Kula Farm to Table Featuring Marilyn Schlossbach

Please join us for a special evening at the Kula Urban Farm with featured guest chef Marilyn Schlossbach/Food for Though by the Sea. Enjoy an evening of fine dining in the midst of the Kula Farm greenhouse, with service provided by the Boys and Girls Club. Come out and enjoy great company and a fabulous meal in support of the farm’s programs and planned expansion.

Friday, November 12th at 5:30pm.

Order tickets here, menu posted below, no need to register below.

During the last three decades, Marilyn has developed her own brand of vacation cuisine that takes foodies on a round-the-world journey to some of the globe’s most sought-after culinary destinations. After years spent honing her craft, Marilyn is now the proprietor of seven food and beverage establishments along the New Jersey coast –including Asbury Park’s Langosta Lounge — and is an avid community advocate, endeavoring to promote the culinary arts among the next generation of service industry professionals. Marilyn is completely sponsoring this event to support the future of our operation.

Due to Covid we are to obliged to reduce the number of guests so we can comfortably seat you in our greenhouse. We’ll keep our doors and windows open to improve ventilation.

This event will be BYOB.

Please wear comfortable shoes, we have mulch and gravel walkways that are not good for high heals.

Connecting To Your Community: How Our Ohana is Navigating The Current Pandemic With Love and Purpose

o Our Community:

This is an unprecedented time in our universe. One, which is causing great challenges for all of us. And no one is exempt from the impact.

While there is a great deal to be concerned about, there are also beautiful things happening as we connect from afar. So, I wanted to let you know what my Ohana is doing as the is challenge continues to impact our community.

First and foremost, we’re staying home. 

I can only share my compassion for all of you from the remote safety of my home. I hope you are all doing the same because I cannot speak more adamantly on how important I feel it is to concentrate our health and wellbeing. Our wellness and the safety of our families and each other are paramount.

Second, we’re continuing to connect and serve one another.

My Ohana has rallied to create and deliver daily meals for local churches and seniors. We are partnering with Fulfill NJ and Asbury Park Dinner Table to keep restaurants going and help their staff members find purpose and mental and financial balance during this challenging time.

We also had an angel donor and loyal customer rally to deliver over 5,000 masks to our community.

And Food For Thought By The Sea is currently running a charity fundraising page to keep these community projects going.

You can learn more here: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/meals-and-masks

At the end of this letter you’ll also find resources and information that I believe we can all use as we navigate this trying time.

Most importantly, I wanted to share with you my story.

Less than eight years ago my business and my family were in a similar situation to this one. But it wasn’t a health challenge plaguing us, it was a storm: SuperStorm Sandy. 

In a similar way, people rallied to support the Jersey Shore from near and far.

I was a mother of twin 5-month-old girls at the time and thought that would be the most challenging thing I would ever face as a new mother and leader.

I WAS WRONG…

But this situation has its negatives and positives... as everything in life does…. One positive is that the entire world is going through this and if we pay attention. We will become stronger and grow through what we go through because #communityisaverb. If we leave our differences behind, if we leave our fears at the door, if we do as all my spiritual leaders teach me, have compassion and kindness for each other, we will come out the other side of this stronger and more aware than ever.

The challenge is that we borrowed so much money to bring our businesses back after Sandy and we are still paying off our SBA loan.

I am scared but I try to turn that into helping in any way I can. 

Unfortunately, I have two seven-year-old girls who are struggling with not knowing enough but knowing too much about the Coronavirus. Children should not have to ever understand or go through this. 

Keeping my stress under wraps when the days are filled with deferments, forbearances and juggling how to help my staff and my community, is super challenging.

But I am choosing to rally to support my staff and my loyal friends and family. 

I am choosing to take the much-needed time to craft what the future of my business and relationships with my community and myself will look like. 

Go silent and deep in hopes that the universe will guide me. 

And if not I will end up where I land.

Please take this time to reach out and mend your community, your relationships, and most of all, your entire core.

Life gets shorter every moment. 

We become wiser when we listen. 

