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The registration was for last years event - no worries.

Our project is still moving forward at full speed. 2013 is going to be a very, very busy year....

When you're ready to sell your first harvest, a few markets come to mind.

Tijuana hosts a foodie expo every year. The last couple of years have seen other aquacultivators from Baja (Salsipuedes and San Quintín). Typical customers are upscale restaurants and fishmongers on both sides of the border, Ensenada to Los Angeles.

Javier Plascencia ought to be interested in your abalone for at least two of his restaurants. Cebichería Erizo is all froufrou seafood ("erizo" means sea urchin) and Misión 19 is on the local-and-sustainable bandwagon, apart from being proclaimed one of the best restaurants on earth. (People are so quick to hand out superlatives these days.)

La Guererense, on Ruiz in Ensenada, is street food but it's got food critics in New York turning cartwheels. And she uses gastropods.

And there's always Haliotis on Esmeralda. Damn, I hope they're still in business. Even though they're named after abalone, that wasn't on the menu the last umpteen times I ate there. Their supplier was some family member on Isla Cedros. And family can be so unreliable, you know?

We have commitments to buy all of the first five years of harvest. Although we will put aside a percentage for the local market it looks China will be buying the bulk of our production.

Well, they have shown a lot of interest. I know this sounds stupid- but is Abalone a food, supplement or medicine to them?

They're just showing off by eating unusual items.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

...we will put aside a percentage for the local market...

Damn straight, Mister!

Abalone is considered a delicacy and actually cooks up a delicious steak...

I used to be a manager at The Boathouse restaurant on Harbor Island San Diego in the 80's. We would freeze the abalone and cut it thinly with a meat slicer. Then we would pound it out, bread and pan fry it. Served with drawn butter is all. I miss that.

I hope you will be saving some for us, no???

For sure amigo...

wondering what color abalone you are working with? black abs close to the surface of the water or are you growing the deep water abalone?

We are currently working with several different colors which require different depths for transplanting them out at the island. We even have a small yet growing colony of white abalone; something that is hard to find.

In the late 60's, we use to buy pink abalone, trimmed and sliced in Morro Bay Ca. for about $5 a lb. Thanks to the sea oters, no more abalone. Did Baja have the same problem or is just that abalone do not grow in the southern emvironment? I understand that you can buy farm raised, but small abalone above the fish market in Ensenada

Hi Larry,
Ron may have better info than I do, but I was involved in the commercial abalone fishery based in Santa Barbara in the 1970's, and as far as I know, what wiped out the pinks, blacks, reds and greens south of Pt Conception was over-fishing, and a lack of understanding about the health of the resource.

I'm not sure about the southern limit of the Sea Otters, but they certainly weren't south of Arguello until recently, even if they are now.

It is pretty cool to visit the small fishing towns along the west coast of Baja and see how much they're doing to protect the health of their local lobster and abalone populations. Too bad we didn't do the same 40 years ago!

Acording to long time residents out where we live, there used to be a lot of sea otters at one time but the main problem was man. They took too many for too many years with little or no regulation. The otters disappeared with the abalone.

The fishermen tell me that they still see an occasional otter along our coast so who knows? The just might make a return yet...

Originally Posted by larry

In the late 60's, we use to buy pink abalone, trimmed and sliced in Morro Bay Ca. for about $5 a lb. Thanks to the sea oters, no more abalone. Did Baja have the same problem or is just that abalone do not grow in the southern emvironment? I understand that you can buy farm raised, but small abalone above the fish market in Ensenada

I have to agree with Larry. In the late 60's I had the bar and restaurant concession of the Sausalito Yacht Club, Sally Sanford (yes the one and only) and I used to buy pink abalone for our restaurants from a Mexican source. If I remember correctly we paid about $7.50 to $8.00 a pound.

Like someone else here we would also slice thin, but before that we would put a saltwater drenched towel over them (and yes believe it or not) massage them for about 5 minutes before hitting them with a large hardwood mallet, to break the shell. Supposedly this relaxed them, something to assimilating the movement of the natural habitat, and was supposed to make them more tender. It sure didn’t relax me! (smiling) . They we would be sliced thin and then soak them overnight in either milk or beer. Lightly dust with a house mix of dried sour dough crumbs, (only dried sour dough bread would do), sauté quickly and very, very lightly throw a few, very few bits of dill. Damn they were good! If I recall correctly that plate sold for about $18.00 to $19.00 a plate and came with a light mixed drink which name escapes me at present. Back then, that was a bunch of bucks!

Sally Sanford was quite the gal also. If you have never read her book, I am sure you all would be entertained by it. She was a character indeed and used to have an old antique barber chair in her restaurants bar, in those days, that was her seat and her seat only, when she was in house. No one, and I mean no one ever sat in that chair except her!
Those were the days for sure. A lifetime ago!!!! It’s a long way from those days to being a retired Senior Forensic Architectural Consultant. . . . . . . . . . . ., I haven’t had any good Abalone or good size tender sea scallops since. I sure do miss those delicacies.

However, I will also sign up for your no bite cards, as I also plan to come to visit someday Ron, before I get planted!

Regards,
Robt65
San Juan del Rio
Queretaro

Team's with "hay rakes" for "clams" ....... back many years ago

We used our "toes"

There's a TV Show here in San Diego (on KPBS) called Crossing South, and they had a segment a couple of weeks ago showing San Quintin and an Abalone project there. Is that the same project that you are working on? I shot a lot of UW and Beach BoLA footage for the same program a few months back.

-Roger

Originally Posted by Uzun

There's a TV Show here in San Diego (on KPBS) called Crossing South, and they had a segment a couple of weeks ago showing San Quintin and an Abalone project there. Is that the same project that you are working on? I shot a lot of UW and Beach BoLA footage for the same program a few months back.

-Roger

Could be. We've had a lot of groups come through and some of them came with film crews...