With the season starting this week, home delivery is now available for an additional charge of about $6 per delivery. Also, you have to buy one of their coolers, for a one time cost of $20. It comes with your first delivery. You leave it out, clean and empty, for them to swap when your next share is dropped off. Ultimately, you get to keep a cooler if you stop ordering.
Typically for CAFC, the ordering is confusing and prices are a secret until checkout. So far, they haven’t told me which day this week my order will arrive, and when I emailed to ask, the response was curt. Maybe they’ll revise the pages, but I’m not holding my breath.
I foolishly thought the season began the week of April. It’s this week. Since I live more or less on the route the driver most likely takes from Gloucester to one of the Thursday pickup spots, I assumed my delivery would be today. When 3:30 came and went with neither an email nor a delivery, I called to ask what’s going on. Donna, the one in charge, said they were swamped with delivery orders so they still haven’t worked out the logistics. It will probably be Tuesdays or Thursdays, but for this first time they will be doing all the home deliveries over the weekend. Good customer service would have been to email this info to home delivery subscribers, as a courtesy update. I just hope that when the fish DOES arrive, it’s not stuff cobbled together from unsold fish that was caught and processed the beginning of the week!
The cooler finally arrived this afternoon. It contains flatfish fillets of some sort, but as the bag is unlabeled and there was no email notifying me to expect it, I don’t know the variety. Unlike the typical CAFC share, it was obviously out of the water longer than two days. A slight whiff of low tide emanated when the bag was opened.
I am cutting them some slack for their poor handling of this inaugural home delivery order, but will not accept repeat delays or freshness issues.
I signed up for home delivery for the season that starts next week. Things are now clearer on their website, both what’s available and what days they deliver to different areas (Tuesdays to Cambridge). I asked for a weekly delivery of fish filets, with a rotating selection of scallops, salmon and whole fish to accompany. You can use your own cooler.
Thank you for this timely reminder about Cape Ann Fresh Catch. I can pick up a share very easily at a site near to me, so I plan to sign up again after not participating for awhile.
I’m sure you’ll remember – if I remember correctly tomatoes are great for memory – but we also had a separate thread about Cape Ann FC before they offered home delivery:
Wasn’t sure whether to post Cape Ann experiences here or on the other thread (linked to above), but since home delivery is part of my report, I’ll go here.
They delivered about 5 hours into their six-hour window, and ignored my note that they should ring the buzzer. They do send a delivery email, but it was 40 minutes later that I noticed it. I’ve written to them suggesting they also text. Let’s see. The fillets were Pollock which I poached in butter, garlic, lemon, white wine and thinly sliced jalapenos. I’d added scallops (wonderfully sweet, even when cooked a day later) and crab meat (previously frozen and very watery).
Donna retired, so perhaps customer service will have improved. I haven’t ordered since December and still have some fillets in my freezer. I would like to resume delivery come September, if we aren’t living in a total dystopia by then.
Smoked fish (“Smokehouse Club”) is a new offering this year from Cape Ann Fresh Catch. We’ve been enjoying smoked fish the past couple years so I wanted to try this. Will report on the experience as it goes.
FYI: I called to ask if I can add other items—fresh fish, specials—on a given week to my Smokehouse share. The answer was yes, as long as I do it by the deadline for my pickup location.
[I’m no longer a regular subscriber because their Tuesday delivery/pickup days In Cambridge don’t work with my schedule (previously they’d drop off at Harvest Co-op on Mondays, but Harvest closed).]
As I said in my last post (over a year ago) I’m no longer a regular subscriber (for reasons given above) but, given their accommodating nature, an occasional one. I do have to say their fish is not as pristinely fresh as they’d have us think, but it’s still pretty good and always reliable. I got scallops and haddock from them today and decided to go full New Engand chowda and fish fry, both with twists:
Scallop chowda: Sweated finely chopped shallots, celery, (carrots for color and sweetness), and garlic, then made an L-turn and added ginger, curry leaves and chopped Thai green chillies. Went conventional again with diced potatoes, then rogue once more with coconut cream instead of dairy. Salted and simmered till potatoes were done, turned off heat, added scallops and let them cook in the residual heat. Turned on heat briefly at the end so that I could add chopped cilantro, and have its flavor infuse. Ground fermented white pepper on top.
Fish fry: Coated the fillets in a mix of cornstarch, Kashmiri chilli pepper, salt, turmeric and salt, pressed on bread crumbs, and shallow fried.
Sauce: Tartar-raita: Finely chopped cucumber and radish, quickly picked in rice vinegar and salt, then stirred with a mix of yoghurt cream and mayo.
When my cooking isn’t mock-Maharashtrian it’s often mock Sicilian (vaguely the heritage of my wife’s family). Steelhead trout encrusted with Sicilian red pepper flakes and coarse salt, panfried in olive oil and showered with previously caramelized fennel, shallots and thin slices of orange. Hake, panfried on one side, then broiled under a pecorino-parsley-panko (not the most Sicilian of breadcrumbs, but I’m mock-). Duck-fat roasted potaoes – I’m told there are ducks in Sicily.