We become more balanced when we choose to be kind to each other and ourselves. 

We will continue to have obstacles. 

We will continue to make mistakes. 

If we didn't we wouldn’t be compassionate human beings.


I am not quite certain what my company or I will become when this all plays out. 

It is too soon to tell. 

The challenge of being a small business person juggling leadership with personal and professional relationships is part of my ongoing learning process. 

Now we all must trudge through the bureaucracy of putting our businesses back together. 

I can say this: I have an amazing team and an amazing support group of many women who guide me every day in group chats and virtual happy hours.

I have a husband and family I cherish and friends I long to hug again. 

In this instance it doesn’t just take two to tango or a village, it takes a universal awakening of compassion and kindness and a commitment to the betterment of all of us.

AP Dinner Table Garners $25K Funding Support in Four Days

In just four days, AP Dinner Table has connected fare from local restaurants to over 1,400 of the most vulnerable in the city, thanks in part to a few angel donors. Among them is the city’s master waterfront redeveloper iStar, who not only made a $12K donation but is also offering to be a sustaining sponsor.

“Given the extraordinary difficulty that so many in our community are now facing, we hope that our donation, and support of this initiative, will help put food on the table of those in need in Asbury Park,” said iStar’s Senior VP Brian Cheripka. “ In addition, our partner David Bowd, and his team at The Asbury, will be using vegetables from [Interfaith Neighbors’] Kula Urban Farm to make and donate soups to help provide meals. We realize that these events are much larger than all of us and that now is the time to work together.”

AP Dinner Table is the brainchild of Paranormal Books and Curiosities owner Kathy Kelly, who has owned and operated her downtown venue for over a decade. 

“I’m very grateful to be able to do this,” Kelly said. “It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been just over a week since this idea popped into my head.” 

Kelly closed her Cookman Avenue store on Friday, March 13. 

“I was trying to think of who the most vulnerable businesses were in Asbury Park,” Kelly said. “I  had this little idea that I would sell Paranormal gift cards as a way to provide meals and support our most vulnerable residents. We have hunger in Asbury Park and we had restaurants going out of businesses so I thought what if we came up with a program where we were buying gift certificates and it would feed two birds with one seed.”

Kelly said she and her team of organizers have never been in the same room since the initiative launched. 

“When people say communities stop because we can’t stand next to each other that is a fallacy,” Kelly said. “We created something using our cell phones that have impacted thousands of families. I’m more connected to my community today than I was 10 days ago.”

On March 14, a small collective got the word out via social media and did an email outreach to local eateries. Two days later they were up and running, making the announcement that they are ‘on a mission to help our local restaurants and hungry families during these insecure times. By partnering with local churches and supporting local restaurants, we will not only mitigate the local economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to our restaurants, we will be feeding dinner to local families who are experiencing food insecurity.’ 

Founding organizer Joe Grillo said by week’s end [in just 4 days] they had raised close to $25K. Asbury Park Dinner Table began taking donations on March 17. They raised over $1,200 overnight. Their first angel donor was Watermark owner Russell Lewis, who had closed his waterfront venue in order to keep his staff safe. He also jumped in [behind the scenes] to help organize the endeavor.

A number of eateries immediately joined the initiative, including restaurateur Marilyn Schlossbach, MOGO, Cardinal Provisions, Reyla, Belmonte Ristorante, Purple Glaze, Confections of a Rock$tar, Pasta Volo, Local 130 Seafood, and Modine. 

And most recently, Kelly says The Asbury’s owner/operator David Bowd joined on to make soup using produce donated from Interfaith Neighbor’s Kula Urban Farm. Bowd, whose Salt Hotels includes five luxury and boutique hotels across the northeast, had closed Asbury Lanes at the beginning of last week and reduced capacity at The Asbury and added increased safety and sanitation protocols.

“We are making soups and together with iStar, Salt Hotels, The Asbury, Asbury Lanes, and Asbury Ocean Club Hotel and Residences, we will be donating on an ongoing basis to AP Dinner Table,” Bowd said. “Our hearts go out to everyone during this extremely challenging time and we are proud to be part of this community and the excellent work so many people are doing to help.” 

