2 Maryland Cream of Crab Soup

There is [almost] nothing else that makes my heart go pitter-patter more than Maryland blue crabs - and especially in cream of crab soup.  They are just slightly out of season now, but the weather's gotten to that point where you want a nice warm soup bubbling away on top of your stove.  This recipe has been in my family for four generations.  There are only a few ingredients, but they are all non-negotiable.  You have to have them all, or you can't come crying back to me saying that it wasn't amazing.  And trust me, it is.

You'll need:

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon butter
1 cup strong chicken stock (1 cup stock + 2 bouillon cubes or equivalent)
1 quart rich milk (equal parts heavy cream and whole milk)
1 tablespoon parsley, fresh or dried
1/2 heaping teaspoon celery salt
1/2 heaping teaspoon ground mace
Dash of red ground pepper or flakes
Pepper and salt to taste
1 pound backfin/lump crab meat (picked over of all shell)
1/3 cup Harvey Bristol Cream sherry (use only REAL cream sherry, never cooking sherry)
flour to thicken

In a pot over medium heat, start by sauteeing the onion in the butter until it is just translucent.  We do not want browning in any way, shape or form here. 

Add chicken stock and slowly pour in milk.

Add all seasonings except sherry. Now, when I was making this the other day, I was frantic because I could find every single herb, spice and spice-blend in existence except for the celery salt!  Do you know that awful feeling when you've just returned from the store to buy the one thing you knew you didn't have, and then realize you don't have the other thing you should actually have?  By the way, do you know I have two spice cupboards, plus a bunch next to my stovetop?  It's insane.  I pulled two boxes down in my search.

A-HA!  Gotcha!  It's celery seed, not salt, so I added a bit of sea salt too.  At this point I was relieved I didn't have to go run out to Publix again.

Mace:  It's not just for self defense!  It's so good - it's warm and nutty, not unlike nutmeg.  Delicious and totally makes cream of crab soup what it is.

Stir in crab meat, cleaned of all shell, and simmer 15 minutes. A word on the crab meat.  Please don't use any other kind of crab meat, or worst of all [strangled gasp]...imitation crab.  If I saw this I'd go rock in a corner. Also, you must pick it over, even if what you buy swears that it's virtually shell-free.  We always used to go down to Market Street in Baltimore to get ours, or more often the market at the Annapolis Harbor...it's that squat little building behind the trees.  I broke up with my first serious boyfriend on a bench in front of those hedges there.  Never give jewelry back, girls.

If you don't live near Maryland and can't get fresh blue crabs, I'd recommend Phillips brand.  I know my Costco sells Phillips, and that's where I picked this up, being that I currently live no where close to Maryland.

Stir in crab meat, cleaned of all shell, and simmer 15 minutes. 

Make a thin paste with about 2 TBS flour and a little water. 

Stir into soup to thicken slightly. Make sure you let it bubble while stirring for a few minutes to let the flour cook, so it doesn't have that raw flour taste.  Before serving, remove from heat and stir in sherry.  Stir carefully so that you don't break up the crab meat too much.  Let thicken as desired, and I like my soup fairly thick.  

I can hear my mother screaming now, "What?!  That's not Harvey's!"  Nope, it's not Harvey's, which she has made my dad drive out in the snow to get from Latella's package store.  I'm not a sherry connoisseur, but any good cream sherry is better than cooking sherry, and I had Sheffield on hand.  Repeat after me: "I will NEVER use cooking sherry in this recipe."

When you serve you can do as we do and leave the Harvey's out for guests to add willy-nilly.  It's the best!

You'll need:

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup strong chicken stock (1 cup stock + 2 bouillon cubes or equivalent)

1 quart rich milk (equal parts heavy cream and whole milk)

1 tablespoon parsley, fresh or dried

1/2 heaping teaspoon celery salt

1/2 heaping teaspoon ground mace

Dash of red ground pepper or flakes

Pepper and salt to taste

1 pound backfin/lump crab meat (picked over of all shell)

1/3 cup Harvey Bristol Cream sherry (use only this brand!)

flour to thicken

Cook onion in butter until transparent. Add chicken stock and slowly pour in milk. Add all seasonings except sherry. Stir in crab meat, cleaned of all shell, and simmer 15 minutes. Make a thin paste with about 2 TBS flour and a little water. Stir into soup to thicken slightly. Before serving, remove from heat and stir in sherry.

