Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Oyster

Halp save my oyster stew!

thatbrunette — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:16:02 -0800

The milk in my oyster stew boiled over. Is it salvageable? I've got an oyster stew on the stove, ingredients are half and half, a tonne of butter, oysters, shallots and celery. I left it (I know, I know) in the care of a roomate for two minutes, and it boiled over. Now the milk is a little clotty. Is there a fix, or has this been ruined?

I should probably stop impulse-based food shopping.

A Terrible Llama — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:58:11 -0800

What do I do about the five oysters I can't open? I opened five out of ten with absolutely no grace at all. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, they all feature some cheerful guy in a t-shirt popping oysters open with the ease of somebody cracking an egg. It's quite annoying. I know to find the hinge and where to put the oyster knife, but in all the videos the guy just slides it in there, gives it a gentle twist, and the shell pops open. My kitchen, on the other hand, is covered in oyster shrapnel.

I did give them a few minutes rest in the freezer, it really didn't do much at all.

On the positive side, the five I ate were really good.

If anyone knows some awesome secret that appears no where else on the internet about some top secret way of opening an oyster, please share. It took me forever to open the ones I did open. I'm wondering if that 'just slip it in hinge and twist thing' is just a big lie spread by the oyster industry so I have to buy twice as many as I need because I won't be able to open half of them.

What do I do? If I can't open them, what can I do with them? Preferably an option that involves eating them.

The world is not my oyster

still_wears_a_hat — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:14:26 -0800

I'm heading to London from the U.S. for several weeks, and I'm confused about Oyster cards. I've read the site, and now I'm even more confused. Specific questions are: Despite what the tourist books say, I don't think I want a visitor card, because it looks like the visitor cards can't be loaded with multi-day travel cards. But can I - as a non-resident - get a "non-visitor" card? If so, is there any drawback in just getting one when I get there, rather than trying to get one in advance? Will I need ID?

Can I have 'pay as you go' and a weekly or monthly travelcard at once on the same card? I'm pretty sure I'll want to do some stuff not covered by the travelcard. If I can't use the same card in those situations, what do people do? Carry more than one, or just pay for non-travelcard travel using cash?

An embarassment of oysters

TungstenChef — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:02:19 -0800

I seriously overbought on oysters and clams and need to figure out what to do with them (other than raw). I'm making dinner for 2 tonight and picked up a dozen oysters at the local Chinese grocery. Problem is they're huge, about 1/2 lb each and bigger than my (large) hand. I made it worse by having them throw in 10 cherrystone clams because they looked good. My original plan was adapting this Oysters Casino recipe to the grill but that will just be too much rich food for us.

I love raw shellfish, but I won't suck it down after paying $.69 for it. They move a lot of seafood and the shellfish itself smells fresh, but that's a little too much of a gamble for me. I'd love some ideas about what to do with both the oysters and clams keeping in mind the following:

1. The shellfish should be cooked, but I'm not the type to want to overcook it into oblivion.
2. It's 105F here, I love chowder dearly but it's just not that time of year.
3. I need something that will heat the house minimally, or can be done on a grill or outdoor burner.

Special bonus: They had frog legs right next to the shellfish and I thought, "I've never eaten an amphibian before." What can I do with 2 pairs of meaty ones?

Oy! I've got oysters.

goalyeehah — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:50:22 -0800

I've got 11 fresh oysters in the refrigerator. After opening them what are the basics in devouring them. I know that you can add hot sauce or lemon and salt. Are there other simple things to add to them? Does one pour off the excess water in the shell? What arcane info do I need to know to maximize the pleasure of imbibing Aphrodite's vessel?

Adventures in Living

greekphilosophy — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:31:53 -0800

If the world were your oyster, where would you go? I just learned that I failed the New York bar exam. That's actually better news than you might think, because now my partner and I feel free to head just about anywhere. Since I'll have to take a bar exam anywhere we end up, it's no more insane or taxing than staying on the East coast. In fact, if we land somewhere with a reasonable cost of living (unlike the East coast!), we'd end up better off than if we just stayed put!

We're young, I've got decent earning potential as an attorney anywhere I pass the bar, he's planning to go back to school to study something fun and creative, and we really just want to go on an adventure for the rest of our 20s. He's from Philadelphia, I'm from the Houston area.

Where should we have that adventure?

Can an Oyster Card be hacked?

complience — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 06:45:17 -0800

Can an Oyster Card be hacked? As i was leaving the tube yesterday a security guard scanned my oyster card with a handheld device just before I was about to scan out through the barrier.

This made me wonder why?.. what was it his handheld scanner would show that the normal barrier scanner couldn't pickup. The only thing i could think of was that somehow oyster cards can be faked and he was checking the status of the card against the main central database.

Oyster card?
if your wondering what an oyster card is.. its a new contactles smartcard that you use instead of a normal ticket on the london underground. It uses Philips' MIFARE Standard 1k chips provided by G&D and SchlumbergerSema. It is the same contactless smartcard as Touch 'n Go card in Malaysia which is mainly used for tollway fares.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card

I found a MIFARE card writer on ebay.. could this do it?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250134169733

So my question is..
1.) can Oyster cards be hacked and faked?
2.) How would it be done?