3 Blue Crab Crazy (with Video!)

As I mentioned recently, we went on a long road trip.  Ella and I stayed for a few days with my parents in Maryland, and we decided on a last-minute whim to get some live crabs.  Our dad was pretty disenchanted, because he believes that anything that takes that much time and effort to get food out of is worthless. This is not news to us, and we nevertheless forged on while Daddy shook his head and hid in his bedroom while we made phone calls (so-and-so-knew-a-guy who has fresh crabs for a good deal.)

It has been years and years since we have tackled an actual bushel of crabs, and even then we have historically never dealt with live ones.  There is good reason for this.  It's kind of crazy, not to mention labor-intensive!  My sisters and I had a hilarious time getting these little buggers steamed up for dinner.

We were worried that the crabs would expire before we all returned from seeing the Brave movie, and were anxious to perhaps transfer them to a roomier abode before we left. I lifted the cover in preparation to dump them into a larger plastic tub.  Sister A was skeptical that we should disturb them.

Whatever.  They looked totally harmless.  In fact, the top couple were lifeless (I somehow missed that my brother-in-law had to actually incapacitate them on the trip in the car because they kept escaping!)

So here's what happened next.



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Sister A was the one up on the chair screeching and had grabbed her iPhone (unbeknownst to my sister E and I, who were the intrepid ones scrambling to pick up the escapees with tongs and...pasta spoons? without getting pinched.) What you can't see on the video is the crabs escaping from the back of the bushel basket.

We abandoned the 'roomier abode' idea as soon as we retrieved all of them, slapped the cover back on that bushel (we were pretty sure they were alive and kicking...literally) and headed out to our movie, hoping that the cover was strong enough to hold them unsupervised, and that the escapee crabs didn't know how to climb up smooth surfaces.

So we were all ready to go. Crabs? Check. Newspaper? Check. Vinegar? Check. Beer? Check. Commecial-sized container of Old Bay? CHECK!

Giant steaming pot? Fail. We resorted to rigging the largest pots we had, (which were none-too-large) and turning wooden bowls upside down in the bottom to help keep the crabs out of the steaming water. I don't have any pictures of this, but it was my idea and pretty genius, if I do say so myself. ;)

It took forever to do them in these small batches. We had to employ a three-person line. I was in charge of the pot (and slapping the cover on after the hapless crab was tossed in), sister E was the crab-grabbing boss, and sister S had to keep the rest of the crabs incarcerated. Mom and sister A were conveniently absent. It was only after we were 1/4 of the way through that BIL volunteered to get his dad's crab steaming pots.

Yay! Crabs, steamed in beer, vinegar and Old Bay.

The crab feast.

This was really fun for a change, but man, next time we're heading to a restaurant!  Long-live Maryland!

Have you ever steamed your own live crabs?

0 Petit LeMans Weekend

My husband Ian and I were at the Petit LeMans at Road Atlanta this past weekend.  It's our annual tradition, ever since he took me on our first date there 10 years ago this week!  Ella elected to stay the weekend with Nana, admitting that she'd rather go to Fall Festival than go to the PLM.  We camped overnight for the first time.  I absolutely hate camping.  "Hate" is actually an understatement.  I agreed because we had the travel minivan the whole family shares and the plan was to put all the seats down flat in the back and sleep.  We did that, and it wasn't totally horrible, but using porta-potties in 40 degree weather in pitch darkness is not my idea of a comfortable stay.  Yes, I'm unapologetically high-maintenance.  Next time we will be renting an RV.  Baby steps.  

Hanging out at Turn 3:

On Friday, this Aston Martin bit it right in front of us during practice.  You can always be certain that sitting at Turn 3 will be eventful.  No one was hurt, BTW.  

The rest of the days were spent between our [poorly] catered club tent, and with our new friends the off-duty corner marshalls at Turn 3.  I heard the Audi club tent had Richard Blais catering for them.  I was definitely in the wrong tent.  My husband, however, was totally in the right tent, as he yet again won a fabulous prize...a framed poster of the BMW Team RLL car, signed by all six drivers.  He's got a bunch of pictures on his own blog (which happens to be fantastically more popular and famous than this little one I write.)

Our friend Stefan joined us on Saturday.  He just happens to be an amazing photographer.  See?  I have a hard time getting this effect at just a walking pace, let alone at 160 mph.  

Anyway, the long preamble is leading up to me admitting that I haven't made a school lunch since last week.  We got in too late on Sunday night, and I am actually volunteering at school most of the day tomorrow, and I'll be eating lunch with her, so I figured we could just grab a hot meal.  Thus, I'm posting a selection of some of my favorite bentos.

