Crab Christmas

So it finally comes to pass, the happiest day of the year, the crab sabbath. My clarified butter cup runneth over. Notice that butter cups are invariably half empty. We give thanks to the ocean, and we absolve those most guilty of ocean rape, through a seafeast of atonement. Crab day came early this year, but its usually celebrated in March. I found that it has been a very good year for Dungeness crab; these beauties were even larger, sweeter, and more flavorful than I remember them tasting in years past.



Crab Christmas is a fundraiser for the Clover Island Yacht Club. It is consistently the Club's most productive annual fundraiser. Every year, someone hauls a truck of fresh caught Dungeness crab back from a secret location on the shores of Washington's coast. It's a same day trip. An I drive four hours, and across the pass for this event. Dungeness crab is the NW's quintessential seatreat, a well loved regional culinary identifier. Crab feeds are what we do here. Twenty dollars buys you all-you-can-crack access to crab, but also to the many other potluck offerings and garlic bread, a cornucopia of tasty. The chatter quickly subsides once the crab lines open, as people select from one of two options, either hot or cold.

I contend that it's easier to taste the sweetness of a crab served cold, easier to capture the full nuance of flavors. While hot crab is delicious, I find it simply unpreferable. These crabs are fully cleaned and halved, then steamed. Standard parings are clarified butter and lemon. I also enjoy lime and a little salt with my lumps of claw meat. I attack these briny skeleton's the way a Death Valley vulture descends on a freshly ghosted carcass. It's done with a ravenous precision. My preferred tools are my hands and one small fork. I work a little differently than most. Claw crackers are ubiquitous, but finding them can be difficult if you only eat crab once a year. This tool ends up buried by other sharp and shiny kitchen objects that have a higher degree of functionality, in the drawer of forsaken kitchen gadgetry. After years of unsuccessfully trying to exhume claw crackers from the some kitchen drawer on a yearly cycle, I've decided them superfluous. I will note that I never have this problem with my oyster knife (it travels with me wherever I travel).

So, I painstakingly clean all of the crab that I am able heap on my plate before I eat the sweet inner goodness. Most people tend to eat them as they go along cracking, perpetually consuming this fine dinner, while I am simultaneously amassing an embarrassingly luxurious heap of lump meat. Someone usually notices and comments on this pile of crab. I think they think that I think that I am better than they are, because this is an obvious and unnecessary exercise in self-restraint. At least they seem to intone as much. I guess they are right, to an extent. I do make somewhat of a pilgrimage, because I feel Crab Christmas to be a special holiday for me and my people, a time of familial togetherness, sharing with family and friends (not much sharing happens here). And as I pile up the lumps of sweet, rosy red, succulent claw meat, I take a special pleasure in the looks of disgust that I know I am receiving. This sensation only intensifies when I drizzle from the melted butter cup, lightly salt the pile, sprinkle, and squeeze a fresh lemon wedge over the top and around the mound of the ocean's best tasting protein source. It's jealousy, is what it is. And I smile as I shovel fork-load after fork-load of seagold into my mouth. My experience and satisfaction is cause for a little jealousy, I suppose. I'd hate me too. You can call me a shellfish person.

My personal best is five whole crabs. But, it's easy to lose count quickly. I find myself diverting full and undivided concentration to the profound mission before me, and that mission is to clean as much crab as possible. Also, I find myself partially poisoned from overconsumption, and the result is that I transition from Duran Duran to a state of sleepy reverie, a crab coma. Multiple IPA's only intensify this condition. It's a religious experience. This year was a full devotional effort, and I ate at least three and a half whole crabs, in sacrifice to the Titans.

I've ran the numbers on developing software that would map out and provide directions to annual charitable crab feeds. Working title is 'Crab Feed Finder'. It would be a non-profit facilitator for these types of events, but I'm going to need some venture capitol. Maybe I should reach out to the grizzled Gorton's fish stick captain. I'll be pitching this to Apple. I just want to put people in touch with charitable crab feeds in respective neighborhoods around, the crab feast nearest you. I write these off on my taxes. I appreciate the of my long sustained philanthropic efforts.