On Thursday, AP Dinner table distributed 200 meals in three locations – Second Baptist Church, located at 124 Atkins Ave; St Stephens AME Zion, located at 1001 Springwood Ave; and United Fellowship Baptist Church, located at 603 Third Ave. Their guidelines are simple – one person per family can pick up the meals between 5:30 and 6:30 pm daily, and each family will get up to four pre-packaged meals. 

The next day, the meal distribution rose to 500 and Ocenport’s elderly care and social service organization Beacon of Life signed on as an angel donor and the Boys & Girls Club of Monmouth County’s local site on Monroe Avenue signed on as a distribution hub. The facility closed its doors on March 17. By Saturday, AP Dinner Table was readying for a 750 meal distribution and added MOGO’s Commercial Kitchen – Asbury Park Food Collective, located at 906 Sewall Ave as a fifth distribution site. 

“The COVID-19 crisis sparked this but, if donations keep coming, this can be a sustained collaboration moving forward,” Grillo said. “From the local restaurants making the food to the local pastors distributing it, to the hundreds of small and big donors giving what they can…this is what Asbury Park is all about – we step up and support one another.”

AP Dinner Table continues 5:30 to 6:30 pm Sunday at the three church locations. For more information, click here. To donate, visit paypal.me/APDinnerTable.

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The Asbury Park Sun is affiliated with the triCityNews newspaper.

This article originally appeared on the Asbury Park Sun’s website.

Marilyn Schlossbach to chair N.J. Restaurant & Hospitality Association

As originally featured in ROI-NJ

Marilyn Schlossbach, executive chef and owner of the Marilyn Schlossbach Group in Asbury Park, will be sworn in next week as the new chairwoman of the New Jersey Restaurant & Hospitality Association in Trenton.

“Marilyn is an exciting chef that brings her flair of international cuisine to New Jersey, whose goal is to bring new and diverse chefs and owners into our association,” Marilou Halvorsen, president of the NJRHA, said.

Schlossbach, a longtime Jersey Shore local and beloved Asbury Park humanitarian and entrepreneur, has spent more than three decades in the food industry working her way up from waitress to chef to restaurateur.

Currently, Schlossbach dominates the Asbury Park boardwalk with restaurants and bars including Langosta Lounge, specializing in unique, locally sourced coastal cuisine; Pop’s Garage, serving casual and sustainable Mexican cuisine; and the Asbury Park Yacht Club, a beach bar and art gallery — all of which are extremely popular venues for local live music.

Schlossbach also owns Lightly Salted, Asbury Park’s first sustainability- and environmentally-focused surf shop; Marilyn Schlossbach Catering for beach weddings and corporate events; and Wave of Balance, a wellness supplement company.

Her community work includes founding the not-for-profit Food for Thought by the Sea, which fosters healthy relationships and learning opportunities through culinary and environmental studies and a partnership with Merrick Farms in Farmingdale, one of New Jersey’s oldest organic farms; a collaboration with Interfaith Neighbors on Asbury Park’s Kula Café and Urban Farm, which offers culinary training and potential job opportunities to local youth; community gardening and surf lessons with the Boys and Girls Club of Asbury Park; board membership with the College Achieve Greater Asbury Park Charter School; and unwavering support of environmental organizations such as Clean Ocean Action, Surfrider Foundation, American Littoral Society and Waves for Water that work to protect coastlines and marine environments.

Visiting The Dominican Republic For Surf, Smiles, And Self-Reflection

Before The Summer Season Begins We Head To The Dominican Republic

A few weeks ago, my family and I set off for the Dominican Republic. We were greeted by amazing people and found ourselves very much at home with surf, sand, smiles, and Moringa everywhere. everywhere! The trip was one that allowed me to truly reconnect with my creative intuition and to break away from the fear I’d been lugging around with me for a while. I also found that, like so many who have gone to the Dominican Republic before, I’ve fallen in love with the place and the feeling I have when I’m there. If you’re ready to fall in love too, read on to learn more about my trip.

