There's More Than One Way to Eat a Lobster

You know the saying, "there's more than one way to skin a cat"?  Well, the same can be said about eating a lobster.  Every year around Christmastime, my parents host the Annual Chance Lobsterfest.  We determined that this has been going on since about 2005.  It all started after a trip to Bar (pronounced Bah) Harbor (pronounced Hah-Bah), Maine.  We stopped at this restaurant that was, literally, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere (at least that's how I remember it).  There were these big wooden pots out front with steam rising from them.  We were about to find out that those containers were the lobster cookers.

the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound -- the best lobster in Maine (in my opinion)

I don't remember what exactly we ordered, but I do remember that it was lobster of some sort.  The lobsters were put in a netted bag and boiled in those big wooden pots.  And it was delicious!!  At some point, we met George (one of the owners) and found out that they could ship lobsters to us whenever we would want.  Live lobsters? Shipped straight to our house?  How cool is that?  

Little did we know that that stop would turn into the Annual Chance Lobsterfest.  So, here we are 2010, continuing the tradition.  Our attendees this year were: Dave & Carla, Tai & Tad (my mom's parent's), Grandma Chance, the Whitmores (Steve and Laverne), and me & Alex.  Emily and Tony were there for appetizers, but had to leave to see Christmas Vacation on the big screen.  At least we (Em & I) were invited this year.  :)  One year, we were written off and were not very happy.  You'd understand if it were you, right? 

After delightful appetizers of shrimp and beef wrapped in bacon, we all squeezed around the dining room table for the main course.  Bibs are tied, butter is melted, grace is spoken, we are ready to start.  We have two plates: one big and one little.  The little one is to hold the cole slaw, green beans, and baked potato.  The big one holds the lobster.  Now, if you're like most people, you crack open the lobster, dig out the tail, and get some meat out of the claws.  You wouldn't even bother with the tiny claws, fins, or tomalley (aka green stuff or lobster liver).  Ok, I wouldn't even bother with the tomalley…ICKY!  And yes, I've tried it, so I can say it's icky.  However, I do labor hard to get all the meat from the lobster I can.  Call me determined, call me greedy, but I just look at it as not being wasteful.  

But before I can get to that good meat, I work hard at getting Tai's lobster ready to go.  I steal the legs (because I know she's not going to want to work for the meat) and get started on the tail.  Now, I'm kind of slow, so Alex decides to help (of course this was after his lobster was out and halfway devoured).  He works on getting her lobster tail out and I start on mine.  I start in on the smallest leg, of which I now have 16 to open.  I break off the leg and use the little shrimp fork to break up the side of the leg.  Yes, it's a lot of work, but oh the meat is so sweet and delightful.  It's so good, you don't even need butter for it.  I do this for 16 legs.  By now, everyone else is finished with their meal (except for Steve, who is a hard-worker like myself).  I haven't even gotten to the tail or claws yet.  

Fortunately, Alex has pried my lobster tail from its shell, so I have little work to do there.  I tried to use the big red claw cracker, but it just wasn't working.  Thankfully, Al took over, which is also good because then all the juices could leak onto a plate other than my own.  He owed me this too for some snarky comment he made during dinner (which I can't remember what it was, but I'm sure it was something that would require him to make it up to me in some way).  I was able to sneak bites of green beans and cole slaw during all this, so I didn't waste away to nothing.  I didn't even touch the baked potato, as I was saving my carb intake for the bread pudding dessert.  Anyway, while Al does that, I work on the claws.  Those require the use of the cracker and the shrimp fork.  The claw part needs the cracker and the leg part needs the shrimp fork.  I wish I would have had a better shrimp fork as mine ended up bent.  Or maybe I should have been less forceful with it.  Either way, it was all bent to hell.  

In the end, it was just me and Steve left eating.  I had divided up the claw meat and the tail meat and was deciding which would be my last bite.  Some of the pieces soaked in butter as I pondered this.  I went with the claw meat as it was sweeter and less chewy.  I savor every buttery bite until there's no more.  It was fabulously delicious! And, I'm not that last one left eating…woohoo!  

I retreat to the kitchen to complete the amaretto sauce for the bread pudding dessert (one of two things I make well and now a lobsterfest staple).  It was a joyous evening full of great food and friends.  I look forward to the lobsterfests yet to come!

Happy New Year!

--Am  

PS - Sorry for not having many pictures.  I really should start carrying my camera with me!  

I Want To Be a Craft-Master

It all started with my attempt at Martha Stewart-dom.  Maybe not full Martha Stewart-dom, but at least a step in the right direction.  Since the pinecone adventure, I've decided that I want to applique t-shirts, make hairpieces, bedazzle/glitterize shoes, and knit a scarf.  However, I didn't know I wanted to do all of this until I reached the store.  I had thrown around the idea of dazzling some shoes and maybe changing up an old t-shirt.  And by thrown around I mean the thought entered my head.  So, I hadn't thought too much about it.  I mentioned my ideas to Claire (a friend, coworker, and inspiration to anyone who wants to make anything wearable), and she sent me some great links for how-tos and ideas.

That was sometime during the middle of the week.  On Friday, Al and I were headed to the store for some Panettone.  It's a special kind of bread that is only around during Christmas and only at certain stores.  For example, Walgreens and Meijer carry it, but Kroger doesn't.  It's good for bread pudding with an amaretto sauce (one of two things I make well).  So, we head to Meijer.  As we get done with the food necessities (Panettone and a banana cream yogurt), I swing by the craft aisle.

