FORTY FORT, Pa. — Suraci's Italian Cafe in Forty Fort offers Italian cuisine in a cozy laid back atmosphere. Owner Dan Matechak offers Italian specialty meats, cheeses and hoagies along with delicious Italian fare that is all made from scratch! When we visited, Chef Dan prepared a Crab Cavatelli. We watched as he made the dough and made the cavatelli to order. Recipe Below.
CRAB CAVATELLI
Dough
1 qt. all-purpose flout
2 qts. durham semolina flour
6 eggs
1/4 cup salt
3 lbs. ricotta cheese
Mix for 1/2 hour on low
Sauce
2 cloves garlic
2 diced Roma tomatoes
2 oz. white wine
1 oz. olive oil
4 oz. marinara
2 oz. cream
pinch salt and red pepper flakes
Sautee garlic in olive oil, add tomatoes, deglaze with white wine.
Reduce and add marinara, cream, salt and pepper.
Self-taught cook Cuc Lam first gained the attention of Houston foodies by hosting pop-ups in her home and at local restaurants, preparing multicultural Asian dishes. That led to her first job as chef of Sing, the Heights Malaysian restaurant, now closed.
But Lam is still cooking, and her new restaurant, a banh mi and coffee shop called Yelo, is opening in Katy in a partnership with Alex Au-Yeung, proprietor of Phat Eatery, the Malaysian street-food restaurant in Katy Asian Town. At Yelo, next door to Phat Eatery, Lam serves classic banh mi and new interpretations including beef rendang and curry chicken, as well as a take on a French dip made with beef brisket dipped in pho broth.
Lam, of Chinese and Vietnamese descent, also is versed in shrimp spring rolls. This is her recipe.
8 large shrimp
4 large green leaf lettuce leaves
½ cup bean sprouts
Fresh cilantro, to taste
Fresh mint, to taste
4 spring roll rice paper sheets (about 8 ½-inch diameter)
Warm water (for dipping rice paper)
4-8 cucumber slices (sliced thin, lengthwise about 5 inches long)
Boil shrimp in shell until just cooked. Allow to cool, remove shells and slice in half lengthwise. You will have 16 slices of shrimp.
Wash lettuce and herbs and allow to dry.
Fill a shallow bowl with warm water. Dip rice paper in water to soften, so entire surface is wet on all sides. Do this quickly; do not soak.
Lay the rice paper on a clean surface. Place 1 lettuce leaf toward the lower half of the rice paper. On top of lettuce place ¼ of bean sprouts, 1 or 2 slices of cucumber, 1 ounce of cooked vermicelli, 1 to 2 tablespoons of mango/papaya salad and leaves of cilantro and mint to taste. These stuffing elements should be spread about 5 inches in length.
Begin folding:
Fold left side inward, then right side. From the bottom begin rolling up. At halfway, lay down 4 slices of shrimp. Continue tucking and rolling up. The shrimp will be visible through the paper, so arrange them attractively.
Serve with peanut hoisin sambal.
MANGO/PAPAYA SALAD
1 mango
1 papaya
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons white vinegar
Instructions:
Grate or julienne mango and papaya. Toss together in a bowl with sugar, water and vinegar to create a simple, slawlike salad. You will have much more than needed for 4 spring rolls.
PEANUT HOISIN SAMBAL
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
More Information
Yelo 23119 Colonial Parkway, Suite B3, Katy ★ 281-665-8628
1 teaspoon sesame oil
½ cup hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
½ cup coconut soda
1 tablespoon sriracha
1 tablespoon sambal olek (or another tablespoon of sriracha)
2 tablespoons black vinegar (white is fine)
Juice of one small lime
Crushed peanuts
Instructions:
In a pan, sauté garlic in sesame oil over medium heat for 30 seconds. Add hoisin, peanut butter and coconut soda and stir until peanut butter is mixed in well.
Add sriracha, sambal olek and vinegar and continue stirring. Turn off heat and squeeze in lime. Stir, allow to cool and place sauce in a bowl. Sprinkle with about 2 tablespoons chopped peanuts. Serve.
Note:
Sambal olek is a chili paste that can be found at Asian markets. Spring roll rice paper wrappers and coconut soda also can be found in Asian markets.
Possible delay of crab season could be another economic blow
Fisherman are about to find out if the Dungeness crab season will start November 15. If not, the delay would be another devastating blow after what has already been a difficult year.
SAN FRANCISCO - A decision is coming soon as to whether crabs will be in markets in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will decide next week whether the crab season will start on time: November 15.
At Pier 45 in San Francisco's Fishermen's Wharf, crab traps are lined up, ready to go.
Fishermen say a delay will be another blow in what has been a difficult year.
"Trying to get this season up and rolling," says John Barnett as he prepares his boat for the upcoming season. "Thanksgiving, Christmas, the holidays, crabs. We open before any other spot in the state."
But there may be a catch to this season: a possible delay due to concerns about endangered whales becoming entangled in crab fishing gear.
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There are new rules that go into effect Sunday, November 1.
They allow the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to close or limit fishing in areas where whales and sea turtles may be harmed.
"Their rules are a good first step," Steve Jones with the Center for Biological Diversity.
He says the new rules came when the environmental nonprofit filed a lawsuit because of the high number of whales being entangled: a peak of 66 in 2016.
"Whales are essential to healthy oceans. They spread nutrients around the ocean. They sequester carbon and offset climate change," says Jones.
Ryan Bartling is senior environmental scientist with the state. He says analysis is now being done with aerial surveys he did this week to see where the whales are. He says the information will help determine whether the season needs to be delayed
"Trying to find the right balance of protecting species and minimizing impact on fishermen," says Bartling.
In May, a devastating fire at Pier 45 destroyed a shed where 31 fishermen stored their gear.
Barnett estimates the loss of his equipment to be $300,000.
He says he could only afford to buy a fraction of the crab traps he had and he hasn't been able to fully equip his boat.
"If it's delayed for a long time, there's no income. We need income to pay for all these expenses we've incurred," says Barnett, "If they don't open on time, there's a good reason. We don't want to tangle the whale."
The state is expected to make a decision by the middle of next week.
But it's not all or nothing.
The crab season may start on time, but crab fishing may be prohibited in certain areas.
The circulatory and respiration systems in tuna are unique among fish. The circulatory system, which consists of the heart and the network of vessels through which blood is pumped, is designed to conserve or to dissipate heat as needed.
When a tuna is relatively inactive, heat conservation is required; as the fish’s activity increases, heat dissipation may be needed.
