Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Birthday/Crab Feed

First off, we opened that bottle of wine. It took two strong men and an assortment of knives and wine openers. But they prevailed.

Val thanked them. OK, we all thanked them. We managed to finish the wine and now I can't let go of the empty bottle. It's so neat. And useless. I need a Throw Away That Special Yet Empty Bottle of Wine Day next.
The Chesapeake Blue Crabs were amazing. A local fisherman caught us a bushel of crabs that morning, steamed them that afternoon and delivered them to us hot.
We poured the Old Bay and hammered away.
The wonderful thing about blue crabs is that it takes hours. They're nothing like king or snow crab legs or even bodies. They're smaller for one, the flavor is different of course, and there are techniques and toxic body parts and it's laborious and extremely rewarding. The crabs are delicious hot when you start out and still hours later when they're cold. You dip them in Old Bay and butter. And it's a very drawn out and relaxed event. You just sit and talk and pick crabs and eat potato salad and coleslaw and talk and drink beer or wine and melt more butter and pick more crabs as the sun goes down.




And things wind down.
Tadd's stories keep us laughing.

P.S. I couldn't decide - we had both avocado and sweet corn ice cream for dessert, both yummmmm!

6 comments:

IndianaJones said...

this sounds pretty much darn near perfect.
Glad you had such a lovely birth day:)

Melanie said...

Oh, man, you wouldn't believe how seriously I thought about just grabbing a car and driving down. But then... my practical side took over, and I started thinking of all the reasons it wouldn't work... so I didn't.

I think I'm regretting that.

meg said...

Happy Birthday...and I know my comment should be left at that, but Val looks so beautiful in that picture I couldn't NOT say anything, and a bit of a lush, but lets blame that giant (throw it away) bottle.

Valerie said...

The avocado was totally my favorite.
See Meg- go to Germany and become an instant drunkard!

meg said...

oh Val, not a drunkard, a lush darling, it sounds so much better!

Tacy said...

wow... this is an awesome post. not least because of the very nice shot you took of my little babe!! We had SO much fun. Thanks for making us a part of it!