0 Melissa & Sean's Wedding

This weekend we celebrated the marriage of our friends Melissa Britos & Sean Sullivan in Virginia!  My sister Liz and my own little Ella were in their beautiful, intimate wedding on Smith Mountain Lake.

Ella was an incredible trooper!  Just moments before walking down the aisle she got badly burned by a hot curling iron on her upper leg.  I was doing her very last curl, and the iron swung around next to the chair she was sitting on and just seared her.  Worst feeling ever. But, she pulled it together and did her perfect flower girl duty, and then was the life of the party at the reception!  She danced all night long and never once complained about her poor leg.

See that wedding arch?  Sean made that!  He not only can speak Chinese and strike a mean pose, but he also knows all about floral wire and arranging blooms to their best advantage.  He helped all the girls do their wedding bouquets too.  What a guy!

It's rare of me to be impressed by wedding food, but my goodness, the food at the Craddock Terry Hotel where the reception was held was exquisite!  Mounds of fresh fruit, cheese and vegetables, huge cocktail tiger prawns, spinach & artichoke dip with tomato and garlic-rubbed crostini, a huge assortment of specialty deli meats, cheeses and roasted, pickled peppers and olives.

I would have been happy with just the hors d'oeuvres!  But the entree menu put to shame any other wedding food I've ever had.

Who offers a made-to-order 16 ounce ribeye on a wedding menu?!  That's crazy!  I ordered one, rare and it was great.  Ella and Ian got the crab-stuffed flounder, and the crab was real, honest-to-goodness blue crab, which made my Maryland heart sing.  

Beautiful couple, beautiful wedding.  Congrats Melissa & Sean!

2 Amazing Cake

My sister Amanda's baby shower was amazingly beautiful!  We ordered the most adorable baby shower invitations by Ann Kelle for Tiny Prints and we were so inspired by the design that we decided that would be the theme of the cake.  (Picture below is from Tiny Prints' website.)

The monkey was just darling, and our baker was able to make fondant figurines of it, as well as a panda bear and a giraffe (which are part of her Kids Line Peekaboo Pals bedding theme.)  These are a few pictures of our cake by local Columbia, Maryland baker, Kathy at Simply Desserts. She was AMAZING and the cake was todiefor. Lemon cake with raspberry buttercream and raspberry preserve filling. No wonder I gained!

We were so incredibly happy with the service we got from Tiny Prints (we had a little snag with an incorrect date - our fault - and they were so helpful in getting the invites re-printed and to us immediately, and even discounted the re-print.  Now THAT is customer service!)  And of course, the cake goes without saying!  Kathy was wonderful, and I'd recommend her to anyone in Maryland in a heartbeat.

0 Home Again...

...home again, jiggedy-jig!

I was in Maryland, my hometown for the past week for a surprise baby shower for my sister! It was sooo much fun, the shower was beautiful, we saw the DC cherry blossoms and I acted like a tourist with my daughter and sisters for a couple days. We also did some touristy things in historic Annapolis by the waterfront with my mom and my MIL. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, warm and clear.

I had fun indulging in my favorite Maryland seafood - cream of crab, crab cakes, shrimp salad, shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp!  Yumm.


AND...we have a friend whose family owns three wonderful restaurants, and the whole fam went to Asia Bistro/Zen Bistro in Pentagon City and also specially ordered fried rice from their other restaurant, Saigon Saigon.  SOOO GOOD (thanks, Chrissy!!)  And goodness, they have bento boxes for grownups!  We had lots of small plates like spring rolls, calamari, chicken satay, and sushi rolls, and we ordered short ribs, ginger salmon (which my mom claims is the best salmon she's had in her life) and noodle bowls.    Totally amazing, go there, you won't be disappointed!  And, they use no MSG (trust me, my sister is very allergic to it, and she can eat there any time.) We also had this really yummy sparkling sake.  We sat outside in their covered patio area, since the weather was so gorgeous.

Read about the amazing baby shower cake here!