We discovered you can purchase a cheese board at Boston store (and a beautiful one at that -- it even has grips on the bottom of it so you can slice the cheese without fear of the board skating across your countertop), but you cannot buy a cheese knife there. Target, also was cheese knifeless, although they did have a nice OXO stainless steel slicer, but they also did not have an oyster shucker. We failed to find an oyster shucker at Linens and Things, but we did find a cheese board set from which we extracted the knives and paired them with the aforementioned Boston Store board.
The oyster shucker still, however, eludes us. I am searching for a simple flat blade with a point at the end to pop the oysters open like they use in commercial kitchens. I may end up having to order one from Restaurant Depot or something. An Internet search this morning took me to this Web site www.oystershuckerinc.com which looks like it would be for a restaurant that serves up an exorbitant amount of oysters. It somewhat reminds me of a deli meat slicer.
Regardless, I guess I’ll need to just use a paring knife for New Year’s Eve, or I think you can even purchase them preshucked at the St. Paul Fish Company in the Milwaukee Public Market. Or if anyone out there knows where I can get one, please let me know, I guess there aren’t a lot of us Milwaukeeans shucking our own oysters at home.
Amy L. Schubert is a 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry and has worked in every aspect of bar and restaurant operations. A graduate of Marquette University (B.A.-Writing Intensive English, 1997) and UW-Milwaukee (M.A.-Rhetoric, Composition, and Professional Writing, 2001), Amy still occasionally moonlights as a guest bartender and she mixes a mean martini.
The restaurant business seems to be in Amy’s blood, and she prides herself in researching and experimenting with culinary combinations and cooking techniques in her own kitchen as well as in friends’ restaurants. Both she and her husband, Scott, are avid cooks and “wine heads,” and love to entertain friends, family and neighbors as frequently as possible.
Amy and Scott live with their boys, Alex and Nick, in Bay View, where they are all very active in the community. Amy finds great pleasure in sharing her knowledge and passions for food and writing in her contributions to OnMilwaukee.com.
