On Saturday, after much distress, I narrowed down my dinner cooking options and chose the always crowd-pleasing, succulent, and affordable mussels. My usual go-to involves sauteeing garlic and shallots in butter, adding the scrubbed moules, and steaming with white wine until they're open, and then sprinkle with parsley. However, Saturday lead me to a few surprises. One of them being finding myself at Wild Edibles at 4PM, with a $12 for 12 oyster special and $3 hand-crafted beers. Heaven. Another surprise was the wonderful Wild Edibles West Coast chef who helped transform my usual into such a treat, with not too much work:

In a large pot, sautee minced garlic, shallot, carrots, cipollini onions, and celery in butter and olive oil.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Once the mirepoix (French word for holy trinity, which includes carrots, onion and celery), plus garlic and shallots start to sweat, add the scrubbed mussels.

Immediately deglaze (No need to be mystified, this just means adding a liquid) with your choice, we used vegetable broth and then tons of white wine. You can also use chicken broth and clam juice. Add just enough broth to almost submerge the mussels.

Cover pot and wait until the mussels open.

Once opened, add a few dollops of heavy cream, two tablespoons of butter, stir, and cover pot, waiting another minute for all of the ingredients to blend. Turn off heat, add sprinkled parsley and spoon mussels and broth into bowls, and serve with a crispy baguette.

Our chef friend also suggests adding a small squirt of sriracha to the broth, which we will definitely be trying next time. But regardless, you will love this recipe;

the broth almost hints of lemon grass and is absolutely divine.