wrapping up locally so we bid the Carolina Breeze, Captain Donnie Brown and crew a safe trip down South to continue to bring us some beautiful white shrimp through the off season. That's right, we won't be running out of shrimp!
And now for the most delicious part of this Newsletter, the featured recipe! We asked our gals at SIMPLE PROVISIONS to give us their WHITE SHRIMP SALAD ROLL recipe, because who doesn't LOVE shrimp salad? Tess Atwood, Blake McCormick, and Kirsten Lawton are the Chef/Owners with a true knack for curating your special occasions, events, or simple meals to eat at home. Give them a follow at SIMPLE PROVISIONS on Instagram to see more of what they do!