A Home For Many Expats And A Culture That Reflects That Beautifully

One thing you’ll probably notice about the Dominican Republic when you first arrive is the vast number of expats who this place their home. People from Scandinavia Haiti, Spain, the US and everywhere in between have come to add their influence to this gorgeous oceanside paradise. The climate is fantastic, the ocean is a kaleidoscope of different blue shades washing over one another with the tide, and with every wave crash you become all the more certain that you belong there. Sampling local produce like papaya or turmeric was (which you’ll soon find is used in everything and is an awesome addition for sure!) gave us that tropical feeling from the start. The food in the DR is very influenced by Spanish, French, and multicultural Caribbean style so there are plenty of empanadas, braised meats, and veggies,  

The Dominican Republic Loves Moringa As Much As Wave Of Balance Does!

We loved the papaya and empanadas, and we were also struck by how the Dominican Republic is culturally aware of the benefits of moringa. Moringa and the Dominican Republic, much like our Wave of Balance Moringa and Our hometown of Asbury Park, are a delicious and dynamic duo.  From smoothies to food toppings, Moringa is everywhere in the DR and so is hospitality! Lina, who works at the gorgeous El Encuentro Surf Lodge was amazing. While we weren’t staying at the Lodge itself, we were nearby and Lina made us feel so comfortable. She was truly welcoming and helped us to find anything (from yoga to great surf breaks to excellent meals at local joints) and we just couldn’t be more grateful. In fact, we even left some of our Wave of Balance Moringa for the amazing folks at El Encuentro Surf Lodge. So, they’ll be using our Moringa to ride their own waves in the Dominican Republic. If you want to learn more about the Surf Lodge check them out here and if you’re ready to try our Wave Of Balance Moringa line, you can find those products here. Ready to plan your own trip to El Encuentro? Check them out here.

The Work and Impact of Mariposa On The  Women Of The Dominican Republic And DR Surf Culture

While we certainly loved visiting Lina and the team at El Encuentro (and eating our way through the amazing local eateries in the area), I’d be crazy not to mention Mariposa and my own experience of clarity from this adventure.

If you’ve read my travel blogs before, you definitely know that I don’t leave my humanitarian hat behind when I travel and Mariposa is one of the organizations I’ve fallen head over heels for in the Dominican Republic. The organization (You can learn more about them here.)

) works with women and children on everything from education, to health, to sustainability, to recycling. In fact, Mariposa makes the most of the Dominican Republic’s tourism draw for kitesurfing, especially in the Kite Surfing Capital Of the World in Cabarete. They repurpose the sail fabric to make travel bags and all sort of purses and backpacks. Mariposa cares for the environment by working on reef replenishment as well.

As I reflect on my own personal experience on this trip I found that surf culture is growing in the Dominican Republic. I visited the Encuentro Surf Break about 28 years ago, and I was the only one of my friends in the water. On this trip I found that about 50% of the surfers were women, and many were young women. I could see Mariposa’s influence, as they work to get kids on the coast involved in water sports, they focus on women and girls. They work to get young girls exposed to the resources around them.

A Guided Meditation That Unblocked Creativity And Found Me Profoundly Grateful.

I also had the chance to push the pause button on my trip and took full advantage of that opportunity. I was lucky enough to be led through a meditation with a woman named Lola (onajourneyinwards  on Instagram). She had instructed a yoga class for us and we hired her to do guided meditation and yin class.

Before the meditation I was finding my intuition and creativity fairly blocked, or at least very challenged for the past year. Lola’s meditation opened me up and allowed me to see an eye in my visualizations that I can still see to this day whenever I need it. It was a simple drawing but helped me to see and unblock what was feeling so stuck for so long. Lola’s work helped me to take the anxiety and fear out of my mental state and over the course of that hour I found my mental block released. I felt more connected to myself and so grateful for that place and even, for a place I was beginning to miss.

