Scallops...it's what's for dinner

Having a brother who works for the National Marine Fisheries Observer Program definitely has its perks. Last night I cooked up scallops that were caught from the Nantucket Lighthouseship Area (NLSA) of George's Bank.

This area is a heavily managed and is only open to scallopers on occasion. It was opened this summer for a brief period of time and my brother was given some of the catch. Actually, I believe his roommate, one of the observers, was given the scallops, but, in any case, some of the scallops made their way to my brother and then he passed some on to me.



So, I cooked em up last night. Nothing fancy - just a simple pan sear in olive oil and served over some lemon orzo and with a glass of Gewürztraminer (note: the photo above is not my dinner, but an image I plundered from the web) . Now, I am by no means a scallop aficionado, but those were some tasty molluscs. Not sure how many pounds of scallops they pulled out of the area, but I'm glad to have gotten a few. Hope they didn't do too much damage while they were there...

I realize now that this post is on the opposite side of the "George's Bank shellfish" fence than one I posted a while back. Seems hypocritical. Probably is. All I can say is that I'm just going to have to trust that the National Marine Fisheries Service knows what they're doing (my brother works with them, right?) and if they say it is OK to open up NLSA to scallopers, then it's OK for me to eat those scallops. Did I mention they were real tasty?