Tomales Bay (or how we drove a long way to buy stinky cheese when we could have gone to our local grocery store)

This Memorial Day Weekend, Mark and I drove up North to Tomales Bay. I have been wanting to visit Tomales Bay for a long time, mainly to slurp down the fresh oysters that are farmed in this very area.

Tomales Bay is a narrow finger shaped estuary formed by the Point Reyes National Sea Shore on one side, and the rest of Marin County on the other (see map). Among other things, Tomales Bay is famous for oyster farming, organic agriculture and "happy California cows". Some of the best gourmet cheeses and milk come from this area. Some of you may have heard of Clover milk, for example, which coffee connoisseurs prefer to put in their lattes. This milk is cultivated in Marin County (among other places) and processed in nearby Petaluma (see map above).


I admit I didn't do as much trip planning and research as I usually do. I read one excellent Sunset Magazine article about Tomales Bay, and the rest of the time we decided to "wing it", which Mark claims I am not so good at doing. Our main objectives were:

1. Buy organic cheese, and tour local creameries
2. Absorb the beautiful Tomales Bay and Point Reyes National Sea Shore.
3. Eat oysters at the location where they are farmed. Or in Mark's case, shuck oysters for Mina to eat (see picture left).

With these objectives in mind, we started out in the town of Point Reyes Station. This small, unassuming 2 block by 4 block collection of barn houses did not look so impressive, but was more than meets the eye.


We stopped off at Toby's Feed Barn, a large wooden barn housing a yoga studio, farmer's market, grocery store, coffee house and art gallery. The many Obama t-shirts and Whale t-shirts on sale there reflected the left-wing bent of this area. You may remember the well-advertised visit by England's Prince Charles visit to this area a couple of years ago to visit the organic farms. I can't imagine how the stodgy Prince Charles must have felt among these hippies. But apparently, all the local inhabitants cut their hair in anticipation of his visit.


After Toby's Barn, we walked a couple of blocks to Cowgirl Creamery, which is owned by a couple of women, and is famous for their artisan cheeses. Considering their lofty status as one of the foremost American cheesemakers, the Cowgirl creamery was very small. I had read about their Red Hawk cheese online, and when I smelled its "full-flavored" smell, I knew I had to buy it. The Red Hawk cheese has the same consistency as Brie or Camembert, and tastes even more flavorful. We put our variety of cheeses in the back trunk, but that didn't prevent the smell from wafting to the rest of the car.


After the cheeses, we sat down at Station House Cafe (voted best dining in West Marin in the Zagat Survey) to get a bite to eat. Mark ate a good, but miniscule hamburger. I got their famous oyster stew. The number of oysters in my belly after that meal: 8.


Finally, what I had been waiting for. We did a quick tour of the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. and the Hog Island Oyster Farm. A quick look around showed some interesting ethnographic trends. Everyone was overwhelmingly Asian, with a significant Hispanic representation. For about $10, you can buy a dozen "Sweetwater" oysters, and for about $15, you can get a dozen of the slightly more famous Kumamotos. I opted for the Sweetwaters. We sat down along a rock coastline where Mark shucked the oysters, and I slurped them down before tossing the shell into the water. The oysters were the freshest and best I had ever eaten. They tasted like the Ocean, but they also tasted sweet (hence the name Sweetwater) and a bit like cucumbers and melons. The number of oysters in my belly up to that point: 20.



Finally, we drove around the area and saw some admittedly happy California cows. At one ranch, we saw plastic "cow houses". These looked like mass-manufactured tents that were designed to house one cow at a time. I had not seen more spoiled cows in my life.

When we got home, we did a bit of grocery shopping at our local Andronicos. Browsing at the dairy section, what did we find, but the Cowgirl Creamery cheeses. We could have bought our cheeses much more easily, and in a much less stinky fashion, but our trip to Tomales Bay was certainly more memorable.