This trip made me appreciate our restaurant pavilion by the sea even more. Lola’s mediation, Lina’s welcome, and finding myself in a place that understands the true meaning of hospitality all reminded me of our places in Asbury Park. The people of the Dominican Republic allowed us to feel like we were the only people they were taking care of, and that is the heart of hospitality that others should truly strive for and live out each day. Lina, El Encurentro, Lola, and the other amazing people we met on the island (including Myran Lindblom who took photos of us enjoying the surf and sand) understood and lived this idea fully.

Home Is Where The Beach Is: Come Visit Us At Ours!

The welcome and true hospitality we experienced in the Dominican Republic allowed me to come back to this table by the window at Langosta and to feel as though there is no need to leave it right now. I find myself all the more committed to our work, to this beautiful ocean view, to my amazing team, and my phenomenal family. I’m glad to have new friends in the Dominican Republic and am so glad we got to visit. I’m sure we’ll be back sooner than we think.

But for now, it’s summer at the New Jersey Shore. And that means it’s time to make some amazing food, surf our hometown waves, enjoy the weather at our pavilion by the sea, and welcome our own visitors with the heart of hospitality that is rare by remarkable.

I hope you’ll come visit us at Langosta, Pop’s Garage, or the Asbury Park Yacht Club this summer and I can’t wait to meet you!

Our Spring Menu: A Collaborative Effort

The Spring Menu: On Full Display At Our Collaboration Dinner

On Wednesday March 27th we hosted our Collaboration Dinner at Langosta Lounge. It was en evening of wine, food, and friendship and I am so grateful to everyone who came to support the restaurant as we finish the curation of our spring menu.

What Is A Collaboration Dinner? 

The Collaboration Dinner is an opportunity for my team and I to showcase the items that we hope to place on our spring menu. We always hope to garner fresh perspectives and honest feedback so that we can tweak and improve the dishes before they hit the tables in the busy season. It’s a simply awesome chance to let locals, family, and friends know what’s new with my work, my team, and our community outreach.  It’s also a great chance to allow the people we know and love to connect with new people as well.

Big Things Coming This Spring!

This time around there was so much to share with our Collaboration Dinner attendees. Our Kula Farm and Kula Café efforts are growing and the farm will be catapulting into spring with the same joy and community-minded action it always offers. My new Moringa supplement line, Wave of Balance is launching (Our party favor gifts at the dinner featured a sample size of each supplement and you can learn more here) and I’m so excited to bring the tree of life to the community that fuels my life. The featured meals that evening featured mushrooms from Two River Gourmet Mushroom company. My new cookbook Feed This Community was on display and available for purchase at the dinner and, if you missed it, you can grab your copy here. I also had a chance to mention our Food For Thought By The Sea food truck and the Vehicle For Change Initiative to fundraise for the truck (To learn more about that click here )

With so much going on this season from mushrooms to food trucks, to cookbooks, we took time to pause, exhale, and enjoy the company of some fantastic people while tasting some new menu items. 

What’s For Dinner

One of the first plates of the evening was a Laissez Crab which included Creole spiced warm jumbo lump crab meat, delicately diced jalapenos, spicy creole mustard,  and house sourdough crostini  for dipping. The cheese was one I learned to make with my husband Scott at Bobolink Dairy Farm in Pennsylvania. We took with a renowned cheese maker named Nina White.

You can never have enough appetizers and so we also offered our guests some carefully cared-for Cuban olives. The olives were chopped with garlic, mixed with ricotta, and covered in panko. The soft, sweet, crunchy, lovely little bites make an awesome accompaniment to the rest of your meal.

One of the evening’s salads was what we affectionately call our Carousel Salad because it changes seasonally. The salad featured items grown right here in Asbury Park at our Kula Farm. The farm serves Kula café and other local restaurants who desire locally grown, organic vegetables and Lisa has taken the farm on like a dragon, as I said that evening. We’ll be hosting a Farm Dinner in April, so be on the look out for that!

