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May 3, 2011

This is traditionally one of the biggest weeks of the year for people taking care of “Mama”. There is an old saying that says “If Mama ain’t happy then no one’s happy.”
Well, nothing could apply more to Mother’s Day and the days leading up to it.

First of all, on the seafood front, you can make Mama very happy by giving her Lobster!
We have lobster in all shapes, forms and sizes. Obviously there is live lobster, and as we predicted, prices are high but not as crazy as in Mother’s Days past. In addition, we have a decent supply of lobster tails, both warm water and lobster tails from Maine and Canada. *Please order early, the season for processing has not started and supplies from the end of the season on Maine and Canadian produced products are running very low so it behooves you to buy what you need right away instead of waiting until the last minute.

We do have an adequate supply of Frozen Lobster Meat of all sizes, including our relatively bargain priced broken lobster meat which is perfect for making with pastas, sauces or stuffings. We have claw & knuckle and leg meat (CKL Lobster meat) which is perfect for all dishes that require lobster and is a bit cheaper than our ultra premium nitrogen frozen all-natural claw and knuckle meat which is nothing but 100% claws and knuckles.

And then, for the ultimate treat, there is Jumbo Lobster Lump. We have a little bit, and I do mean a little bit, of this frozen jumbo lobster lump that was frozen from this January’s Canadian season in stock. Prices are about the same as Fresh domestic Jumbo Lump Crabmeat. Supplies are limited so order very, very early in order to ensure supplies of that item.

In addition, if you’re trying to make a lobster dish, we have Minced Lobster Meat, Lobster bodies, and both raw and cooked Lobster Leg meat. We also have the Clearwater raw, high-pressure processed lobster in both body meat and claw and knuckle meat; and whole lobster. Don’t forget that Inland Market also produces restaurant quality Lobster Cakes that are perfect for an appetizer in 1-ounce sizes and in a 3-ounce size.

The other item that draws a lot of attention during Mother’s Day is Crab. It seems as though Soft-shell crabs are going to be few and far between and super expensive until after this weekend but we have the fabulous Florida stone crabs in stock as well as a decent supply of Imported and Domestic Fresh Crab meat. Maine Peekytoe Crabmeat is starting to roll in again as that season gets under way.

We have a good inventory of all types of Pasteurized Crab meat from China, Indonesia, Philippines, and the US, as well as, first-of-the-season Alaskan Snow crab (we even have a good supply of jumbo snow crab in stock, some are actually bigger than some of the King Crab we’ve seen lately. There is a new shipment of huge 9-12 King Crab legs; this is a very rare commodity indeed.

*Please pre-order all of these items as quickly as possible, especially the frozen, as there is no benefit in waiting for any of these items until the last minute. Also if you could let us know if there is any fresh or live needs that you may have, it would really help us in planning our purchases.

May is also the time of year where we start to see Fresh Shrimp coming out. This year it is very late due to the cold weather in Georgia and South Carolina and we’re seeing very few fresh shrimp. What we do have as a surprise is something called Blue Foot Shrimp, which is as close we get to the famous Laughing Bird shrimp from Belize. This is a salt-water grown, all-natural, antibiotic-free farmed peeled shrimp from Ecuador. The price is very similar to Laughing Bird shrimp. It is peeled and de-veined from a 41-50 shrimp and is wonderful for all applications that you used Laughing Bird or the freshly peeled rock shrimp that is now again out of season.

FLASH SURPRISE!!!!FRESH 16/20 HEAD ON SHRIMP ARRIVE TOMMOROW!!!!
A few boats we had been working with in Cameron, Louisiana have come together to change the way shrimp are caught and sold in the Gulf.
First -the boats only shrimp at night and come in in the morning.
Second -they are unloaded in a refrigerated dock and hand graded.
Third-they are rushed to all our plants throughout the south and will be here tomorrow.
Fourth-to preserve the integrity of the heads we want to sell them in 20 lb. cases at a special price for orders bought that way.

One thing that is plentiful for this weekend is Crawfish and crawfish tail meat. Live crawfish and cooked crawfish will be available this week. We will have some limited supplies of cooked crawfish from Louisiana, and live crawfish is a pre-order item. But we should have good supplies of Louisiana, freshly-picked crawfish tail meat for all sorts of uses for this weekend.

Scallops should be abundant but up in price. Please do not forget our Viking Village, super-fresh dry dry scallops. Mama deserves the best!

Shellfish, including Oysters and Mussels, should be abundant but again please give us pre-orders so that we can bring it in on time. Our last truck arrives from the Northeast on Friday and our last truck arrives from the Gulf on Thursday night, so please help us to not disappoint you.

Fish wise, it is pretty much as we predicted. There is a decent supply of expensive Atlantic Salmon, a hopefully increasing amount of Fresh King Salmon out of Alaska and Oregon with various amounts of Arctic Char and Steelhead.

The fish that will be readily available will be Lake Pontchartrain Drum, Baja Redfish and we have the first Amberjack since the closing to enter our building tomorrow.

Flounder is tightening up. Flounder will be available from the mid-Atlantic, prices are up a great deal, but the quality of this last catch from the spring season is exceptional.


One surprise is great quality Tuna and Swordfish at really good prices for this weekend.


Snapper and Grouper, as we predicted, remain very, very scarce and very expensive, although we have inventories of both there are better options at less money.

If you need orders of Fresh Squid from Rhode Island or day boat Cod or Haddock from the Gulf of Maine, as well Skatewing or Monkfish, please let us know as soon as possible.

On the Farm-raised front, we have a good order of Loupe de Mer arriving tonight after being harvested this morning in Greece. We have new stock of farm-raised North Atlantic Turbot arriving on Wednesday. In addition, we’re seeing that Halibut will be available but the prices are still up.

On the non-seafood side we have good inventories of everything you could want; All Natural Veal from both Marcho Farms and Le Quebecois, Piedmontese Beef from Montana Ranch, Painted Hills All-Natural Beef, as well as, Springer Mountain Chicken. *Please let us know if you need additional airline breasts as this is usually in high demand for Mother’s Day.


We have some terrific Duck including Sonoma Margret breast & Foie Gras and our Pekin Duck from Jurgielewicz Farms that people are absolutely ecstatic over. We have been in twelve cuttings since last week against the stuff from way up north in Canada and we have won and gotten orders all twelve times! Please, we are not trying to ignore you by not showing you the product but it is hard to get around and see everybody at once.
Please let us know when you can schedule our sales crew to come and show you a sample.

Don’t forget if you could let us know about the Great Southern Plantation Quail from down the road in Madison, GA. They now have the quail airline breast as well as semi boneless breasts and quail eggs.

We also have a great selection of all sorts of Smoked items such as seafood, duck breasts, American & Italian prosciutto, Spanish parma ham and of course Eden 100% Kurobota Farm in the USA Bacon (both sliced and whole slabs)


Speaking of Pork, we have the world’s best pork which was just named 1st in the country; 100% Certified Berkshire Eden Farms ham. We have a good inventory of Ten-bone racks, Black forest hams and a really good inventory of pork butts and pork bellies for this weekend.

We have replenished our stock of Colorado Domestically Grown All-Natural Lamb and New Zealand Lamb after the Easter holiday.

And for your Sunday brunch we have just about everything you could want from locally produced Chicken Sausage, Aidell’s sausage, turkey bacon from Goodschall’s out of Pennsylvania and a new item; Harper’s Country Ham from Kentucky!