Temperature regulation in tuna is complex; it depends not only on the level of activity and the size of the fish, but also on the temperature of the surrounding water.
Unlike most other fish, a tuna usually maintains its body at temperatures higher than the temperature of the water in which it swims. Scientists believe that this high body temperature may allow an increased rate of glycolysis — the breakdown of sugar in the muscles – enabling the fish to make rapid use of this chemical energy in a sudden burst of activity.
Presumably, digestion proceeds at a faster rate when the temperature of the abdomen is elevated. The tuna may also benefit from better performance of its brain and eyes at a higher body temperature.
The heat needed to maintain the tuna’s body temperature above the temperature of the surrounding waters is generated by the fish’s high metabolic rate. A high metabolic rate requires a good supply of oxygen. A larger proportion of the dissolved oxygen is taken from the water by certain tuna than by any other fish.
The size of the oxygen-gathering surface in these tuna approaches that of the respiratory surface area found in the lungs of mammals of comparable weight. Another factor in oxygen absorption is the concentration of hemoglobin, the oxygen-transporting pigment in blood. Hemoglobin concentration is as high in the tuna as in humans.
To supply its gills with oxygenated water, the tuna must swim constantly. These fish have lost many of the structures required to pump water over their gills.
This continuous swimming also compensates for the loss or reduction of the swim bladder in tuna — the organ that makes most fish buoyant.
The tuna’s extended pectoral fins apparently act as lifting hydrofoils, counteracting the weight of the fish in the water. The constant forward motion keeps the fish from sinking.
The musculature of the tuna seems to be adapted to make such continuous activity possible. Like most fish, tuna have two types of muscles: white muscle that functions in short bursts of activity, and red muscle that functions in continuous swimming.
In tuna, the mass of red muscle is relatively large, allowing the fish to swim for long periods without fatigue.
Because of its stamina, its high oxygen uptake and its speed, the tuna can be thought of as both a sprinter and a marathon runner.
Tuna are noted for their ability to maintain speeds for long periods of time and for bursts of activity in which they can attain remarkable speeds.
The slowest swimming speed of many tuna exceeds one body length per second. At that rate, a fish three feet long could cross the Pacific Ocean in less than two months.
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An ambitious new aquaculture enterprise is aiming to produce mud crab in a sustainable manner using European technology in Indonesia for the Chinese market. Roskilde, Denmark-based Eco Blue Seafood is planning on commencing construction of a recirculating aquaculture system facility in Indonesia next year. The firm is working with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and their Aquaculture department on nutrition during the hatchery and nursery phases, while also engaging Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) as consultant on water resources and technology. The project’s ‘turnkey partner’ is Danish company Alpha Aqua. In an interview, Eco Blue Seafood CEO Martin A. Pedersen told SeafoodSource the firm is hoping to tap private and public investors in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. to finance the project.
SeafoodSource:What is the basis for your profitability thesis in targeting the mud crab market in China?
Pedersen:We know from our global seafood trading partner and their people in China that premium-quality, live, extra-large mud crabs are in high and continuously increasing demand, which is also reflected in market prices. Furthermore, we follow what is going on in the Southeast Asia region and where most of the supply of mud crab is being exported to mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore. Whether demand is high or supply is low is in the eyes of the beholder, but there is definitely a huge gap between the two, and Eco Blue Seafood intends to fill it.
SeafoodSource:Who is your retail or distribution partner in China?
Pedersen:Our trading partner in China is the Sirena Group from Denmark. They have been trading primarily frozen seafood to Chinese customers for more than 30 years and enjoy great brand loyalty and recognition. Live mud crab from Eco Blue Seafood will be sold to the highest bidder, but the primary focus is modern fresh seafood supermarkets.
SeafoodSource: In what part of Indonesia is your project located?
Pedersen:The Eco Blue Seafood sustainable production setup will be located in the southern part of the Riau Islands, very close to Batam and Singapore, the latter being both a strategic trading and R&D hub for aquaculture seafood in the region. Being a primarily export-focused company, easy logistics and being close to the market is key. China is by far the largest consumer of live mud crab, but with the Singaporean national dish’s primary ingredient being mud crab, this is definitely a very interesting market, too.
SeafoodSource:What is the investment in this project and what are the main sources of this investment?
Pedersen:The full investment to develop a total land area of approximately 1,000 hectares is USD 8 million (EUR 6.9 million). Eco Blue Seafood is open to different funding options. We are currently in dialogue with the Asian Development Bank, Danish Industrial Funds, private investors, accelerators, and venture capital. These represent anything from loans to equity investments. Finally, we have potential investments from strategic [sales and marketing and technology] partners, which would be the optimal investment partners for our company. We are looking for investors who are willing to commit to a minimum of seven to 10 years, and in return, they will get a very interesting return on their investment.
SeafoodSource:How unique or different is your RAS technology in Asia in mud crab production?
Pedersen:We are currently working closely with our Danish strategic RAS technology partner in order to determine exactly which technologies will have the biggest positive effect on the hatchery, nursery, and grow-out performance. Different RAS setups are being tested, but a floating RAS solution could be the end result. The most important thing is biosecurity and easy scalability. There is no doubt that Eco Blue Seafood will be bringing in much more technology for monitoring, traceability, power consumption, etcetera, and a much different laboratory approach to mud crab farming. But what we believe will be the biggest game-changer is our overall sustainable approach to aquaculture and our “Hatchery2Harvest” concept.
SeafoodSource:What is uniquely sustainable about your Hatchery2Harvest model; Are there similarly vertically integrated aquaculture models already in China?
Pedersen:High-quality, disease-free, live, extra-large mud crab is our brand, and for us to be able to guarantee this, we must be in control of every step from broodstock to harvest, packaging, and transportation. At Eco Blue Seafood, we even work on horizontal integration as well, with our production concept creating several related spinoff opportunities. Chinese consumers prefer to eat imported seafood, because of the lack of trust towards local manufacturers. Denmark is a pioneer within organic food, and mud crab from Eco Blue Seafood will be grown according to the very same principles. We will be bringing the world’s best mud crab to consumers, and we will be doing it with respect for the environment, our climate, the wildlife, and the local communities where we operate. This in the end is what makes Eco Blue Seafood and our Hatchery2Harvest concept unique, because no one combines a healthy business and an urge to do good like we do.
SeafoodSource:Is renewable energy still a big part of your plan?
Pedersen:Renewable energy and green energy consumption are absolutely still part of our concept. We are working closely with solar power developer German ASEAN Power on utilizing some of our land area for solar parks and potentially floating panels. Eco Blue Seafood has an ambition to run the entire hatchery and grow-out process on solar power and even feeding excess power production into the local grid, thereby helping the local community make the change to renewable energy sources.
