Good morning, it’s Monday. Let’s get to it!
The weekend was sort of a bust, weather wise, which was a bit of a bummer.
I know we need the rain and all, but hot I can do as long as there’s the promise of a nice dip in the pool or the lake to cool things off. But hot, humid, and stormy is just an all around downer – especially in the summer, since we have such a limited time to enjoy all it has to offer.
Personally, I think a perfect light summer meal would include a plateful of oysters on the half shell. A nice glass of white wine would be idea, but since that’s no longer on the menu for me, I make do with a bitter grapefruit soda, or even a sparkling Saratoga water.
Oysters are something of a superfood, since they’re low in calories and high in lots of beneficial things like selenium and iron. There’s also the whole aphrodisiac thing, which I have never personally experienced and therefore think is a myth. But if it works for you, by all means, have at it.
Of course, eating raw food is always a risk, and it’s one I’m willing to take. I don’t have a lot of vices, but enjoying raw seafood is one I’ve hung onto. Fried or roasted oysters have their place and can, in their own way, be delicious, but I really prefer them uncooked.
In fact, I enjoyed a delicious half dozen on ice – extra lemon and cocktail sauce, of course, and also some tiny oyster crackers on the side – just this past Saturday night. (Pro tip: If you live in the Capital Region and have not yet eaten here, get yourself there immediately; the seafood is phenomenal. I have never had a single bad dish there. Full stop).
Now, you might be thinking: “You ate raw oysters in AUGUST – a month that does not include the letter ‘r’?! Are you insane?” Well, I’m here to tell you that the old adage about not indulging in oysters in the warmer summer months (May through August) had a higher likelihood of making you sick is simply outdated.
Once upon a time – like back before refrigeration – this might have been the case, but no more. So indulge year-round to your heart’s content. But again, be forewarned: There’s still a risk of illness, regardless or when or where you consumer oysters. But these days, that’s also true of pretty much anything – from deli meat to bagged salad.
Someone, somewhere must agree with me, because today is National Oyster Day.
There are more than 200 species of oysters around the world, though only five are commercially harvested and grown in the U.S. – Pacific, Atlantic or Eastern (these are the Bluepoints and Wellfleets you probably see quite frequently on New York menus), Kumamotos, Olympia (small and sweet, these are the world’s most cultivated oyster) and European Flats.
Interestingly, oysters were not always viewed as a high-end delicacy, but rather were an abundant and affordable food staple for hunter-gather communities dating back many centuries.
Oysters and other mollusks, which tend to grow in shallow waters and don’t move around too much (if at all), once were so plentiful that they could easily be found and harvested and therefore were a staple of the early human diet. Likely, these early peoples ate their oysters cooked, as they lacked sufficiently sharp implements to shuck them.
Interestingly, oysters played a key role in the history of New York City, which might be difficult to fathom today, given the less-than-ideal state of the waters surrounding the five boroughs. Over the span of about a century, New Yorkers removed most of the wild oysters from the harbor, consumed their meat and used the shells for building the roads and buildings that created the city.
The city was once so closely tied to this unassuming mollusk that it was known as the Big Oyster. True story.
Oysters, in my humble opinion, are best consumed while sitting outside, under an umbrella, breathing in some briny sea air and admiring the waves crashing on the shore. Sadly, this week is looking not so fabulous when it comes to outdoor pursuits, with lots rain and storms in the forecast and temperatures even dropping into the chilly mid-70s as the days pass.
Today will bring a mix of sun and clouds with temperatures in the high 80s. Enjoy it while you can.
In the headlines…
Vice President Kamala Harris was meeting yesterday with top candidates to be her running mate, moving to close out her search with a test of chemistry between herself and a potential partner.
At least three leading contenders — Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania — were scheduled to meet with Harris at her residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington.
Shapiro is facing renewed criticism for his handling of a sexual harassment complaint against a longtime top aide.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie claimed former President Donald Trump is to blame for Shapiro’s popularity after he endorsed Shapiro’s GOP Republican opponent in 2022.
The final stage of the campaign to be Harris’s running mate reached something of an ugly phase in recent days as donors, interest groups and political rivals from the party’s moderate and progressive wings lobbied for their preferred candidates.
Harris has secured enough votes from delegates to become her party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said. She will become the first Black woman and first Asian American to lead a major-party ticket.
The announcement came during a virtual event with supporters Friday. Delegates began casting virtual ballots for the nomination Thursday, a process that will continue until Monday evening.
Trump declared late on Friday that he was dropping out of an ABC News debate scheduled for Sept. 10 and presented a counterproposal to Vice President Kamala Harris, his presumptive opponent, to face off on Fox News six days earlier.
“I’ll see her on September 4th or, I won’t see her at all,” the former president wrote on his Truth Social platform. He doubled down on that pronouncement at his rally Saturday evening in Georgia, telling attendees, “We’re doing one with Fox, if she shows up.”
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Virginia Republican, endorsed Harris’s bid for president and warned that sending Trump back to the White House “would endanger U.S. citizens — and create global chaos.”
Trump’s comments questioning Kamala Harris’ Black identity and stumbles by his running mate JD Vance are prompting growing unease among Republicans.
Trump and his running mate, Vance shared a similar stance when asked in interviews about Harris’ looming VP pick: They say they don’t care.
The numbers game is everything to Trump, so the big turnout for Harris’s first big rally appears to have gotten under his skin.
Doug Emhoff, Harris’s husband, said on Saturday that he had an extramarital affair during his first marriage, years before he met the vice president.
The acknowledgment, which was released in a statement, came hours after a British tabloid reported that Emhoff had a previously undisclosed relationship with a teacher who worked at the elementary school his children attended approximately 15 years ago.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, confessed yesterday that he had left a dead bear cub in Central Park in Manhattan in 2014 because he thought it would be “amusing.”
