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.