The new guy at the pier is steeped in the fishing business
Captain Mike Abdow has walked across the busy parking lot of the Chatham Fish Pier many times with a couple of big, beautiful striped bass, and people will call out and ask if they can buy them. Abdow will say “Sure,” then walk into the back door of the Chatham Pier Fish Market where that bass will soon be in the case. “I think that’s important to people,” Abdow said...
Pier program is a constant in uncertain times
After visiting the observation deck at the Chatham Fish Pier, three siblings climbed around the metal sculpture honoring fishermen and talked about all they had learned. Frances Leyshon, 8, was able to say what fish was coming in, dogfish, and “they filled the whole back of the boat.” Emerson, 6, knew commercial lobstermen came in as well – and had gotten to see a boat unload...
From local veterans to food banks state-wide, haddock chowder is a hit
Emily Yerby works for the Greater Boston Food Bank and came home from an “insanely” hard day at work too exhausted to cook dinner. So she threw some haddock chowder on the stove, the same chowder that has been offered at pantries across the state. “It was perfect,” she said. “This for me has been a silver lining during all this chaos.” The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance new haddock chowder first arrived in mid-August and proved popular right away...
The October Gale of 1841 was the worst single killer of fishermen in Cape Cod history
Make a list of 57 people you have known since childhood, from your hometown. Make them all men, mostly young men, some teenagers. Think about what they mean to you, the experiences you’ve shared. Then try to imagine all of them dead, lost without warning, never to be seen again.
PHOTO GALLERY: Chatham Pier Fish Market has a busy summer
The more things change, the more they stay the same, and the Chatham Pier Fish Market shows the truth in that. Take a picture tour of the Chatham Fish Pier Market, which although updated has been an important presence at the pier for more than 50 years. Meet Steve Gennodie, the new owner, who has some improvements in the works, but was drawn to the site for its history...
Here’s how comment moves into the federal process
The old line about legislation and sausage being similar – you don’t really want to look too hard at how either of them is made – comes to mind for fishing regulations too. It can be quite a process. Right now we are in the thick of an effort to improve what’s known as “the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan.” Amendment 23 to the plan is on the table, put there after years of discussion (cantankerous and otherwise) backed by data and research...
Two children of fishing families connect
Not long ago, Faye Anderson was sitting in the office of the Fishermen’s Alliance chatting about her new lobster business with her dad, longtime fisherman Mike Anderson, while people across the Cape watched from home. Faye, who owns Chatham Lobsters with her fiance Brock Bobisink, was describing how many of the lobsters that get caught in traps are set free alive, too small for example, or laden with eggs...
Shucked oysters should be local, too
Chef Michael Beriau, a two-time winner in the culinary Olympics, is no stranger to good food. So he was thrilled when he had the opportunity to create four recipes that would showcase the potential locked in a shucked, frozen oyster from the Cape. He prepared several dishes, including cumin-fried oysters with an enchilada vinaigrette-topped black bean, roasted corn, and rice tortilla bowl and butter-poached oyster tartlets with anisette and hollandaise glaze...
Special delivery: Haddock chowder helps hungry
Every New Year’s Eve, Bill Amaru makes clam chowder for about 200 people at Chatham’s Masonic Hall for First Night. He takes it very seriously, adds just the right spices – and a lot of butter. But this year, on account of COVID-19, he won’t be making that chowder. He will, however, be part of a far more ambitious chowder undertaking, also born out of the pandemic...
Oral histories, real voices from the past
There was a time when Chatham fishermen got three cents a pound for cod and since there was no fish pier they unloaded right on the beach. And when the price was too low they sold them salted. Hearing stories from that time, from those who experienced it first-hand, is a rare thing. But with oral histories collected by the Chatham Historical Society and more recently by the Fishermen’s Alliance, it’s possible to return to fishing in Chatham generations ago...
PHOTO GALLERY: Capturing haddock chowder in the making
If it takes a village to raise a child, it also took a village to create a haddock chowder that will help keep local fishermen on the water and support food banks and pantries feeding friends and neighbors. In these photos you meet some of those villagers, and see some of the steps taken to create our first big batch. With philanthropic support from Catch Together, MIT Sea Grant and others, the journey went from Great Eastern Seafood in Boston for processing to the Plenus Group in Lowell for chowder making, both companies family owned and operated...
Thoughts from the Hookers Ball this time around
Every year around Hookers Ball time we create a video to share with people under the tent, part recap, part celebration, always providing glimpses of some of the great fishermen and personalities we work with. This year the ball had to become virtual, but that didn’t stop us from celebrating, or creating our annual video. So I wanted to share with you the thoughts I expressed in this year’s version, this most unusual time around:
