Tea at Trianon: Chesapeake Seafood Market

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Chesapeake Seafood Market

It was the ugliest building in town, probably built around 1970, when modernity was brown and angular, and has gone through several reincarnations. As the Chesapeake Seafood Market it looks nothing like its former self but is bright and airy. It is a place I like to visit for its convenient parking as well as its phenomenal selection. When I stopped by last Thursday, the meat market was closed. I hope it is only closed temporarily since they had the most wonderful roasted chickens.

According to the website:

Chesapeake Seafood has been a part of the Eastern Shore for more than 50 years. Ed Higgins was an eastern shore native who grew up in a family of working watermen on the Miles, Wye, and Choptank rivers.

In the early 1960’s Ed traded in the watermen’s life and began an oyster and soft-shell clam shucking house. It didn’t take long for Mr. Higgins to expand beyond the shucking house to the restaurant, catering, and seafood market businesses in both St. Michaels and Ocean City. The business expanded to buying and selling seafood up and down the east coast including New York City and Boston.

Today the business, run by Glenn, his wife Linda, and son Adam operates a Seafood Market, Prime Meats butcher shop, and a robust catering business. Complete surf and turf offerings from crabs, shrimp, and oysters to ribeye, tenderloins, roast chickens, and dry-aged meat are readily available along with a large selection of spices, sauces, and grab-in-go offerings.

Glenn is an avid fisherman and expert in cleaning and preparing all types of seafood. You can expect the seafood side of the market to carry a wide variety of fresh seafood such as rockfish, clams, scallops, shrimp, oysters, salmon, tuna, and of course eastern blue crabs.