Fearless and foodie.

Dating Tips from SATC: (going this weekend with, who else, the girls! stilettos optional. Pictured, Cyn who is one of my favorite, currently single, gals)

Case study: Carrie

The eternal single girl had her share of romances, chronicled in her weekly column, but the truest love story is the one she wrote for herself. Bad luck and messy breakups were de rigueur in Carrie's life. By surviving the pitfalls — a Manolo-mugging, a computer crash, and a very embarrassing fashion fall — Carrie gained the confidence and strength to continue her search for true love. "The most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself," she said. "And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." Lesson #7: Be fearlessly single.

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So, I had an awesome Memorial Day-because for the first time, I sucked up my aversion to oysters and headed North to Tomales Bay. Now, many of you conoussieurs out there will be asking yourselves, "aversion?" My only previous experiences with oysters has been on the notorious Asian buffet tables where they are served with black beans and ginger and have that lovely 3-day old sewage flavour. Last year, tho', the girls took me to Namu for my birthday and introduced me to sweet, fresh kumamotos and they sort of peaked my interest.

After jostling Spam out of her post-party stupor, we headed North on the Golden Gate Bridge where the weather was starting to look up.

Getting to the site was a different story; it pretty much stayed overcast, slightly misty and windycold for the rest of the afternoon. Mr. Bimmer brought his own rig for bbq. The menu was pretty awesome: 3 types of baguette, hummus, chocolate cake, brownies, bacon wrapped enoki, fresh top dogs (lemon chicken and chicken apple), grilled toast, crab mango salad, watermelon, salami/cheese platter and oysters of course!

The madhouse of tables started to fill by 11:30 or so; people of all kinds, but surprisingly mostly Asian and Latino. I guess they know where all the good food is. I've always thought of fresh raw oysters as sort of a yuppie thing to do. And all of the parties, regardless of race, were HUGE. We're talking no less than 10 per table.

The system at the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. is pretty interesting. You can buy bags of large, med or small oysters in different varieties in different increments. Most of us went with the bag of 50 smalls and split them between 3-4 people. (You can see Mr. Bimmer's diabolical look of glee as he plans to spend our money on sweet sweet seafood) Everything here is pretty much no-frills; tables are sparse and barely wiped clean of guano. There are no bathrooms-only porta potties and the grills are the tiny ones you find at GGPark. But the oysters cannot be beat. J-Dawg and Ms. Beach also made mignonette sauces (spicy tomato and citrus honey) to go with the oysters and both were absolutely delicious. But we started throwing the oysters on the grill and I can definitely tell you: I AM NOW A CONVERT.

Slightly smokey, juicy with a hit of the same umami warmth that comes from eating cooked mushrooms-each sucker was delicious and sweet. And I learned the trick to opening oysters, tho' as you can see: Mr. Bimmer, Pilot Inspecktor and Gnaw were infinitely better at cracking the suckers open. So much so that Pilot Inspecktor would have gotten three or four oysters open by the time Cyn or I had even gotten our screwdrivers under one. So we just learned the trick of asking Mr. Bimmer and Pilot to open them for us. muah.

Tomales Bay Oyster Co.

15479 Highway One (about 5mi. North of Point Reyes)

Marshall, CA 94940

Telephone: (415) 663-1242

Fax:(415) 663-9327

Every day from 8am to 6pm.

Tomorrow: dogs named Yogi and Himawari Ramen!