SeafoodSource:Will you aim to obtain any ecolabel or sustainability certification recognized in China?
Pedersen:It is one of the company’s main ambitions to build a concept and a company worthy of especially the Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification. Our sales and marketing partner enjoys a very strong brand in China, having been present in the market for more than 30 years. This will of course rub off on Eco Blue Seafood, but we want to establish a new standard within commercial mud crab aquaculture which the world has never seen before.
SeafoodSource:Have you encountered any hesitance from investors in Asia worried about the technology, species, diseases, insurance, or other issues specifically related to aquaculture?
Pedersen:We think that many investors all over the world are very keen to invest in aquaculture, but we also experience that most investors, if already involved in aquaculture, tend to stick to one species. If you are into salmon, you are into salmon; If you are into shrimp, you are into shrimp. That being said, we do see a tendency towards more Asian investments into aquaculture in general. Asia represents some of the largest and fastest-growing populations, who on top eat a lot of seafood. With seas being increasingly overfished, aquaculture is the only solution. But again, most new investments are made into the most dominant cold- and warm-water species. Aquaculture in Asia is primarily warm-water, which is a catalyst for viruses and diseases if broodstock, water quality, biosecurity, and monitoring is not under control. Attempts to improve Asian aquaculture are being made as we speak, especially within shrimp. But technology does not change the fact that shrimp are very vulnerable animals. We encounter all the same risk-related questions from investors all over the world, but we have answers ready for all of them, and we have absolutely no doubt that our concept, our species, and our technology will be a great success and a thing of tomorrow.
SeafoodSource:Will you work with e-commerce or traditional retailers in China?
Pedersen:The initial plan is to sell solely through the retail channels of our sales and marketing partner. They have an extensive network amongst high-end fresh supermarkets demanding premium-quality, live, extra-large mud crab on a continuous basis. But there will be many other potential buyers and client segments both within China and across the Asian region. Furthermore, mud crab is in demand in Southern Europe and North America, both live, frozen, and processed, so market possibilities are endless. At Eco Blue Seafood, we also have several commercial “next steps” involving selling directly to luxury hotels and high-end restaurants, which have their own “vertical farming” setup in order to provide their guests the ultimate fresh mud crab experience. With the proper logistics setup, e-commerce and home delivery could even become an option, but this is further down the line.
Now, they’ve opened a second location at 2055 Eisenhower Parkway. It’s called Louvenia’s Crab Cake Hut.
“I’m excited about it. I’m excited to kind of take it on the road as well,” Michelle said.
It’s located at the Macon Farmer’s Market and it’s been open for nearly a month.
“We’re familiar with the market. That’s where we started when we started coming to Macon. We’d pull up with the food truck and everything like that,” Michelle said.
The Crab Cake Hut will sell mainly crab cake burger entrees. They also have crab cake egg rolls.
The crab cake burgers are made of about 95% lump crab, Michelle says, and people can add on plenty of different toppings like caramelized onions, grilled shrimp, seafood salad, fried lobster and more.
“We make them in-house every day fresh,” she said.
Michelle says one of the popular burgers is called the ‘Plain Jane.’ It come with cheese, lettuce and tomato.
Folks can’t get Louvenia’s classics, like the 4570 platter, at the Crab Cake Hut unless Michelle and Jason have the food truck pulled up outside.
“On some Sunday’s we’ve been combining the food truck with the Crab Cake Hut to kind of give people the option to have those classics and to come out to try the burgers,” Michelle said.
Unlike the Brookhaven Road location, this space has outdoor seating.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Michelle said. “I think people are excited because it’s something that they rarely see. Especially with all the different variations you can do with the crab bake burgers.”
They’ve also started a food trailer for the Crab Cake Hut and they’ll sell crake cake burgers and eggrolls there too.
“Be on the lookout for it,” she said.
When the pandemic hit, business got a little rocky, but Michelle says it’s still going well.
“We stayed open the whole time. We were very busy. Uncontrollably busy for a minute,” she said.
That’s when the couple decided to start bottling their sauces and seasoning.
“People can get a little taste of Louvenia’s in their home,” Michelle said.
Louvenia’s Crab Cake Hut is open from Friday through Sunday from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The Maldives Ministry of Fisheries, Marine Resources, and Agriculture said mounting calls for a boycott of Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna by retailers are “unfair and unwarranted,” especially when its government has always advocated for sustainable fishing.
The status of the stocks, the country said, is of great concern to the country, and a boycott will only have a negative impact on the workforce of the country.
“The status of the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stock and the recent calls to boycott yellowfin tuna caught from the Indian Ocean from major retailers is of great concern to the Maldives. As a responsible fishing nation, the Maldives has always advocated for and stood by the principles of sustainable fishing,” the statement said. “Such a boycott will have a major impact on the economy of the Maldives and the standard of living of more than 15 percent of the workforce that make a living from our already sustainable and responsible fisheries sector.”
It also expressed concern that none of the civil society organizations that have been calling for the boycott have reached out to the Maldives or the G16-group of like-minded Indian Ocean coastal states, in spite of its previous work to address the issue of yellowfin tuna stock.
The Maldives said that it has been instrumental in a rebuilding plan of the stocks after an assessment of the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna stock by the scientific committee of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission in 2015 identified the species as overfished and subject to overfishing.
In the statement, the government said it has a five-point plan to rebuild the overfished stocks. Some of the steps it would take is to enter into a fisheries improvement program (FIP) by December 2020, to focus on improving the status of the yellowfin tuna stocks through advocacy, and establishing sound management of the stock.
It also vows to start a pre-assessment process for Marine Stewardship Council certification of the handline yellowfin tuna fishery of the Maldives, and to work with key fishing nations to develop and revise the current resolution on a yellowfin tuna rebuilding plan “to ensure that yellowfin tuna stock is revived to sustainable levels in a reasonable time frame.”
The government is also advocating for an early annual session of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission in the first quarter of 2021 to address the issue of the yellowfin tuna stock status.
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom-based retailer Co-op pledged to not sell any own-brand or branded yellowfin tuna in its stores until stocks in the Indian Ocean are managed sustainably. The retailer said it hopes that the issue of overfishing will be addressed in IOTC ’s annual meeting scheduled next month.
A small-scale, artisanal fishery based in the South of France has achieved certification to the global standard for sustainable fishing set by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). The fishery, which uses pole and line, handline and longline fishing gear, is only the second fishery in the Mediterranean Sea to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability by achieving MSC certification.
