by Daniel Wedin

Created on: January 15, 2007   Last Updated: April 06, 2011

I'm a longtime lover (no pun intended) of fresh on the half shell oysters. I've had them in a number of places around this great country yet my favorite place is right at home in SoPo (south of Portland, Oregon). I frequently have the oysters shipped in from Willapa Bay. A small online retail purveyor down there (willapa-oysters.com) ships them UPS ground right to my doorstep.

What sets these oysters apart is their pedigree. They are Virginicas, a type of oyster indigenous to the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Argentina. Most common variety on the west coast is the Pacific, a Japanese seed stock oyster.

The native Olympia was dredged out and diseased out years ago and remains a viable oyster only in south Puget Sound (visit the Oyster House in Olympia, Washington to taste those tiny jewels). Anyway, these Willapa Virginicas are absolutely the best oyster I've ever had. Ever enjoyed Blue Points, the only oyster on the Morton's Steak House menu? These are the same variety but from the cleanest estuary in the nation, good old Willapa Bay.

If you're not familiar, Willapa Bay is up Long Beach from the mouth of the Columbia River in Southwest Washington. The oysters arrive overnight and come complete with bag tag with the bed they were taken from and the date. They are clear, firm, briny and intensely flavorful. The shuck easily and rarely does the meat end up marred by your knife. I love them for that but would gladly fight through all kinds of obstacles to arrive at the wondrous site these beauties present.

I enjoy them sans accompaniment, though my wife enjoys a spritz of fresh lemon and a drip or two of Red Hot or Tabasco. They need nothing, however. Within a minute or two of eating your first oyster your heart literally leaps. I theorize this is the selenium in the nectar hitting your system. Selenium is a known mood elevator.

And that's one of the fabulous benefits to enjoying oysters. They may be the most complete and most accessible mineral packet in the world. Oysters are far and away the richest source of zinc, beating pot roast 10-1 or better by weight. Are they aphrodisiacs? Perhaps, a study done at a Texas University seemed to indicate this is so. I say, though, that what's happening is that most of the people eating oysters are deficient in one or more or many minerals. Eating oysters simply replaces the depleted stocks so that everything from head to toes operates as it should.

If you can't find fantastic oysters in the shell, and can't walk from

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