Getting Hooked

By Polly Frost

Polly’s Pastalaya. Photo by Polly Frost

(Ms. Frost is a regular contributor to SBCurrent’s comments section. You should know that Polly grew up in Santa Barbara, went to San Marcos High School, Santa Barbara City College, and UCSB before heading to New York City to be a freelance writer. Her humor, fiction, criticism, and interviews, have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Elle, and The Atlantic. She directed and wrote two long-running monthly shows – “Sex Scenes” and “Deep Inside”– at The Cornelia Street Cafe Cabaret in Greenwich Village, and toured four autobiographical one-woman shows. She enjoys commenting at SB Current.)

The Politics of Seafood

I don’t know about you, but the political hubbub and excitement of recent months has left me a little jangled and exhausted, despite the glimmers of hope and relief that the results have offered us at the national level.

Even so, politics at the local level couldn’t be more depressing. We have a handful of sensible people doing their best, and much gratitude to them. But are we really doomed to the same hopeless people who've done nothing but make a mess out of our beautiful Santa Barbara while feathering their own nests?

The prospect of who has once again been elected to run our public schools is most depressing.

This is the kind of moment when — for consolation, hope, and pleasure — I turn to local businesses. These are people who put heart and soul into serving our community. Among the best is an outfit more Santa Barbarans should know about and make use of: GetHooked Seafood. They’re the people I buy my seafood from each week. They work with local fisherman, offer great deals on the freshest possible seafood. They’re responsive, informative — and will even deliver your order to your residence.

Fishing for a Kid-Friendly Meal

In October, I got an email from GetHooked. It announced a Kid-Friendly Seafood Recipe Contest they were holding through one of their company outreach and education organizations. Did I — or other customers — have fun, easy, affordable, nutritious, and delicious meals for the schools to feed students and for the students to learn to make?

Suddenly, I felt hope again for this city. Because Victoria Voss and Kim Selkoe  – the two women who own and run GetHooked – are community activists of the best kind. They don't wait for government funding. They don't wrap their projects up in ideology. They just take what's right in front of them and create new possibilities for Santa Barbara to be a better place. Not only for people of all ages and incomes, but animals, plants, and, of course, those miraculous creatures that live in our ocean.

Victoria and Kim combine backgrounds of commercial family fishing and academic degrees in Marine Biology. With their subscription retail business, they provide customers with half a dozen different seafood options each week. That can range from Hope Ranch Mussels, to Halibut, to Grassy Bar Oysters, Rockfish and Calamari – and more. Each seafood option comes with a detailed account of its origin, who caught it, how to cook it, and what its sustainability is.

Customers' orders are delivered once a week.

Add to that busy business and their work bringing commercial fishermen together with scientists and local officials, Selkoe and Voss are also passionate about their two major programs. “We have been working with Rio School District in Oxnard to provide children with healthy and sustainable food options. In the next two school years we will be developing curriculum and expanding our program from 3300 meals per month to around 40,000,” they enthusiastically explain.

And on another front, the two women turn their fish scraps into “a micronutrient-rich liquid garden amendment that recharges soil health and supports thriving plants.”

Voting for Polly’s Pastalaya

So why not take a break from the daily announcements about Cabinet appointments and take part in GetHooked’s seafood recipe contest? I couldn’t imagine a better cause than helping local kids eat well and get enthusiastic about food and cooking.

I entered my take on the Cajun classic, Jambalaya. Now, making Jambalaya can be an all-day event. Typically, friends bring in whatever duck or seafood they've caught.

Endless bottles of beer are cracked open, and hours of Cajun music are played. But kids need something simpler and, perhaps, a little less girth-creating. 

So, I simplified the ingredients to a richly seasoned tomato base, still featuring what’s known as “The Trinity” (green bell pepper, onion, and celery), and topped it with only two proteins: Andouille sausage and shrimp. And then, rather than serve it with the traditional rice, I substituted Ziti pasta. 

And there it was, Polly's Pastalaya.

And my recipe won first place!

Thank you, Genesis “G” Mena, the coordinator of GetHooked Seafood Education and Outreach, Kim, Victoria, and Michael (who masterfully runs the company’s deliveries) for the generous prize of $100 worth of your seafood. 

But, as appealing as free seafood is, I'm donating that money to their program. The prize they gave me has reminded me that even though voting in elections is essential, we shouldn’t wait for politicians to come through with programs that may – or may not – change our world for the better. It's up to me -- and to every one of us -- to take GetHooked's cue and start those programs ourselves. 

I don’t know how Selkoe and Voss voted (and I’m happy not knowing). But in this season of elections and vast amounts of political anxiety and symbolism, I think it’s important to remember that they, and other local people like them, are in fact doing more good, politically, than 90% of our elected officials.