The independent assessor, Control Union UK, took two years to assess if the French Mediterranean Bluefin tuna artisanal longline and handline fishery, a member of the SATHOAN fishermen’s cooperative, met the science-based sustainability standard for wild-caught fish. To be MSC certified, a fishery must show the fish stock is healthy, that it minimises its impact on the environment and has effective management in place.
The fishery catches around 200 to 300 tonnes of Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna each year, which is mainly destined for local consumers in France.
The assessment process identified some goals for improvements the fishery must meet within the next five years, such as putting in place a strategy for managing any impacts on other species. It will have annual surveillance checks to ensure it is meeting those goals and maintaining its responsible fishing practices, and will be reassessed after five years.
The assessor’s recommendation for the MSC to certify the fishery is informed by the latest scientific advice, with contributions from marine scientists, NGOs including WWF and Pew Charitable Trusts as well as SATHOAN’s management. It also took into account a formal process resolving concerns raised by NGOs about the extent of the recovery of the Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks.
The Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna stock, which spawns in the Mediterranean Sea, was on the verge of collapse less than two decades ago due to overfishing, but has been subject to concerted conservation efforts for the past 20 years. While fishing never stopped, with allowable catch remaining in the thousands of tonnes, stringent management has led to a significant recovery in numbers in the past decade.
Managing Director of SATHOAN, Bertrand Wendling said: “The SATHOAN fishermen know that their profession has huge responsibility in protecting the oceans and marine resources, particularly where certain populations were historically very weakened by overfishing, including bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean. It was important for them to go further than the regulations in force and ensure activities are sustainable and respectful of ecosystems by working towards MSC certification in the interest of a preserved planet.”
Senior Fisheries Manager at the Marine Stewardship Council France, Margaux Favret said: “The sustainable practices of SATHOAN’s small-scale bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean are a real sign of hope for the preservation of the oceans. Collaborative efforts from the fishery, NGOs, scientists and fishing organisations have helped recover the bluefin tuna population, showing that collective action can make a difference to turn an overfished stock into a sustainable catch. When we know that 80% of the fish populations measured in the Mediterranean are overexploited, it is urgent to act.
Earlier this year, the family-owned Usufuku Honten fishery became the first bluefin tuna fishery to be MSC certified, catching 55 tonnes in the Atlantic, 0.2% of the total allowable catch set by the international body which governs Atlantic tuna fishing (ICCAT). The Japanese longline fishery’s assessment involved a six-month formal process resolving concerns raised by WWF International and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Both the Usufuku Honten and the SATHOAN small scale fishery entered assessment in 2018 and are the only bluefin tuna fisheries to have asked to go through MSC assessment to date.
KENT NARROWS — A first for Queen Anne’s County — this year the Watermen’s Association will be spreading holiday cheer and fundraising at the same time — with the advent of a crab basket Christmas tree. Each basket purchased will raise money for local watermen. Buy a basket and paint it for $50 or have the association paint for you for $65. There will be 200 baskets for sale beginning Nov. 1.
The idea had been tossed around for a couple years, said the Sadlers, Joey and Karen. Joey, a waterman by trade and his wife had visited the tree lighting in Rock Hall and Karen kept talking about how Queen Anne’s needed something similar, a tribute to the season that would also include the watermen who are an integral part of the county.
Despite, or maybe because of COVID, this year seemed like the perfect time to start, said Karen. The boat parade and annual Centreville Christmas parade had already been canceled and although the lighting of the Crab Basket Tree would likely have to be virtual visitors would still be able to stop by the waterfront and partake in the holiday spirit by visiting the tree.
The Sadler’s alongside Brooke Horney and Christy Wilkins, both involved in the Queen Anne’s County Watermen’s Association are spearheading the event. The group is also getting help from Heather Tinelli Director of Economic & Tourism Development and Gigi Windley, Executive Director Kent Narrows Development Foundation. Both Tinelli and Windley were enthusiastic about the prospect, said Karen.
The Watermen’s Association consists of local commercial watermen who make their living harvesting seafood from local waterways. The Chesapeake Bay and it’s tributaries are our office. Not only do we work the waters, said Wilkins, we also work to restore and maintain a sustainable industry. The monies raised from this event and others allow us to continue to fight to preserve our heritage and way of life.
The association each year normally raises funds from two crab feasts which were unable to be held this year due to the pandemic.
A lighting ceremony is planned for Saturday, Dec. 5 which will be live streamed on QAC-TV and Facebook page. Time is TBD. Although limited with in-person attendance this year because of pandemic restrictions, viewers online are promised a sneak peak at Santa who is expected to arrive by firetruck. Still plans include growing into a larger annual event.
Baskets may be picked up this Sunday, Nov. 1 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the VFW, 203 VFW Avenue in Grasonville; Nov. 2-6 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at The Chesapeake Heritage Center located at 425 Piney Narrows Road in Chester (only accepting checks at his location); and Nov. 7 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. again at the VFW in Grasonville.
Chinese consumer fears over positive traces of the coronavirus found on packages of imported shrimp wiped $220 million off the value of China's September frozen warmwater shrimp imports, the latest Chinese customs data shows.
Imports fell from $326m in September of 2019 to $105m in September of this year, according to trade data compiled by Undercurrent News, a drop of 63%.
In volume terms, China imported 19,500 metric tons of shrimp, trade data released this week shows, down from 53,000t in September of 2019. This equals a drop of 63%.
The slump follows the detection of traces of the coronavirus on packages of imported shrimp from Ecuador in July. Three Ecuadorian shrimp companies were suspended from exporting to China, although the suspensions were lifted in August.
In September, imports from Ecuador fell 68% y-o-y to 9,710t.
Imports from other origins also fell; imports from India fell 71% y-o-y to 3,661t, while imports from Vietnam fell 74% y-o-y to 1,279t.
Latest trade data from Ecuador shows exports to China picking up, as consumers begin to recover confidence in the products. However, a large Chinese importer recently told Undercurrent it may take several months before imports return to normal.
China imported 444,000t of frozen warmwater shrimp in the first nine months of this year, up 3% compared with the corresponding period last year. The value of imports was $2.55 billion over the period, down 2% y-o-y. Meanwhile, the average unit value was $5.74 per kilogram for imports, down 5% y-o-y.
This is not a like-for-like comparison as last year's significant quantities of imports were being imported through the grey trade with Vietnam.