Another salad that evening is what we call our Umami Salad. This offering featured a marinated Two River organic mushroom and broccolini salad with pickled grapes, miso Chinese mustard dressing, brûlée-ed burrata, and crispy noodles. Umami in itself is a full experience and this salad certainly follows suit.

One of the items we showcased that evening was a lobster pizza with corn and bacon.

We think those two words, lobster and pizza, just belong together. Be sure to try them and let us know if you agree!

An Entire Menu of New Tastes And New Connections

Our dinner entrees featured an Asian Chicken Marsala with spiced sake demi-glace, snow peas, a pepper sauté, and our very own Two River organic mushrooms. This unique take on Marsala featured a sweet but delectable sauce and aromatic mushrooms that glide on your palate and warms your heart as it does.

 A fan favorite that evening was our Ravino Lemon Mascarpone Ravioli. The local summer squash, heirloom tomato, carefully charred Vidalia onion, farm fresh thyme, black garlic rose velouté, and pine nut gremolata topping gave our guests the chance to experience an absolute adventure in Italian tastes.

Jalisco Steak made an appearance as well. This divine grilled and marinated skirt steak features caramelized onions, lobster potato cake, and corn equites. Juicy, cooked to perfection and expertly seasoned, this is sure to be a dish that you come back for.

If you’ve never tried Buffalo Cauliflower, I’d suggest you stop by Langosta this spring. Ours features Mazi buffalo sauce with cambozola blue cheese drizzle and Kula’s own micro celery is definitely worth the trip if you’re looking to spice things up.

Our collaboration dinner also featured General Tso Chicken  with farro, Two River organic mushrooms, bok choy, and a flavorful broccolini sauté. So, if you’re looking for an excuse to put down that take out menu, come see us instead.  

Surf and Turf, met Farm to Sea on Wednesday. Our dish features white miso and cilantro marinade, coconut, chili, ginger broth, carrot, and radish slaw, with lemongrass jasmine rice and fish sauce vinaigrette. This is a perfect dish for when you’re at Langosta on the boardwalk with a view of the crashing waves and the sound of the roaring ocean. You might even enjoy your Farm to Sea with your favorite wine as well. 

Speaking of Wine…

One of the toughest parts of curating a seasonal menu is the wine list. Tasting wine is a tough job and not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. There are thousands of wines from around the world that could be featured in our list and so we’ve taken to including our staff in wine research and including our Collaboration Dinner guests in the pairing down of that well-researched list.

Among some of the most notable wines of the evening were those from Sophie Bertin (Her wine label features a fossil from the place where the grapes in the wine are grown.) and Rumson Red from my very own Community Vines (A community-serving collaboration with the incomparable James Foley of SÉAMUS Wines and Shore Point Distributors. Click here to learn more ).  Needless to say, we are grateful for the help in tasting and exploring each of the wines and we can’t wait to share our wine list with you all!  

Langosta In Spring Time

Whether you’re having a drink with a friend or a family dinner to celebrate a milestone the team and I at Langosta are excited to welcome you and all of our visitors this spring.

Connect With Us! 

To stay in the loop with all that’s going on for us this season be sure to stay tuned to our website and blog and don’t forget to stop by and try our Spring menu!

See you soon!



Feed This Community Spotlight: Clean Ocean Action

Clean Ocean Action And The Beach

It’s a beautiful (albeit, brisk) spring day here in Asbury. I get the privilege of looking out the restaurant window and seeing the ocean’s waves crashing on a tan and beautiful shoreline here in Asbury Park. As I prepared today’s blog, I got to reflect on a time when I would have looked out onto Asbury’s shoreline and seen something very starkly different. I’ll tell you all about that today as I highlighting another amazing organization that I’ve chosen to donate to as part of the purchase price of my cookbook, Feed This Community (You can pick up your copy here).

 I’m grateful for the chance to tell you all about the amazing work and living legacy of Clean Ocean Action. Clean Ocean Action is an organization that is dear to my heart, not only because it’s creation and timeline mirrors my own culinary and event-planning growth, but because the organization is active in its efforts to protect our shorelines and water. I truly believe that I wouldn’t be looking out onto that pristine beach right now if it weren’t for the tireless efforts of Clean Ocean Action.

