A romantic dinner straight from Newport’s waters

Hard to believe today, but once upon a time, Newport was pretty

small potatoes. Sure we had the Rendezvous and the Pavilion, which

drew crowds of dancers, and the Drugless Drugstore and other

establishments that drew the drinkers.

But for the most part, Newport was a summer destination for people

who lived inland. Once September came, the place closed up shop. The

year-round population was pretty small, and this was true of all the

other towns along the coast.

These small populations didn’t have much of an effect on the

ocean. For a great deal of my life, I looked at the ocean much the

way I looked at the grocery store, as a place to get food.

Hungry? Put on your trunks, head over to the rocks south of Little

Corona, and get a couple of lobster for dinner, or maybe some

abalone. The same thing was true of the Back Bay. We’d go back there

and get scallops and steam them.

I remember one memorable meal. I had met a young woman at the

beach that day. We hit it off, and I invited her over to my place for

dinner that night. I will confess up front that I was intent on

seducing her.

I left the beach and headed over to Little Corona, where I picked

up a couple of abalone. On the way in, I saw a small octopus and

grabbed that as well.

That afternoon, I prepared the abalone, slicing it into steaks,

and then pounded away at those steaks with an empty milk bottle until

they were perfectly tender. When the time came, I’d roll them in

cracker crumbs and fry them with a little lemon juice. Once the

abalone was tenderized, I took the octopus and diced the tentacles

into a seafood cocktail, and everything was ready.

My date arrived. I offered her a drink, she accepted, and we had

that drink, then another, and I was practically rubbing my hands in

glee, so well were my plans proceeding.

I put the seafood cocktail on, while plying the young woman with

another drink. By this time, we were exchanging deep, meaningful

glances, and I could hardly wait to get through dinner and to the

main purpose of the evening, at least from my eager young man’s point

of view.

My date had virtually demolished the seafood cocktail and was

fishing around with her fork for the last little morsel. A woman of

appetite! I liked that. She speared the last piece of the cocktail

and looked at it. This piece had an intact circle of the little

suction cups that line the bottoms of octopus tentacles. She looked

at it more closely. She frowned.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s the octopus -- .” I didn’t even get the word tentacle out of

my mouth before she threw up all over herself and the table. So much

for my romantic evening.

Of course, nowadays, everyone and his mother, brother and cousin

twice removed wants to live at the beach. There are no coastal towns

with small populations, and the ocean has paid a price for its

popularity.

Today, if you want a lobster, you go to the market. Abalone have

become like diamonds in their scarcity, and I don’t think anyone

would want to eat anything that came out of the Back Bay. I don’t

dive anymore, but I occasionally snorkel around, and you don’t even

see Garibaldi, which used to be extremely common.

I understand there’s some move afoot to protect certain areas of

the ocean like we protect our national parks. It might be something

to consider.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.