I’m calling this bowl seal meat because I don’t want to admit that Caroline and I have taken to eating dog food so we can better afford our exorbitant travel expenses. For the astute, they’ll notice a stunning lack of photos from the Oregon Coast this Thanksgiving (a possible first), all because we cannot afford the life we’ve come to expect. Don’t feel too sorry for us; we had started with dry kibble, but the constant crunching of enough dry food to satiate us was driving me nuts. Any of you who know me will realize I have an incredibly low tolerance for things I don’t want to hear, such as others talking to interrupt my sermons.

Rrrzzzzt….rewind the tape here; where is the lie and the truth? Everything after the seal meat reference is questionable because this is legit seal meat. We’d dragged a jar of it back with us from Newfoundland, and it just continued to get uglier in our pantry. Seeing how we were skipping our annual Coastal Oregon pilgrimage due to travel fatigue and that I wasn’t about to go all traditional Thanksgiving dinner, why not break out that jar of seal meat we’ve been saving for a special occasion? That’s just what we did.

Because people have asked, I pan-seared it in butter, onion, and garlic with the guidance of one of my many Artificial Intelligence overlords that steers my life after I have given up my autonomy, and then I added beef broth, rutabagas, potato, and carrots for an authentic taste of Newfoundland. Searing it emphasizes the umami taste, while stewing it allows for tenderizing the meat, bringing out its rich, gamey flavors. That’s what the A.I. told me to share, so yes, that last sentence was cut and pasted.

Seriously, though, Caroline and I both enjoyed our first taste of seal, which surprised us. While we couldn’t be at the sea this year, we could still partake in its bounty as though the sea came to us.