Kennedy posted a video detailing the bizarre story on social media apparently ahead of an article in The New Yorker.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.
Debby rapidly strengthened into a hurricane last night, hours before it was expected to make landfall over Florida’s Big Bend coast early today. It will bring potentially “catastrophic flooding” and heavy rainfall to the Southeast region this week, forecasters said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to help Democrats win back the House this year includes a new program aimed at mobilizing party volunteers from across the state to work in battleground districts like Central New York.
Seven Staten Island pols are pressing Hochul to remove an MTA board member who recommended stripping the forgotten borough of its promised new railcars.
Next year around this time, if all goes as planned, New York’s fire codes should see a significant update on how to fight a new kind of fire — in industrial-scale battery arrays.
The race to unseat Adams heated last week when city Comptroller Brad Lander officially announced he’s entering next June’s primary.
Lander is reportedly looking to sink millions in taxpayer cash to boost the salaries and size of his staff overseeing pension-fund investments — despite lackluster returns in recent years.
Lander’s mayoral bid will set off a game of political musical chairs, with other lefty Dems scrambling to grab seats once thought to be untouchable.
Lander is launching a probe into rival Adams’ high-profile “Operation Padlock” program that has closed about 800 unlicensed cannabis shops in the city since mid-May.
Lander’s bid for the mayor of the Big Apple is already facing its first hurdle: the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is proving to be an early vulnerability, leaving him open to attacks those in the party from prominent voices in the Jewish community, experts said.
Colombia’s government spent as much as $5,000 on travel expenses for embattled City Hall adviser Tim Pearson during his trip to the country with Adams last year — contradicting claims by the mayor that he and Pearson “picked up their own costs.”
Ex-Gov. George Pataki says a fellow Republican could win the New York City mayor’s race next year if Big Apple Dems skew any more to the left.
A lefty nonprofit is encouraging Democrats to vote in the districts where their vacation homes are in order to “maximize” their voting power — a “morally reprehensible” strategy experts said gives an unfair advantage to the rich and motivated.
Big Apple hotel owners plan on raising $20 million to launch a new lobbying group to combat a City Council bill they say will destroy the local lodging industry.
A pair of shootings deepened quality-of-life concerns among Brooklyn neighbors of a giant office development being used to shelter migrants from Africa and Latin America.
The MTA is still putting the finishing touches on its Grand Central Madison terminal 18 months after it first opened for Long Island Rail Road commuters, following years of construction delays.
Eighth Avenue in Manhattan connects Broadway’s theaters to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. But it is also crowded, dirty and sometimes dangerous.
More than four years after the coronavirus upended life in New York City, some of the most visible vestiges of the pandemic — outdoor dining structures erected outside thousands of restaurants — are facing a deadline that could see many of them razed.
New York City has activated its heat emergency plan for a record 21 days so far this summer, and by Monday, the number is likely to rise to 24, emergency management officials said.
Police officers caught a slithering snake in the West Village yesterday, the NYPD said.
The NYPD chief bitten by a city councilwoman during a raucous shelter protest last week in Brooklyn is “pissed off” the pol is making herself out to be the victim.
The NYC’s Department of Education food-service managers reportedly ordered three times as many apples as needed — forcing them to throw away thousands of cases of rotting fruit in the last four months.
A perfect day for swimming on Long Island came to a crashing halt Saturday when a shark was spotted at Nickerson Beach — the latest in a record number of encounters with the apex predators.
Justin Timberlake’s world tour detoured to Sag Harbor, N.Y., on Friday, when a judge suspended his driving privileges in New York while he fights a drunken-driving charge.
Two development projects could significantly transform the landscape of both popular public green spaces in the heart of Brooklyn.
Every summer, a neighborhood in Queens loses its beach to piping plovers, an endangered shorebird. Some residents want it back.
The Giant Hogweed is one of the most dangerous invasive plants in the US — and it’s all over New York state.
Nearly a thousand correction officers, their families and supporters crowded a truck stop in Fort Ann, Washington County yesterday to protest the planned closure of Great Meadow Correctional Facility.
The New York State Writers Institute returns this fall with a slate of Nobel Prize-, Oscar- and Pulitzer-winners; up-and-coming and veteran authors; and special celebrations, including a second marathon reading with William Kennedy.
The state comptroller’s office released a scathing report on the city of Rensselaer Friday, describing long-overdue financial reports and gaps in financial transactions after auditing the city from August 2016 to September 2022.
Near the parking lot of the Home Depot on Central Avenue, a group of undocumented migrants, mostly from Ecuador and Senegal, have been seeking work for months.
Residents at Danker Village, a Lincoln Avenue apartment complex in Albany, are pushing back against what they see as unfair rent hikes, with some facing increases greater than 30 percent.
The Troy City Council Finance Committee voted a second time last week to create a new city Planning Board after its first effort failed to muster a supermajority of five votes to allow it to be voted on immediately instead of waiting seven days.
Three Capital Region city fire departments showed off new hand-held equipment that will allow firefighters to turn off electric vehicles in emergency situations such as rescuing a person from the vehicle.
Nauman Hussain’s appeal of his manslaughter conviction in the deadly 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie will be argued Sept. 6 in front of the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, according to a recent court filing.
The union representing nurses at Albany Medical Center and the hospital have agreed to bring in a mediator to help with contract negotiations, which have been marked with difficulty and disagreements over staffing levels.
A former village clerk from Steuben County will be the first government worker in New York to forfeit a public pension as part of a criminal conviction related to official government duties.
NPR correspondent Ina Jaffe, who had been battling cancer for some time, died at the age of 75.
“Live at Five” photo credit: George Fazio
