Our Seasonal Cooking Seafood Class is Wednesday, March 8 and we’re cooking through our CSF partner’s weekly seafood box, so we did a little Q&A with Anna Larsen of Siren Fish Co.
Why CSF?
Community supported fisheries reduce food miles, educate the public on their local fishing community, provide seafood of unparalleled variety and freshness, and encourage fishers to use more sustainable fishing methods. It’s a win for all parties!
Where does Siren source?
We mainly source from Bodega Bay and Ft. Bragg, with occasional jaunts to Monterey and a rare trip to Santa Barbara to source white sea bass. All of our finfish is wild and all of our shellfish is sustainably farmed in open ocean beds.
How is it different than the seafood we get at Monterey Fish Market or Tokyo Fish Market or Berkeley Bowl?
There are a few key differences, the most apparent being freshness. Because we are asking members to select their shares in advance, we are able to time our buying so that the fish is generally 1 to 2 days out of the water. We don’t need to keep fish in a case until we sell it, we bring in and immediately send out just what we need. Also, since we are sourcing only a couple of items at a time, we are able to provide details on the fisher or farmer who produced your catch, as well as maintain very tight quality and sourcing controls.
I love seafood but am scared to commit to cooking it every (week?). Any advice?
We make sure that you are prepared to cook and enjoy whatever we send you. You’ll have step by step storage and preparation instructions as well as recipes. Also, since our seafood is coming directly from the water to you, you actually have 5 days or so to prepare your share before the quality starts to drop off. There’s no need to rush to cook most items on the day you receive them. There are exceptions to this (herring, sand dabs) but we will alert members in advance that these items need to be enjoyed immediately. We also allow members to put their shares on hold for vacations, scheduling conflicts, or when life gets too busy to cook.
We offer many drop locations and home delivery throughout the bay area! Benicia and Vallejo drop-offs are on Wednesdays. A full updated listing can be found here.