While there, I find the glitter (this time the fancy Martha Stewart glitter) I want, along with gems, expensive, use-for-all-your-gluing-needs glue (I could probably glue my fingers together again--bring on the gun cleaner), and glossy sealant.  All of this was to be used for the shoes.  While I'm there, I get the idea to make hairpieces.  I grab some headbands and bobby pins and ready myself to leave.  Oh but wait, I should teach myself how to knit.  I pick out some yarn and knitting needles.  Good thing Meijer has many departments or else Al would have been in my ear urging me to hurry up!  

At home, Al has just started a game of tango-sucka and I've grabbed the computer to learn about knitting.  First, you have to make a slipknot.  Easy, right?  Heck no!  I must be really dense because I had to watch three different videos to figure it out.  Of course, I was getting frustrated, so Alex said, "just give it to me and I'll do it."  Well, I'm not going to learn how to do it if somebody always does it for me.  So I kept at it and told Alex to go back to tango-sucka.  After about ten minutes, I learn the slipknot--VICTORY!  Next is casting on, which is simple…picked that up real fast.  Too bad I decided to cast on 60 times (probably the wrong terminology there, but don't want to look it up).  From there, it's really pretty easy, that is after I watched this one lady (who's teaching kids) do it.  Mind you, I had to re-watch her about 6 times.  So, I am now in the process of making a scarf or big rectangular thing depending on when I run out of yarn.  If I can, I would love for it to be a cowl, but that probably requires some sort of pattern.  Not sure I'm ready for pattern, yet!

On Saturday, I started my shoes, made some terrible hairpieces, and used cupcake foils to make a headband.  I'm kind of excited about the headband (although you can totally tell I used cupcake foils).  Please don't make too much fun of me when I wear it!  :)

Merry Christmas!
--Am

the fabulous foil cupcake headband

picture these shoes all black and you have the before picture

(side note: it was hard to decide what shoes to use, especially since these came from my trip to France)

only made it part way through, not sure how to finish it

still needs some touch up!

my failed attempt at hair pieces

never use cut-up t-shirts, spray glue, paper cupcake holders, and glitter

talk about a mess!

the scarf--not too shabby for the first time around

How to Fail at Being Martha Stewart

I tried to be crafty.  That was my first mistake.  See, I'm an accountant, so the creative, crafty side of the brain doesn't work too well.  Must have lost out on that gene.  And apparently I missed the class in common sense because (as you'll see) I'm lacking some.

Let me go back to the beginning.  I got the great idea to get some pinecones and other earthy items and cover them in glitter.  I envisioned pinecones of all sizes and twigs gliterized in red, green, silver, and gold.  It would be a festive centerpiece!  I bought some small pinecones but couldn't find a decent bag of the large cones.  I found they were broken (probably one of five was broken but I decided from that one that I couldn't get a good bag) or overpriced at $5 a bag.  Call me cheap, but I blame it on being an accountant.  Anyway, I wanted some twigs or sticks but couldn't find anything, so I settled on cinnamon sticks.  Now time for the glitter.  Went to Michaels, but thought it to be too expensive, so dragged Alex to Hobby Lobby.  Found some spray glue (no globs for me) and inexpensive, festive glitter.  I really wanted the Martha Stewart glitter, which I'm too cheap to buy, but in hindsight am glad I didn't get it.  

I bring all this home and it sits on our breakfast bar for a couple days, then weeks, before Alex asks, "Are you ever going to do something with this crap?"  That night, I decide I'm going to do something with that crap.  I pop in Love Actually (one of my all time favorite movies, especially around Christmas), pull over the ratty spare carpet and sit.  I know I need to put something down so I'm not gluing the pinecones to the carpet, so what do I grab?  Tissue paper.  Why? Because it's easily accessible, and I'm too lazy to get off my butt to get something else.

I begin.  I take a pinecone, set it on the tissue paper, spray with glue, cover in glitter.  I get through about four pinecones, then they start sticking to the tissue paper.  Maybe I should have used something else?  Oh no, I'll just fold it in half, so there's no glue on it.  I yell at Alex to bring me some wax paper because laying the glued and glitterized pinecones on tissue paper just does not work.  Too sticky!

I keep going and get about a third of the way through before I realize that my fingers and hands are super sticky.  I had glue and glitter on the backs of my hands…how does that even happen?  So, I get up to wash it off.  A little kitchen lemon scented soap and some hot water should do the trick.  No.  Maybe a little more with some scrubbing.  No.  Alex looks it up online and says that nail polish remover should do the trick.  He brings some over, but to no avail.  I'm about to go into panic mode, so I try more soap and water.  Gosh, I'm an idiot!  With nothing working, Alex says to have the best solution--extra strength gun cleaner!  He sprays a little bit on, and VOILA!  It starts to come off.  He says, "this is really strong shit, so don't use too much of it."  Then he proceeds to spray it on the back of my hands for about 15 seconds too long.  As I'm rubbing the gluey mess off, my hands start to burn.  Oh yeah, Mister Don't Use Too Much Of It just gave me a slight chemical burn.  OUCH!  It eventually goes away, but boy did it hurt for about 30 seconds.

To finish the job, I weigh my options.  Bare hands and gun cleaner OR surgical-type gloves and no gun cleaner?  I opt for the gloves and go through two pairs.  Continuing to fold the tissue paper when it gets too sticky, instead of finding something else to glue on.  Fortunately, I didn't make too much of a mess, except for the two times when the tops popped off the glitter bottles (cheap) and glitter poured out.  Oh, and the spray glue bottle is now covered in sparkles.  However, I must say that the end result actually doesn't look too bad!  Maybe I'll continue my crafty adventures.  

--Am

 the finished product

 two of the better looking cones

spray glue 

check out that glittery mess 

icky glued on glitter and half empty bottles