Day 26: Lobster Murder

The best way is a fast and decisive stab to the brain and hard cut down through the head.

Rock Lobster

Dungeness Crab 

(He was mean and came without rubber bands on his claws - careful!)

Have you seen Jules and Julia? Jules had a harder time of it than I did. But you are aware that something sits under your hand alive one second, and dead the next. Whether you're stabbing a lobster through the head or dropping a flailing crab in a pot of boiling water, you know that a teeny life is lost in those precious seconds, and you alone are responsible for taking that life away.

Lobster bisque

I didn't expect the lobsters to be so beautiful. When you hold one in your hand and look at it's shell, a whole rainbow of colours can be observed from claw to tail, it reminded me of Japanese raku pottery.

But I killed them anyway. The lobster and the crab, and I ate them too. Both of them. And they tasted good.

Capellini with Crab and Lobster 

(bad picture! It looks very "Chef Boyardee" here, which it wasn't)

I'm learning something about myself. I've never considered myself an adventurous eater, I have two friends, Todd and Scott, who are never afraid to try anything, and they stand out in my mind as adventurous. But not me. But now I'm learning that I am adventurous too. Not to the degree Todd and Scott are, but I have my moments.

We mixed in the lobsters "tomalley" or liver in with the bisque. That turned half the class off right there. But I tried it. I read on the Internet tonight that there's a warning about eating it, as it can have toxins and pollutants built up inside. (Going to ask the Chefs about that one tomorrow!)

Plating the dish.

Crab Cake with Pineapple Salsa

As another costing exercise, we weighed our lobsters before cooking, then we cooked them and cleaned all the meat we could. We then weighed our meat . 

Next, we calculated the cost of buying them whole and the labour we used to clean them, to the cost of the meat we could have bought per kilo . 

Bottom line? If you don't need a whole crab for display purposes, then it's actually cheaper to buy the meat by the kilo! The Chefs only bought whole crabs for us to practice on.