Given the large volume of shrimp that was still entering China from Vietnam -- particularly in the first half of 2019 -- China's total imports are likely lower than last year.
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Fresh From Florida shows you how to make a delicious recipe of Florida Cooked Florida pink shrimp and citrus ceviche. (Fresh From Florida image)
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Fresh From Florida shows you how to make a delicious recipe of Florida Cooked Florida pink shrimp and citrus ceviche.
INGREDIENTS
• 1 pound large Florida pink shrimp, peeled and deveined with the tail on
• 2 Florida pink grapefruit, peeled and segmented, seeds removed
• 3 Florida tangelos, peeled and segmented, seeds removed
• 3 Florida tangerines, peeled and segmented, seeds removed
• 1 Florida sweet pepper, diced
• 1 large Florida avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
• 2 tablespoons seafood boil seasoning
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 limes, juiced
• ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 bag plantain chips or tortilla chips
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
PREPARATION
• Fill a medium-sized sauce pot ¾ the way with water, and heat over medium-high. Add the seafood seasoning to the boiling pot of water. Add the shrimp and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until completely done.
• As soon as the shrimp are done, plunge them into an ice water bath to stop the cooking and cool them off. When the shrimp are completely cool, strain them and put them into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
• Add the citrus, sweet pepper, red onion, olive oil, lime juice, cilantro and avocado. Season the ingredients to taste with salt and pepper. Stir to combine ingredients. Serve ceviche with chips.
Misaki Port on the Miura Peninsula is known for its picturesque views and large tuna hauls. Easily accessible by train, the port is a perfect destination for a one-day excursion from Tokyo and surrounding areas.
Misaki Port on the southwestern end of the Miura Peninsula in Kanagawa Prefecture has long prospered as a deep-sea fishing base. As one of 13 anchorages in Japan designated as a Class 3 fishing port, it harbors fishing vessels from around the country, many of which come to fish the rich coastal waters for tuna. The city of Miura where the port is located has a long association with the much coveted fish, earning it the nickname maguro no machi, or “tuna town.”
The port is easily reached by train from Tokyo and surrounding areas on the Keikyū Main and Kurihama lines. From Shinagawa Station, it takes 90 minutes to reach Misakiguchi Station, where passengers can then change to a bus bound for Misakikō, which is a 15-minute ride away. Visitors will find the area around the port teeming with tourists who have come to try out the restaurants specializing in tuna dishes and to visit scenic Jōgashima and the Keikyū Aburatsubo Marine Park.
The signboard for Misakiguchi Station contains red lettering written in phonetic hiragana script that changes the reading to “Misaki Maguro Station” (Misaki Tuna Station), a humorous nod to the port’s fame as a base for tuna fishing. (Photo by the author)
The Misakikō bus stop, located in front of the small building to the left, is surrounded by restaurants specializing in tuna.
A Tuna Market Rivaling Tokyo’s Toyosu
Adjacent to the Misaki Port is a large facility referred to by locals simply as the Misaki fish market. Completed in the spring of 2018, it is Japan’s first wholesale market for frozen tuna. On some days, as many as 900 frozen tuna line the polished market floor, a number rivaling the sprawling Toyosu fish market in Kōtō, Tokyo.
The Misaki fish market is a 5-minute walk from the Misakikō bus stop. The building to the far right is the refrigerated facility where the tuna auctions take place.
The market’s tuna auction begins at eight in the morning. I happened to visit the auction site on a Saturday when volume tends to be small. Still, there were 190 bigeye tuna and 10 southern bluefin tuna, many of which bore labels indicating they were from a Taiwanese vessel. Buyers walked about carefully checking the quality of the red meat exposed in the tail cross-sections.
Unlike the lively auction style of Tokyo’s Toyosu market, here the buyers write their bids for price per kilo on a slip of paper and place it in a box. The auction results are displayed on an electric notice board located on a wall of the auction room. Bigeye tuna generally sells for around ¥500 to ¥1,800 per kilo. The higher priced fish is used for sushi and sashimi while tuna priced at ¥800 or less per kilo is generally used in minced tuna rolls and processed foods.
Buyers line up to examine the quality of the frozen tuna. The counter in the background is where written bids are submitted. (Photo by the author)
Visitors are normally allowed to watch the tuna auctions from a glassed-in gallery on the second floor, but the wholesale market has been closed to the general public during the coronavirus pandemic and a reopening date has yet to be decided. When auction viewing resumes, visitors can ask to be accompanied by a volunteer who will explain the workings of the wholesale market.
The view of the tuna auction from the visitors’ gallery on the second floor. Currently, the market is closed to the public. (Photo by the author)
Eat Your Fill
At the dining hall located on the second floor of the market, visitors can savor a variety of dishes featuring fresh tuna and other local fish. The hall opens at 6:00 am and is quickly filled by people who work in the fish market as well as visitors who come to eat the many offerings on the menu, such as sashimi and grilled and deep-fried fish. The dining hall is a favorite stop-off for groups touring the whole of the Miura Peninsula.
The fish market dining hall offers especially rare cuts of tuna. It is open from 6:00 am to 3:00 pm on weekdays and 6:00 am to 4:00 pm on weekends and holidays. It is usually closed on Wednesdays. (Photo by the author)
The daily breakfast special includes a choice of grilled fish or sashimi. On the day I visited, the offering was salted and grilled mackerel, rice, miso soup, nattō, a small side dish, and pickles, all for just ¥610. Staff told me that the special sells out quickly and advised visitors to come early. The tuna bowl, priced at ¥1,400, made from fresh tuna landed at Misaki Port is especially popular.
The tuna bowl features a generous portion of tuna slices dipped in savory sauce and an additional topping of delectable toro fatty tuna slices atop rice. (Photo by the author)
The top menu item is the daily market special featuring sashimi and grilled fish, costing ¥1,500. On the day I visited, the sashimi plate consisted of tuna, blackfish, sazae (horned turban), and shrimp. This was accompanied by salted and grilled kama, tuna meat cut from around the gills. The second-most popular item is the market special with local fried fish and sashimi. The set comes with fried horse mackerel, Japanese sea bass, squid, and Japanese butterfish accompanied by a plate of chopped tuna pieces. Portions are enough for several people to share.
The daily market special with sashimi and grilled fish. (Photo by the author)
Urari: The Place for Local Specialties
On the east side of the fish market is the Misaki Fisharina Wharf Urari, a commercial space that includes the Miura Citizen Hall and the Miura Misaki Sea Station facility. The complex is just a short walk from the Misakikō bus stop and serves as the boarding site for the Nijiiro Sakanagō, a vessel with windows below the waterline for viewing sea life, and for ferry to the nearby island of Jōgashima. A Miura Rental Bicycle port is next to the wharf.