0 Brighton

I wanted to post some of my other vacation pictures.  These are from our day in Brighton, England.  We met my cousin Katie who came down from London for the day.  I was so glad to see her!  What's funny is that she's not from my English family, she's actually from Laguna Beach, but been living in London as a student for the past year.

We stopped at a sidewalk cafe for lunch to sample the famed seafood.  I had a langoustine linguine, which was pretty good.

Check out the giganto fish and chips!  That green mound is mushy peas.  Normally I loathe mushy peas (and I'm a girl who will eat just about anything) ...but these were genuinely amazing.  They were fluffy and really flavorful and I could have eaten it all, and I would have if they had been on my plate!

Miss E having a lovely time!  There was a live jazz singer just to the right of us.

Obligatory Hello Kitty pose.

We spent a couple of hours on the fake sharp pebble beach. 

I wonder why they felt the need to re-name it??  I can't imagine that one letter change made a huge difference.

We stopped for tea and dessert.  This was the first real decadent dessert we'd had the entire trip.  It was an amazing, rich chocolate, REAL brownie!  Brits don't really do brownies, so I was so surprised to see this.  We all ordered it, in fact.  They gave each of us a little shot glass full of M&Ms, which was such a cute touch.  And I don't know about you, but I'm in LOVE with the tableware!

 Posing in front of the palace at the end of our day.

It was a short, but sweet day trip.  Afterward we all drove back to our cottage in Chichester and visited together for a while before driving Katie back to Brighton to catch her train.  While Brighton itself is kind of cliche, the weather was lovely and the company sublime.

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!

0 Ham, Swiss & Chive Braid (and Iceland pictures)

Today for lunch I made a really simple dish that was just minutes to put together.  If I had had some spinach or broccoli, I would have also added some.

Ingredients:

sheet of croissant dough or puff pastry
2 Tbls snipped chives
1/4 cup cubed baked ham
handful shredded Swiss cheese
pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 375.

Take a sheet of croissant dough and lay it out on your baking sheet.  Going down the long side, make some perpendicular cuts for the "braids" all the way down, but leave a solid portion in the center so that your filling can be spooned on top.  Oh if there ever was a post that needed the step-by-step photos...sorry guys!

Toss the filling ingredients lightly (I just did this with my fingers right on the chopping board) and spoon it into the center of the dough.  Start at one end and "braid" the cut pieces by alternating one side to the other, slightly overlapping.

Bake for about 12-13 minutes at 375 or until the top is nice and golden brown.  (Please excuse the scuzzy-looking pan...I call it patina!)

Okay, now for some pictures from our short stay in Iceland.  We had a marvelous 8-hour tour of the Golden Circle with GTI Tours.  Amazing, that's all I can say.  See for yourself.

Running up an extinct volcano for a rock specimen for her rock collection.

Cracks in the continental plates.  We stood on three different continental plates that day.

Sampling the glacier water.

Yes, the water really WAS this color of blue.  Like nothing I'd ever seen before.

In front of a huge waterfall.  (The rainbow is 100% real.)

Icelandic ponies.

Quaint old church.

You may be wondering if we ate there.  Why yes, we did!  However, the food was terrible, and even though I took some pictures, I won't post them.  We should have just eaten the Icelandic specialty, which is lamb (also whale, but my conscience would never let me try it.)  We instead had Italian (I was out-voted.)  Not good, but we didn't visit Iceland for the food. ;)

0 Bento #197 - Inside-Out Tulip Sandwiches (and trip photos)

Today we have "inside-out" tulip sandwiches with cheese and ham, and a large helping of fresh fruit salad.  E likes to make her sandwiches herself and be creative with the order in which she eats them, so it's a good lunch for her.

Bento #197 - 12 grain whole wheat toast, cheddar and Colby cheese, deli ham, broccoli & cauliflower, and fresh mixed fruit salad.

Now, a food picture from our trip.  These stuffed green and black olives were the appetizer at Spaghi Pizzeria Ristorante, North London - we chose a couple of delicious handmade pizzas.  The Quattro Stagioni (ham, mushrooms, artichokes & olives) and the Pizza Romana (ham, mozzarella, tomato, pepperoni & mushrooms.)  Excellent!  

We were literally stranded at this restaurant, so I'm very happy that it was a great meal.  Long story short, our Peugeot rental car died (in a roundabout during rush hour!) on our way out of London on the third day, so we dined here while we waited for the tow truck to rescue us.  (Big thank-you to Lady MiniCabs for being so incredibly helpful and friendly!  In fact, if you click on their link you will see that the green arrow is pointing exactly where we broke down.)

Poor Peugeot.