Looking for a a very comforting and homey recipe you can make in 90 minutes or less? Try making this recipe for Salt Cod Cakes from the folks at the CIA Sizzle blog.

Ingredients:

1 pound Salt Cod filet
Water as needed
2 2/3 cups milk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 2/3 cups Russet potatoes (2-3 large), peeled
1 egg
1 tablespoon brown mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce to taste
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
Salt and black pepper to taste

1 cup Panko Japanese bread crumbs
12 slices bacon
Vegetable oil to pan-fry as needed
12 toothpicks

How to Make Salt Cod Cakes
See More of Hugging the Coast’s Fish For Friday Recipes

With its sleek modernist lines reminiscent of Bauhaus architecture, South Carolina’s Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse may be less charming than its neighbor, the Morris Island Lighthouse, however it still provides a useful service.

According to the Sullivan’s Island Lighthouse Page at LighthouseFriends.Com:

“When erosion threatened the Morris Island Lighthouse, located south of the entrance to Charleston Harbor, the decision was made to place a replacement beacon on Sullivan’s Island, north of the harbor’s entrance. Although the triangular tower, built of concrete and steel and clad in a skin of aluminum, doesn’t have much Southern charm, it does have some redeeming qualities. Inside the tower, the keepers of the light are treated to air conditioning and an elevator that can quickly whisk them skyward. After the elevator ride, it is still necessary to scale a small staircase to reach the lantern room, where a powerful light source is housed. Originally, the light produced an amazing 28 million candlepower, but this powerful beam proved dangerous and was downgraded to a light of just over a million candlepower that has a range of twenty-six miles.”

By the way, with the exception of Boston Light, the oldest station in America, all lighthouses in the U.S. are fully automated, although some properties may have on-site caretakers to help prevent vandalism or to run tours through the facility.

You can read some interesting lighthouse trivia here. If you’re interested in learning more about the historical role played by lighthouses in both South and North Carolina, you can read excerpts online from Terrance Zepke’s book, Lighthouses of the Carolinas: A Short History and Guide.

Want a taste of what it’s like to live in a lighthouse? Below are 3 cookbooks full of recipes from lighthouse kitchens,

• Cooking Lighthouse Style: Favorite Recipes from Coast to Coast by Fred Stonehouse

• The Lighthouse Cookbook by Anita Stewart

• Horton Point Lighthouse Cookbook by The Southold Historical Society

Charleston, SC’s too big to have made this list of The Best Fishing Towns in America from Field and Stream. (The places on this particular list all have less than 100,000 residents. Charleston has almost 119,000.) However, scenic Beaufort, SC did make #17 on the list.

Charleston was named one of the best fishing spots in the South on another F&S list that was mentioned in a previous post).

Here’s the full list of notable fishing towns…

1. Glenwood Spring, CO
2. Mountain Home, AR
3. Traverse City, MI
4. Bozeman, MT
5. Minocqua, WI
6. Apalachicola, FL
7. Nantucket, MA
8. Bend, OR
9. Guntersville, AL
10. Morehead City, NC
11. Missoula, MT
12. Ely, MN
13. Page, AZ
14. Driggs, ID
15. Jasper, TX
16. Tahlequah, OK
17. Beaufort, SC
18. Eufaula, AL
19. Redding, CA
20. Montauk, NY

A barefoot chef from Asheville, North Carolina won the Oyster Shucking Competition in Charleston, South Carolina’s 25th Annual Lowcountry Oyster Festival.

Named one of the top 20 events in the Southeast by the Southeastern Tourism Society, two tractor-trailers filled with 65,000 pounds of oysters rolled onto the grounds at Boone Hall Plantation to kick off the festival.

Winner Tres Hundertmark, chef/owner of The Lobster Trap of Asheville, NC, shucked an average of one raw oyster every 2.6 seconds.

“I had just placed in a shucking competition in Connecticut,” Hundertmark commented. “So I felt I would at least rank in the top 5.” But even Hundertmark didn’t expect to take 1st place.

The Oyster Shucking Competition entailed opening as many raw oysters as possible in 3 minutes. Hundertmark blasted the opposition away with an amazing 69 oysters in 3 minutes. (That’s 1 oyster every 2.6 seconds, beating the five-time champ by 5 oysters.)

Located in downtown Asheville, NC at 35 Patton Avenue, Tres Hundertmark has cooked for such restaurants as the House of Blues in New Orleans, Louisiana, Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Chanticleer on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, and at the track at Kentucky’s Churchill Downs.

February’s Free Cookbook Preview…

Been to Google Books lately? Google Books has been gradually placing the full text of thousands of books online, many of them free full previews of culinary books that are either out-of-print or have been added online with the permission of their publishers.

One of the latter gems we’ve recently stumbled upon is the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Cookbook, a 144 page compendium of interesting recipes, photographs, and related stories edited by Susan Pollack.

You can read the whole book on Google Books here then buy it from Amazon.Com when you’re ready to purchase the book.

A freelance writer for Sierra and the Boston Globe, Susan is on the staff of National Fisherman.