The Misaki Fisharina Wharf Urari complex. The ferry to the island of Jōgashima can be seen preparing to dock.
The Nijiiro Sakanagō has windows below the waterline for viewing the underwater seascape.
The Urari Marché is a teeming market of vendors selling Misaki tuna and fresh Miura vegetables. The first floor is dedicated to seafood vendors with a total of 12 booths selling tuna, a selection of local fish, seafood products, prepared seafood snacks, and souvenirs. All the items offered are of the highest quality, and mixed in with the tourists are buyers from the local restaurants.
The Urari Marché offers local food products from the Miura Peninsula.
The selection of tuna includes Pacific blue fin tuna, bigeye tuna, and yellowfin tuna sold in large blocks and bite-size chunks as well as in combination sashimi plates with other local fish. Visitors can also savor cuts of kama, hoho from the cheeks of the fish, rolls of minced tuna and Welsh onion, and tuna chunks preserved in savory soy sauce. Snacks are also available, including deep-fried satsuma-age, croquette patties made from ground tuna, and skewers of fried tuna chunks.
On the second floor is a market for fresh vegetables. Visitors will find not only fresh produce from farms around Misaki, but also a special selection of vegetables from Misaki’s sister city, Suzaka in Nagano Prefecture. A café and rest space are also available where customers can take a coffee break or stop to eat snacks purchased at nearby stalls.
The market echoes with the cheerful calls of the vendors selling fresh tuna products. (Photo by the author)
One of the attractions of Misaki are the unusual cuts of tuna available at reasonable prices. (Photo by the author)
There are an abundance of stalls offering tasty foods to munch on. (Photo by the author)
The second floor of Urari Marché is devoted to stands of fresh local vegetables. A beverage area offers a variety of freshly squeezed fruit juices as well as a selection of local beers.
Discount Tickets
Visitors travelling to Misaki by train can take advantage of the Keikyū line’s Misaki Maguro Day Trip Ticket. The ticket includes roundtrip train and bus fare, food coupon for a tuna meal, and a ticket for use at one of the leisure facilities or souvenir shops. The cost from Shinagawa Station is ¥3,570, but will vary according to the station visitors are boarding from. The meal coupon can be used at more than 30 restaurants and eateries, including the Misaki fish market dining hall.
Tuna restaurants line the streets of Misaki.
A bowl of fresh sea urchin, roe, and tuna on rice is part of the special menu at the restaurant Kyōka and can be purchased with the meal coupon or separately for ¥2,100.
Visitors can use the leisure facility and souvenir ticket to purchase local delicacies, ride on the Nijiiro Sakanagō, take the ferry to Jōgashima, rent a bicycle, or even enjoy a bath at the Aburatsubo hot springs. Cycling around the town of Misaki, along the coast, and through cultivated fields is a popular way to enjoy the area. The ferry ride to Jōgashima offers magnificent vistas.
The Misaki Shōwakan dedicated to the local Chakkirako festival.
On a clear day, the Bōsō Peninsula across Tokyo Bay in Chiba Prefecture can be seen from Jōgashima Park.
Misaki Port viewed from Jōgashima.
(Originally published in Japanese. Photos by Nippon.com, unless otherwise noted.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif — California state officials have released a final rule to reduce the risk that endangered whales and sea turtles will get entangled in commercial Dungeness crab gear. The new regulations, which go into effect Nov. 1, were prompted by steep annual increases in reported whale entanglements and a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity.
“It’s good to see California finally taking whale entanglements seriously,” said Kristen Monsell, the Center’s oceans legal director. “This new system should reduce the risk crab gear poses to whales and sea turtles. But we’re disappointed that officials didn’t do more to encourage a conversion to ropeless gear, which is the only way to truly eliminate the threat of entanglement for these ocean animals.”
Entanglements in the thick ropes that are connected to heavy commercial Dungeness crab traps injure and kill whales and sea turtles. The ropes cut into the animals’ flesh, sap their strength and lead to drowning. Each entanglement of a humpback whale, blue whale or leatherback sea turtle, besides causing needless suffering and loss of life, violates the federal Endangered Species Act.
The state’s new “Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program” evaluates the likely presence of whales and sea turtles, among other factors, to determine if mitigation measures, such as shortening the season or closing an area to crab gear, are needed to reduce the risk of entanglements. The new rule also allows ropeless gear to be used during a closure occurring on or after April 1, but not during other parts of the season, as the Center has called for to better incentivize its adoption.
A lawsuit filed in 2017 by the Center led to an agreement last year with the state and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association that ended the last two crab seasons early to avoid the spring whale migration and required adoption of new regulations to prevent entanglements before the new crab season begins later this month.
The National Marine Fisheries Service confirmed 26 whale entanglements off the West Coast in 2019, three of which involved California commercial Dungeness crab gear and 15 of which could not be pegged to a particular fishery. Of the 26 confirmed whale entanglements, 17 were humpback whales, eight were gray whales and one was a minke whale. An endangered leatherback sea turtle was also found dead and entangled in rock crab gear.
The Center filed its lawsuit after whale entanglements off California’s coast broke records for three straight years, peaking with 66 reported entanglements in 2016. Of the 29 cases where the gear could be identified, 22 were commercial Dungeness crab gear from California.
In November 2018 the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it would seek federal permits for allowing its crab fishery to harm endangered whales and sea turtles. The RAMP rulemaking is part of the process for obtaining that federal authorization.
They pulled up to the departures gate, father and son, one day after the best vacation of their lives, in the middle of the best year of their lives.
Together, their family had laid the foundation for a restaurant empire in less than eight months. Lulu’s Maryland Style Chicken and Seafood is one of Charlotte’s brightest success stories of 2020: With lines out the door day and night, the Black-owned and Black-operated restaurant that cleared two commas in revenue in year one is set to open its second location in year two.
Now it was August 14, and Jay Davis had a big day ahead.
First he’d drop off his 20-year-old son Keon at the airport to fly home to Baltimore for one last extended stay in his hometown. Then Jay would go to the gym. Then he and his wife, Miketa, would go close on their dream home, a brand new five-bedroom place in Concord.
After years of hardship, they were making it. Jay had served in the Army and worked as a bounty hunter in Baltimore after that. On one trip to Charlotte in 2016 to hunt down a club owner, he met Miketa and never left. He struggled with PTSD, and she struggled with watching him struggle with it, so one day she asked him what would ease his mind.
