From shucking in oyster bars to his own private events and even for the President of the United States, Gardener Douglas truly is the Oyster Ninja. With his own mobile rawbar business and podcast, Gardner has garnered some amazing experiences around oysters. Gardner is super passionate about oysters and his work, and it really shows during our conversation today that encompasses everything from what oyster shucking is to farms and restaurants to oyster recycling and entrepreneurship.
Connect with Gardner: Instagram| Oyster Ninja Podcast
Quick Links
Oyster and bull roast
S.S. Shucking
Chincoteague oysters
Eastern Shore of Virginia
Tysons’s Chicken
Oyster Farming
Rappahannock River
Oyster Recovery Partnership
Rappahannock Oyster Bar
Woodbury Kitchen
Michelle Obama
Oyster Shell Recycling
Gardner Climbs an Oyster Shell Midden
Show Notes
00:30 How did Gardner get his Oyster Ninja moniker? The story comes from a few years of evolution starting in the oyster industry and then deciding to start his own podcast.
5:00 Learn what oyster shucking is, exactly, and how it’s different from opening an oyster. Oyster shucking is an art; meat must be whole, clean, and intact on a properly shucked oyster. There’s a difference between bill and hinge shucking, and there’s different tools for the trade.
10:10 Gardner gets into his childhood, about how having a masculine influence in nature would have impacted his life in different ways. As it was, when he met his dad, it was then he found the intoxicating water love.
12:30 Gardner shares the amazing and personal story of how he met his dad and the huge impact his dad has had on his life since this meeting.
16:25 In his shucking business, Gardner works with both wild and farm raised oysters. Primarily, where he is, the oysters are farm-raised. Gardner shares a little biology behind wild versus farm-raised (wild can reproduce while farm-raised cannot). Learn why farm raised oysters are eaten all year round and where the saying “only eat oysters in the months that end in ‘R’ comes from.”
19:10 What makes oysters taste different? Farmed or wild? It actually matters where, regionally, the oysters come from. Farmed in the ocean will be salty. Farmed in the river? Will be sweet and minerally. Farmers can raise a deep-shelled oyster.
26:10 What does it take to have a $10 oyster? Clickbait, mostly. But it got Kara!
28:40 After being deployed to Afghanistan with the Army, Gardner came back home and was looking for a job that he enjoyed. Falling back on the good times he had with his dad, Gardner turned to oysters. His first experience shucking back stateside was at Rappahannock Oyster Bar in Virginia.
29:20 As the DC oyster shucker and oyster ninja, Gardner has garnered quite a following. So when the President of the United States needed an oyster shucker for his wife’s birthday party, Gardner was called. The life lesson? Get in the picture, dirty apron and all. Let other people tell you no; don’t cancel yourself out.
33:25 After working for other people- and working hard- Gardner realized that, while he didn’t mind hard work, he would rather be working for himself and reaping his own rewards. That’s how he decided to launch his own oyster business. If he failed? Then he fails, and he’ll get a different job. But he had to try. How he got into it? He talked to people as if he was already doing it, and in this way he was able to test the market, his idea, and spread the word.
37:00 Does Gardner recycle his oyster shells? Why is it important? What does recycling oysters even look like? Kara walks listeners through what oyster recycling is and why it’s important for baby oysters.
39:50 Gardner’s blank check wish? A TV show! Making the Oyster Ninja podcast on TV talking to oyster farmers, kelp farmers, and ocean non-profits. His field story? Getting stabbed in a shucking house on Chincoteague Island.
47:20 Gardner’s conservation ask: eat more oysters and know when they’re harvested. Kara’s add-on: know where they’re from and get them from farmers!