YOU DON'T HAVE TO ADMIT... to being adverse to cookies, or to not being into snickerdoodles, or to not considering yourself a gingerbread person, no no. That would be going too far, because, yes, you absolutely like sweets and treats and cakey biscuits rolled in fancy pink sugar. But there comes a point, around the middle of December, when you find yourself avoiding trays of peanut butter balls and peppermint chewies and confections of all sorts, all because you've hit your personal dessert cap for the year. That is about the moment when your ruminations return to savorier fare, the stews and soups and casseroles and bakes of winter. And one of the best-known of the stews, and true royalty among seafood stews, is the chowder, which is about as wintry a dish as wintry dishes get. Does it warm the cockles? Many would say yes. Is there typically steam to heat the slurper's cheeks as they slurp? That would be an affirmative. Do the crackers, if the eater likes crackers, add further crunch and heartiness? Let's not quibble about it: They totally do. If this is where your chowder-dreaming head is at, your dreams will soon be answered at the...
SANTA CRUZ BEACH BOARDWALK, for The 37th Annual Clam Chowder Cook-Off & Festival is but a couple of months away. That gives you time to find items for your clam costume, because of course you'll want to show dressed as a clam, if that's your jam, and you'll be able to round up all of your chowderian chums, too, for a road trip. It's a full weekend (it didn't used to be, that's a fairly recent development), and there shall be much chowderage to sample. The amateur chowder chefs make their creations on Saturday, Feb. 24 while the pros are at the pots on Sunday, Feb. 25. Do you want to enter a team? High fives. Do you prefer to whip up Manhattan over Boston? There's a category for that. Get your info now, and, sure, eat those holiday sweets, if you're so inclined. You know steamy, savory fare is coming up, at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, in but an instant of time. Clam you even wait? You clam.