The Origin of Clean Ocean Action

Clean Ocean Action was created by Cindy Zipf in her living room around the time I began my adventure in the culinary world. At the time, I was working at Oshin and Clean Ocean Action had its kickoff party at the restaurant (which was located inside a dive shop in Avon). I was waitressing in the restaurant that year and so Cindy and I connected. She was driven, passionate, and thoughtful. We were both passionate about the work that Clean Ocean Action was doing and I was excited to help in my own way as well. 

Around that time, I started to work for COA to lead fundraisers and plan and execute bigger events for them. There was one time that remains in my memory even in this moment. It was an amazing evening for an event. We’d invited people to buy tickets for an event on a boat so that the funds could go to Clean Ocean Action. We’d chartered a boat going out of The Highlands with food, music, dancing, and drinks. The boat traveled out of port and went around the New York area, up the Hudson. It was quite an evening. Those in attendance got to connect with one another, enjoy delicious food, and take in beautiful views. They also got the added bonus of knowing that their ticket price included a donation to an amazing organization.

 Clean Ocean Action raised a great deal of money that evening and a great time was had by all.

I’d say that was my first major dive into marrying food, fun, and awareness to raise money for organizations who were doing work in the world that I truly believed in. It’s easy to forget, because we live in a world of fundraiser events, but back then this combination of raising money and holding an event alongside one another was a new approach. It was also my first real event job and I can’t think of a better way to begin that adventure because I was (and remain) so passionate about Cindy, Clean Ocean Action, and their mission.  

Coming Together For Clean Oceans And Shorelines

When Clean Ocean Action began, it was a time along our coast where there was on-going horrible toxic dumping.  One summer, there were people in hazmat suits patrolling the beaches and testing fecal and medical waste in the water and along the shoreline. People, tourists included, couldn’t go into shark river, the beaches closed, and for a time tourism essentially died. People finally became angry. The community really got lit up and environmental groups got involved including Clean Ocean Action. People collectively realized that the dumping was killing our ocean and that the off-shore dumping had polluted coast so badly. I was among them and began getting involved with organizations, of which I’d say Clean Ocean Action was one of the pioneers, to protect coast. Cindy and the organization traveled to fight against off-shore dumping in DC and the work of Surfrider and Clean Ocean Action shaped how people worked to protect coast.

Advocacy, Tourism, And The Common Good

Organizations and the people who supported them through advocacy and action no longer let government structures and politicians slide on things that mattered when it came to the safety and cleanliness of our ocean and shoreline. It was as simple as it was revolutionary: We’re in this together. No one wants a polluted ocean, a hazardous shoreline, dead fish washing ashore, or to tell their children that this is normal. It was not normal. It was not acceptable and that remains true even today.

Clean Ocean Action works with fishermen, tourism organizations, and surf organizations to educate and to communicate the importance of the coast to the enjoyment, livelihood, and wellbeing of all people.  

The Future of Our Oceans And Shorelines

Nowadays, I’d love to say that the troubles of that era are behind us. But that’s just not the case. There is still work to be done and Clean Ocean Action is still making that work happen. Cindy is a mentor of mine, a leader, and a fiercely strong woman who put herself out there when people weren’t fighting for the coast on the grassroots level. She built Clean Ocean Action in that way and has been activating and empowering people in that way each day.

As for me, I am just as committed to their cause and just as full in my support for their work as I help in whatever way I can.  Any time Clean Ocean Action wants to do a press conference they tend to do it at Langosta Lounge and the organization also held their 25th anniversary at the restaurant when it first opened. My twenty-fifth year of as a chef was also my twenty-fifth year working with Clean Ocean Action and the adventure in actively defending our ocean and shoreline continues.

Looking For Some Next Steps

• To learn more about Clean Ocean Action or to get involved, click here

• To pick up your copy of my cookbook and donate to amazing organizations like Clean Ocean Action, click here