As the temperatures drop and the weather rolls in, I find myself seeking out ways to bring a little bit of the outside world into my home. Food is one of my favorite ways to do this. Cozy meals, warm drinks and trying new ingredients keeps things interesting. Nori is a seaweed that, while familiar, … Read more
vegan recipes
The coming of a new year is a natural time for reflection. Looking back over this last year, there have been a lot of changes for our family and for Ocean Harvest. As the new owners, it truly has been a year of growth and new adventures. This year began with starting to harvest on … Read more
Sea Palm Salad Sea Palm is one of my favorite seaweeds. Not only is it delicious to snack on and in salads, it is one of the most adorable sea vegetables on the coast. They stand in clumps along the rocky shoreline, greeting all passersby with their cheery topknots. Their fronds jostled by the wind … Read more
The Lunar New Year, often called the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, is the most important holiday in China and many other Asian communities. It is an annual 15-day festival that begins with the new moon between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 in Western calendars. The festival lasts until the following full moon. I … Read more
Joyful Autumn to ALL! I have been practicing joyfulness, playfulness, and silliness this week. Gratitude to my yoga teacher Laura Garrison-Brook and my Sangha (community) on Insight Timer for the inspiration. Visualizing bright yellow glitter and multi-colored confetti surrounding me, is helping to bring happiness and a smile to my face, along with a playful … Read more
Nori is the first harvest of the season. Nori, also known as Porphyra perforate or lanceolata, is a RED seaweed and only one cell wall thick! This means you get LOTS of nutrients riding on this wonderful seaweed… Nori is the highest of all seaweeds in protein (50% by weight) and high in iron and Vit. B12. Think about this…, since Nori is only one cell wall thick, you don’t want to wash the nutrients off of it- like you see in all the neatly packaged small nori snacks in the grocery store.
I’ve been busy planning the 2023 harvest cycle after I picked up my tide book. Did you know we can only harvest seaweed a maximum of 40 days a year? Those days are all between April and the end of July. We work with the moon phases (new and full moon) because these are the times during the summer when there are negative tides. This means we can get to the seaweed-filled rock areas in the ocean for about 1-2 hours each day (4-5 days in a row) to harvest as quickly as possible before the sea covers the rocks and seaweeds over again. It is vital to work! It is also very cyclical, like a woman’s monthly moon cycle.
This month, I want to introduce you to RED seaweeds. Three classifications of seaweeds are identified by color: red, brown, and green.
Hello Dear Seaweed Blog Subscribers! I took some time off from blogging this past summer to complete the years seaweed harvest, and I am back with a great recipe for you! Ocean Ribbons or Lessionopsis littoralis are beautiful flowing ribbons of brown seaweed that grow on the outermost rocks of the intertidal zone. We harvest … Read more
I have been sustainably hand-harvesting seaweed on the Mendocino coast from the same 10-12 locations since 1999. Lucky me! In those years, I have come to know these seaweed harvesting spots intimately, and have been there to see the ebb and flow of more than the 11 varieties of (kelp, seaweed, sea vegetables) that I … Read more
Nereocyctis luetkeana When we think of “forests” there’s one we often overlook — the offshore kelp forest, largely made up of Bullwhip Kelp or Nereocystis luetkeana. Nereocystis (Greek for “mermaid’s bladder”) is the largest in the family of brown algae, and found along the coast of California to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. The fastest-growing … Read more