Clams Casino

Clams Casino George Anderson, Swan’s Island Recipe courtesy of the Swan’s Island Cooks The most important part of this recipe is to buy your clams fresh. On most islands this shouldn’t be a problem. Here on Swan’s Island you can buy from George Anderson or Kevin Staples (Appy’s Place). How much you ask? Restaurants usually

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One Great Pot of Beans

I used my dark brown and tan earthenware pot. It’s full of rich dark brown Marifax beans, bubbling gently. The top of the beans glisten lightly with fat freed from the salt pork and the pork itself, pulled to the surface, is browned here and there. The beans smell savory when I spoon them out,

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Shrimping in Thailand

But the bulk of the shrimp sold elsewhere in the U.S. and even in New England, is not the tiny, northern wild-caught Pandalus borealis, but bigger shrimp, similar to those harvested by southern shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico. However, most of the shrimp sold nationwide–more than 80 percent–are not wild-caught at all, but farmed

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Island Institute(s)?: Part 2 of 3

This is the second of a series of columns that will discuss an inflection point in our organization’s history: what is the proper scale of the/an Island Institute? There used to be a joke among the staff of the Island Institute about dreading the moment when you might be pulled aside at a community meeting

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Lifeboat Ethics

People who move to island communities from elsewhere often imagine their new lives will be simpler and more peaceful than in those places–usually an urban or suburban community–they have left behind. But nothing could be further from the truth. To be a hermit, you need your own island; the last place you should go to

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