Seabass from H&H Fresh Fish cooked by the author with spinach, mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, bacon, and more
Santa Cruz-based
H&H Fresh Fish offers sustainable seafood to customers in Santa Cruz and the Greater Bay Area. Folks can choose to get their extremely fresh fish via many methods; the main two are by making a weekly commitment and signing up for a subscription or by visiting a farmers’ market when the sustainable-seafood-craving strikes.
First, the weekly subscriptions:
These are similar to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). The way H&H’s CSS (Community Supported Seafood) works?
Each week, members receive a cooler bag of sustainable fish by either 1) picking up the cooler at a designated drop-site or 2) having it delivered to their home or office. Members can choose between one or two meals per weekly delivery and can customize portions for exactly the number of servings they need.
I myself am a “one meal per week” subscriber and I receive a one-pound portion; the smallest size available is a single share for $10/week; this is approximately a half-pound. Recent fish I have savored include local halibut, local snapper, and local wild King Salmon. For the halibut, all I did was add olive oil and lemon and it was absolutely delectable. The week that I received the snapper, I made an easy and wonderful snapper taco recipe that H&H co-owner Heidi Rhodes had provided (the CSS started in June 2011 and at first members received hard copies of recipes each week; this process has now been streamlined into an online blog with recipes). In fact, I also used one of these online recipes with the salmon, creating a delicious cherry tomato salsa that complemented the fish perfectly. And just today (Tuesday, Aug. 21), I received local white seabass and used it to make a dish featuring ingredients like spinach, red onion, mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, and more (see photo above).
The CSS is available in many cities including Capitola, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Campbell, Santa Clara, Los Altos, and Los Gatos. To sign up, click here or go to http://csa.farmigo.com/join/hhfreshfish/css. If H&H’s CSS is not yet available in your city, click here to be put on a waiting list. The waiting list includes San Francisco.
If you pay ahead for a whole year instead of only paying for a month or half/full season (8 deliveries/16 deliveries), you receive a credit good at H&H’s online store. The amount of the credit depends on the portion size that you are reserving.
Next, the farmers’ markets:
H&H sells its sustainable, tasty fish at EIGHTEEN farmers’ markets each week (!). These include several in the Santa Cruz area, the Ferry Plaza and Stonestown in San Francisco, several in Oakland, plus Monterey, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, and Palo Alto. Here is the full market schedule.
At the markets you’ll find both raw fish and ready-to-eat fish – the latter including smoked fish, Hawaiian-style poke, ceviche, oysters, and cooked Dungeness crab meat when in season.
Other information:
H&H seafood is now available as part of Westside bakery & café Companion Bakeshop’s menu on Thursday evenings. In July, Companion started “Taco Thursdays” from 5-8 p.m. by partnering with The Yam & Bean, a new personal chef and catering service. The Yam & Bean offers yam tacos and fresh fish tacos (featuring H&H fish), all made with handmade organic corn tortillas. You can eat your tacos inside the bakery, on the bakery patio outside, or next door at Odonata Wines. Learn about the experienced Y&B chef, David Stockhausen, here.
H&H would like to start doing weekly deliveries to offices in the South Bay. If you are interested and have an office with at least 10 people, email css@hhfreshfish.com or call (831) 461-1576.
As mentioned above, Heidi Rhodes is the co-owner of H&H. The other “H” is her life-and-business-partner Hans Haveman. Hans is a fisherman with decades of experience, and both Hans and Heidi are truly dedicated to providing local, sustainable and healthy seafood to all who desire it. They participate in many community events; just in the last few months they have brought their oyster bar to several beer and wine festivals and to an Edible Monterey Writers’ Dinner (the bar is also available for private catering events).
For more on the history of H&H, read my October 2011 overview article (note that the online form is out of date in that article; this article has current link).
Also visit H&H’s Facebook page for more info and photos.
On Twitter? Follow me @santacruzfoodie