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To have something to pass down to his kids, he told her.
They started this restaurant last year, and one crab cake led to another, and now they’re going to open another one. It’s scheduled to open on Central Avenue in January.
They hope to open a bar, too. And more Lulu’s after that.
That day on the way to the airport, Jay talked to Keon about running the show one day. They’d just returned from a family trip to Miami, then Keon would swing through Baltimore to visit old friends and family, and then he’d fly back and keep building the business with them.
Jay Davis has a bodybuilder’s physique. When he walks, his chest blocks out the world behind him and his arms sort of sway with each step. One of his other sons, 22-year-old Shaun, is an Army field artillery officer at Fort Bragg. Keon, meanwhile, built a little following as a rapper with raw lyrics about hard life in Baltimore. They’re tough guys, you could say. But Jay still kisses his sons on the face when he tells them goodbye and when he sees them again.
That day, bodybuilder and former bounty hunter and successful restaurateur Jay parked in front of the terminal and walked around behind the truck. He snagged the strap of his son’s bag and yanked it off the bed. He told him he’d see him when he got back, pulled him close, then laid a big smooch on his cheek.
“I love you,” Jay said to Keon.
“Love you more,” Keon said back.
Keon Davis was born on Leap Day in 2000.
What if the best year of your life was your worst?
No, revise that.
What if the worst year of your life was the best?
Would you still remember the good parts? The money and the big house and the new cars.
“2020 ain’t been that great,” Jay tells me this week, sitting at the kitchen table in their new home, with unopened boxes scattered everywhere.
Keon didn’t come home from Baltimore.
Just after 2 a.m. on September 9, for reasons Jay can’t explain and never will understand, with all he had waiting for him, Keon and some friends broke into an acquaintance’s home in Baltimore, and the man who lived there fired eight shots from an AR-15 at them. Five hit Keon. Jay got the call from Keon’s hysterical mother at 3:18 a.m.
She said she’d heard he’d been shot. She didn’t know where. She didn’t know anything. Jay’s spent years of his life looking for people. He called the police precinct.
He asked which hospital Keon was in.
“You need to call homicide,” they said.
When he’s working out, when he’s shutting himself in a room to be alone, Jay replays the night over and over in his mind.
He doesn’t like talking about the circumstances that led to Keon’s death. He knows it’ll make some people think less of his son, and that somehow that means his death shouldn’t hurt him as much. Trust Jay, it hurts.
“He may not have meant much to everybody,” Jay says, “but he was everything to me.”
“Keon always smiled. Always,” says Jay Davis, owner of Lulu’s Maryland Chicken and Seafood.
One thing that stands out about the night to Jay is that he was asleep when the call came in at 3:18. On most other nights, that wouldn’t have been true.
Jay hasn’t had more than a handful of good nights’ sleep since he was in the service. PTSD is a hell of a combat wound.
Miketa got a crash course in it when they first started dating four years ago. She’d stay with him and he’d keep the lights and television turned on. Sometimes she’d ask to sleep in the other room.
“I’m not mad or anything,” she’d tell her new boyfriend. “I just need to sleep.”
If you watch them now, you might wonder whether you’ve ever seen love like it. They don’t just finish each other’s sentences. No, with them, one will start a sentence, the other will pick up in the middle, and then the other will bring it home, as if their thoughts traveled like cars on a train.
She immediately fell for all five of his children. She’d always wanted a little girl, but on the receiving end of the young gentlemen Jay had raised — they opened doors for her; they helped with dinner — she came around to believe that boys were alright.
Jay and Miketa’s entire existence is about family. They named their restaurant after his mother, Lulu. They say the words, “family first,” to each other every day. They have pumpkins with all of his kids’ names on them in their dining room.
Pumpkins at the Davis house, with all of the kids’ names on them.
His own father died when Jay was 9 in a boating accident in South Carolina. After that the woman who’d helped raise him gave him some startling news: his real mother was in Baltimore, and he was going to live with her.
It’s quite a pill for a boy to receive. It took him more than a decade to come around to his mother. As a teenager he sold drugs and got in trouble. He fathered Shaun, the Fort Bragg soldier, when he was just 15. Keon came along two years after that, when Jay was 17.
Keon was born on February 29, 2000. Leap Day. He was special from the beginning, Jay says.
Jay decided to take another path then: He enlisted in the Army. He learned all the lessons he needed about right and wrong at boot camp.
He rose in the ranks to become a sergeant.
Then, about 13 years ago, he was stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia, when he got the call that Keon, just 7 then, had climbed out of the window of the rowhome where he lived with his mother and fallen three stories onto the sidewalk. For a short time, Jay says, doctors didn’t know if he’d make it.
Jay rushed home to Baltimore, and after Keon recovered he asked the boy’s mom if he could raise him in Georgia. She agreed.
When Keon arrived, Jay took him to Walmart to buy clothes. It may sound strange to remember specific trips to Walmart, but one thing about this trip will never leave Jay.
While they walked through the store, Jay looked down and saw Keon trying to match his steps.
“He’s trying to walk exactly like I walk,” Jay says now. “And it’s like, ‘Oh, man, you know, my son, he wants to be like me.’”
The meat in the crab cake at Lulu’s comes from a company in Maryland.
Jay and Miketa signed the lease on the building on the corner of Tuckaseegee and Berryhill in September 2019. They put about $36,000 of money they’d saved between them into fixing it up. Looking back, they laugh. They had no clue what they were doing.
They knew only a few things: that they loved each other, loved the kids, and loved to cook Maryland food. He’s from Baltimore and she’s from Prince George’s County, just outside of Washington. Up there, people are willing to sacrifice a lot, but never the two essential food groups: crab cakes and chicken.
At 4 p.m. on November 1, 2019 — one year ago this weekend — an inspector in Charlotte gave them the go ahead to open. They started cooking as soon as the inspector left and opened at 6 p.m. that night, with no plan but hope.
I randomly drove past the restaurant a few weeks later. I was raised in Maryland, not far from where Miketa grew up. My father had been a waterman on the Chesapeake, and I’d grown up eating crab cakes the size of softballs. Such meals were rare in Charlotte, so the Lulu’s sign and the broken-pavement parking lot called out to me like a siren. If they were confident enough to say they were making Maryland chicken and seafood, I figured they must be real.
The crab cake was the best I’d had in Charlotte, by a long shot. It tasted like a memory. I bit into it and immediately thought of my dad, who died in 2019. I wrote a story that declared that Jay and Miketa had created the top crab cake in Charlotte.
For whatever reason things take off, the story took off.
