Aquarium Dinner

The National Aquarium in Baltimore is hosting a series of dinners based on sustainable seafood, called The Fresh Thoughts Series. Each dinner begins with a cooking demonstration by one of the many talented chefs working in Maryland, followed by a multi-course feast featuring one sustainable seafood ingredient. This season the series kicked off with Galen Sampson, the owner/chef of The Dogwood Restaurant in Hampden. The featured ingredient was oysters, which are being farmed now by several companies around the Chesapeake. As he presented his cooking demonstration Chef Sampson told stories of growing up in Reisterstown and getting oysters with his dad from roadside vendors. They would take the oysters home and crack them open using various items from the toolbox. The menu Chef Sampson came up with was a far cry from those front-yard oyster shucking bouts, but it was very clear that the mollusks captured his imagination at a very young age. (View Full Menu)

The next dinner (Nov. 3), with Gertrude's Restaurant chef John Shields, will feature trout. (View Full Menu)

Links:
Chef Sampson used oysters from the following aquaculture farms:
The Choptank Oyster Company
Rapphannock River Oysters, LLC

National Aquarium in Baltimore

View Larger Map