Suddenly, Steamers

Oh, I love these little guys. They're the perfect summer lunch. Simple to prepare, light in the stomach and delicious. It had been a while since I made a meal of them but snacking on little-necks at Greenwood Lake over the weekend was a welcome reminder to do so. The Asian markets near my house in little Chinatown offer fresh hardshells at 4.15/lb and I went in for the full pound. I also got a buttload of produce, noodles and various dried comestibles. Then I walked home, scrubbed the sand from the clams, put them in a deep pot with about an inch of water and let everything heat up while I changed out of my bathing suit. (Yes, I live across from the Sunset Park community pool; the frequently congested with obese teens who I am scared will make fun of me and once did but still fully swimmable and most critically FREE and ACROSS THE STREET and FREE community pool). I assembled few other ingredients because steamer clams season their own broth and man is it tasty. If you can hang, Joy of Cooking even endorses it as a beverage. I can't. The clams take 6-10 minutes to cook. Just keep looking at them and wait for their shells to fall open. Then you season the broth minimally with salt and black pepper. Then you dribble some melted butter over the top. Squeeze a lemon into it if that's what squeezes your lemon. Then eat them. You can use a little mollusk fork or whatever to pull out the goods, but I'm into using my hands. Scoop up some broth in the shell, sip it out and then go in for the kill. It's good. Afterwards, you can use the empty shells as castanets.