The next morning, they went to work like it was an ordinary day.
“By 8 or 9 o’clock, there were lines of people,” Miketa says.
“We’re like, you know we don’t open until 11, right?” Jay says. “And they were like, ‘I know.’”
It hardly stopped after that. In December, they tripled their November sales. They went from making two pans of crab cakes per day (one tray holds about two dozen), to 10 to 12 pans. They went from making two pans of macaroni and cheese per day to eight.
They still thank me for the story, and I still thank them for making crab cakes, and we get along like that.
Things went so well that when Covid-19 hit, Jay and Miketa didn’t have fallback plans.
She’d let go of her real-estate license and he’d let go of his bounty hunter license. With no income except that from the restaurant, they doubled down on Lulu’s.
They’d endeared themselves to the neighborhood. The stretch of Tuckaseegee was once a neighborhood filled with humble homes and mostly Black families. But growth from Uptown has seeped into the west-side like slow-moving green lava, and white business owners now see it as a place to start up, with a new spiked seltzer brewery and big investments in old warehouses.
So to the long-time residents hanging on, Jay and Miketa looked like the neighborhood they remember, even if they didn’t sound much like it (the Baltimore accent is its own linguistic life form). They were fluent in the spirit of the neighborhood, though. If Baltimore breeds anything, it’s a pride of place. It’s something like the relationship people have with siblings — if you live there, you can gripe about Baltimore all you want, but let someone else do it and you’ll see a few clenched fists. The same’s true of the neighborhood around Lulu’s.
That’s a long way of saying that in those early days of Covid-19, when carryout was their only revenue, they still had people who lined up out the door.
Lulu’s is at the intersection of Berryhill and Tuckaseegee.
Then in late May, after George Floyd’s death in Minnesota, the Black Lives Matter movement took off, sparking a nationwide and citywide call to support Black-owned businesses. Lulu’s, open just seven months, was often the first place on people’s tongues and posts, along with Subrina and Greg Collier’s Leah & Louise and Yolk, or Jamie Barnes and Greg Williams with What The Fries, or Andarrio Johnson and Anglee Brown from Cuzzo’s, just down the street from Lulu’s.
Business soared again.
In fact it was the summer of Jay and Keta, as everyone calls her. When they realized that they couldn’t have their wedding at their preferred venue in Florida, they pulled one together on Lake Wylie in July. She wore a white dress and he wore a white suit, and they smiled at each other until their faces hurt.
Business partners and life partners, they were rolling.
They started coming up with plans to open a bar, not far from Lulu’s. And of course the second Lulu’s. They found a location for it on Central Avenue, in an old garage right next to Pinhouse.
They expect it’ll open in January; you might want to start getting in line around Christmas.
Then they bought their new house in Concord. It had enough room for all five of Jay’s kids to stay with them at once, and it had whistles they still don’t understand. The door talks when you open it.
“House always snitches on you,” Jay says, laughing.
It has a giant kitchen, of course. After their August move-in, they committed to eating healthier. Keta plans their meals and cooks twice a week — Sundays and Wednesdays — then portions them out for the next three days.
They built out their staff, too, which gave them the chance to take some time away.
He started back at the gym, in hopes of losing some restaurant-opening weight, he says.
Everything was rounding into shape.
As the August days passed, they’d call Keon a couple of times a week in Baltimore. Each time Jay would ask him, “When are you coming home?”
Home to Charlotte, he meant.
Jay and Miketa Davis still have a lot of unpacking to do.
If you’ve met people from Maryland, you know that one of their defining characteristics is that no matter how long they’ve been away from Maryland, they’re never not from Maryland.
Jay and Keta and their family built a life in North Carolina on the backs of food from Maryland. Point is, Jay understood the lure for Keon, even if, as Jay puts it, “Baltimore is like a graveyard.”
Keon understood it, too. The last song he ever recorded was a tribute to his ex-girlfriend, who was killed by a stray bullet at a party. The last line of it was, “The way this city doing, I could die any second.”
Keon graduated from Cox Mill High School. On prom night, his father rented him a Rolls Royce so he could take his date there. Of all of his kids, Jay was especially protective of Keon. As a teenager, Keon developed vitiligo, a condition in which splotches of skin lose their pigment cells. When Jay would see people give him strange looks, he wanted to snap.
When Jay called him on September 6, he went through the list of questions: Did he need money? Did he need anything at all? No, Keon said.
Every day Keon stayed in Baltimore, Jay worried that Baltimore would get him.
But for whatever reason, Jay says, he didn’t demand that he come back. He wishes he would have. Wishes he would’ve told him that he needed his help, that he needed to get back to work at the restaurant he would one day take over.
On that last call on September 6, three days before Keon did what he shouldn’t have done, and Jay paid a price that no parent should have to pay, they closed the call like they always did.
“I love you,” Jay said to Keon in their last exchange.
And Keon replied, “Love you more.”
The only thing they keep in the closet of the room that would’ve been Keon’s are his prom clothes.
Charlotte isn’t perfect, certainly not with 100 murders this year. But the way Charlotte embraced Jay and Keta, they still think of it as the land of opportunity.
They sometimes step outside the front door of Lulu’s and take it in.
“We can see the Uptown skyline,” Jay says. “And the people from that side of town are like, ‘It’s just buildings.’ And I’m like, ‘But it’s a beautiful skyline. How can you not love the skyline?’”
Jay and Miketa want to turn their restaurant success into some sort of initiative to help with violence here, but they don’t know what it’ll look like yet.
They need to get the second location open first.
The second Lulu’s will open at 2308 Central Avenue in early 2021.
Other than that, they’re not sure of much.
It’s only been seven weeks, after all. Jay’s mind is scattered. Keta tries to keep everything else stable, to allow him the space. That’s another reason she makes three days’ worth of meals twice a week. Order and routine help.
Sometimes even calls from friends leave Jay angry.
“How can you say something to make somebody OK with losing their son? ‘Hey everything happens for a reason.’ I don’t want to hear that crap!” he says. “How do you tell somebody, ‘There’s a bigger plan’? For WHO?!?”
Jay’s already thinking about Thanksgiving in the new house, and he’s picturing the big table with everyone around. He plans to set a place for Keon, but just turn the plate over.
For now they’re going to keep working, keep trying to make the best of 2020, the best and worst year of their lives, and living by the motto that Keta has set for the family, a message that would be transferrable to much of the world today, one she relayed to me in their kitchen earlier this week.
“It is OK,” she said, looking over at Jay, “to feel grief and joy at the same time.”
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