TreatLoaf, SweetLoaf: Saga of the Meat Voltron

I made a meat baby, so I thought some baby making music would be in order.

In memoriam of Teddy Pendergrass, good loving, baby making music:



I'm a meatloaf-phile, but not a lover of the musical artist Meatloaf.
Making a meatloaf had been on my agenda for quite awhile. It was a frequent offering at the dinner table of my youth, usually served with mashed potatoes. This was my first attempt to make it. There was always a wonder, a mystique, surrounding the ingredients and preparation. I knew it was easy, but what was in there? It's just a classic, and one that I really enjoy, and I need to know how to do this. I need to understand meatloaf.

I went stupid at costco, that's how it started. The food was so cheap, I talked myself into a 2 1/2 pound tube of sausage and five pounds of ground beef. I bought some baguettes, and those came in pairs. That place was abuzz like an ant colony, or a transparency of the human circulatory system in motion. People moving in rows and lines. My grocery list was brief and there were so many demands on my attention. The receipt at checkout was almost shocking, but I haven't been for groceries since that visit. Picked up a 5 pound jar of artichoke hearts, for under eight bucks. That's exciting stuff.

I got home and thought through this meatloaf. I didn't have any breadcrumbs. This thing takes an hour or more. The lump of ugly meat I had would maybe take two hours.
The thing is that it became a mission. I couldn't lose faith. I do not quit! We do not quit! So, I started making breadcrumbs by slicing up and toasting one baguette in the oven. Simultaneously, I ripped open the meat packages and emptied the contents into a large steel mixing bowl. I used about one pound of sausage and two and a half pounds of meat. Then I processed the ingredients:

--Pound or more of sausage
--Two and a half pounds of ground beef
--Four eggs
--Fresh chopped rosemary from the front yard
--Garlic
--One whole onion
--Some olive oil
--Salt
--Pepper
--Celery Salt
--Paprika
--Chili oil (not much)
--Cumin
--Chopped bread crumbs

It took about a half hour to work this mixture thoroughly, with fingers and thumbs.
I was breakdancing off of a recipe that called for ground veal, which sounded like the right thing to do. Three different meats could've been great. I should have ground some bacon into this thing. But, I watched this hog farm documentary last week that was unsettling. Bad, even for people who don't care. I'll still be eating bacon. But I never want to watch that again. Almost cancelled HBO I was so pissed that there wasn't anything funny on. I don't want bacon guilt. I don't need that. Don't take the one good thing about breakfast away from me, cause waking up up early to eat it just kills it for me without the bacon; if it isn't served, I always wish I would've slept in (wake me up, on a weekend, and there isn't bacon. It better be an emergency). It violates the 87th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Freedom from bacon guilt, with religious exemptions.

I used a food processor for all of the breadcrumbs, but it was inconsistent. This turned out to be fortuitous; most of the bread crumbs were minuscule, like sand, yet some were oversize. These larger bread magnets soaked up all the goodness while cooking, adding to the final texture and look, stratified throughout the loaf.
After I wrestled it into the over, I set it to 350 degrees and checked it with a meat thermometer at the end of the hour. It had quite a ways to go. It finished at an hour and 45 minutes. The meat browned nicely in the oven and when it hit 170 degrees internally, I heaved it out. Beef juices, and a half inch of golden fat drippings. More animal fat, more problems. Storage problems.

I sliced into it, revealing a meat mosaic of sorts. It looked so delicious. I started thinking about sandwiches immediately. I always over cook. Because I enjoy leftovers, and meatloaf sandwiches are one of life's tastiest pleasures. Meatloaf is a cruel, cruel dish. I think this makes it more satisfying somehow.

Meatloaf and ketchup was my instantaneous reaction. I wouldn't do anything else. But, the ketchup wasn't even worthy of this meatangel. This awful pile of awfully tasty meat had wings of rosemary and sausage. I already made this Sweetloaf a valentine. I spent so much time mixing it that it was without levity, it was dense, not airy or fast. For an inaugural meatloaf, it was strong.

The picture of the Treatloaf sandwich showcases some homemade honey-wheat bread, bread that I didn't make. But, it was the type of sandwich that mermaids dream about.