Enjoying my first Cherrystone Clams of the season on Sandy Hook Bay

Fresh and roasted Cherrystone Clams, above and below, were served at a buffet luncheon on Saturday at the New Jersey headquarters of the American Littoral Society.

At the annual Members Day, I filled a large paper plate with arugula and pasta salads, an inch-thick veggie burger and roasted clams, and washed down my lunch with cold beer.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Saturday, I enjoyed the sound of the waves breaking on shore and my first taste of fresh New Jersey clams washed down with cold beer.

This year, the American Littoral Society treated members to a big buffet lunch outside its headquarters in Highlands, N.J.

Besides fresh and roasted Cherrystone Clams, I loved an arugula salad with cherry tomatoes and a pasta salad with peas and sun-dried tomatoes.

Veggie burgers with all the fixings also were available for those who don't eat hamburgers and hot dogs. 

The lunch was the biggest ever served at a Members Day, so we didn't have room for our usual early dinner at The Fishery, a seafood restaurant on Route 35 in South Amboy.

Today, I found out The Fishery has closed. 

I ate my lunch on the porch of  America Littoral Society headquarters in Fort Hancock, overlooking Sandy Hook Bay.

I went back for seconds of the arugula salad, but they weren't available. 

Farfalle pasta with peas and sun-dried tomatoes.

The Sandy Hook Lighthouse.

Hospital Steward's Quarters at the old Fort Hancock, which was built in 1859 to defend New York Harbor.

Many of the old buildings housed officers.

An American Littoral Society pickup with shells that likely will be used in oyster restoration programs.

Clams, crabs, yams, salads and organic whole-wheat pasta

Hundreds of Cherrystone Clams were shucked under a tree on Saturday, the first day of summer, during Members' Day at American Littoral Society in Highlands, above and below.

The clams came from Virginia, because they were cheaper than New Jersey clams, one of the shuckers said.

The headquarters of the American Littoral Society, a coastal conservation group, is in a former lieutenant's house at Fort Hancock, part of the Sandy Hook national park, above and below.

The front porch overlooks Sandy Hook Bay.

Navesink Fishery, in a shopping center on Route 36 in Navesink, above and below, is a homier version of Seafood Gourmet, the fish market-restaurant in Maywood.

I had hoped to have another lunch of soft-shell crabs, like the one I enjoyed on Friday in Maywood, but Navesink Fishery doesn't serve lunch on Saturdays. (1-732-291-8017).

Are these yams or sweet potatoes? ShopRite in Paramus complicates the answer by selling them as "yams/sweet potatoes" for $1.29 a pound. I boiled them with peeled garlic, drained and mashed them with extra-virgin olive oil, salt, curry powder, cinnamon, red-pepper flakes, black pepper and other seasoning. Yams are starchier and probably have more calories.

A wedge of frittata (egg whites, cheese, fresh tomato, garlic and pesto) served with mashed yams/sweet potatoes and leftover Chinese takeout string beans.

A dinner salad from the cafe at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center includes tofu and mozzarella cheese.

Another dinner salad includes red- and green-leaf lettuce from our garden, smoked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, organic beets, Campari tomatoes and reduced-fat Jarlsberg Lite Swiss Cheese, all dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, above and below. Most of the ingredients are from Costco Wholesale.

Non-organic whole wheat spaghetti, on sale last week at the ShopRite in Paramus, was no bargain, compared to the $1.39 Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market charges for 1 pound of the organic version. But ShopRite did have a sale on 1-pound packages of Luigi Vitelli-brand organic Whole Wheat Capellini from Italy with a cooking time of 3 minutes ($1.25), a whole-wheat shape I haven't seen anywhere else.