When lobsters cost $4.99 a pound (less than the price for American cheese) you buy lobsters for dinner
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| Lobsters: We're bored in the fridge! |
However, I've never had lobster before and so I'm feeling pretty nervous.
But they're $4.99 a pound and so I can't not buy them, right?
I call boyfriend on my way home from work. "Hey, I'm going to get lobsters," I say.
He's at work now but he's coming over later to help me cook and eat these things.
"I'm scared," I tell him.
We talk and decide that he'll do the internet research so we can figure out how to cook them.
I go to to the food store to pick up the crustaceans.
I head on over to the lobster tank and the guy working at the seafood counter offers to help me.
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| Thanks hero boyfriend! For washing these SEA MONSTERS! |
He fishes out this HUGE toddler-sized lobster with a rake and sets him down on the scale. The behemoth moves slowly like a sea monster pushing up bounded claws that were bigger than my fists.
I'm amazed.
"He's a little over five pounds," he says.
"So he'd cost me like forty-something dollars?" I ask.
He stares at me and that's when I realize that my math's off. $4.99 a pound for five pounds is... is...
"I'll have a smaller guy," I say peering into the tank. "I want that one," I said pointing. "He looks feisty." He was swimming all over the other lobsters as they sat in a heap.
"And his little friend too," I said. Feisty lobster had a friend connected to him by their claws.
The guy took them out of the tank, weighed them and put them in a bag with a sticker price on them. $17.54
He tries to give me the baggie but it's moving because the lobsters are still alive.
I stand there without taking the bag. I noticed myself wringing my hands.
"I'm scared of them," I say.
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| Put down your weapons! |
"They can't hurt you," he tells me. "Their claws are all wrapped up."
The bag rumples and we both stare at it again.
"How do I keep them alive until dinner time?" I ask, stalling.
"Just throw them in the fridge, or put them on ice in a bowl and leave the bag open," he says, pushing the bag toward me.
"How do I cook them?" I ask.
"You just put like an inch of water at the bottom of the pot and then steam them for ten minutes," his outstretched arm is sinking from the weight of the bag. The lobsters move and it crinkles.
"Are they going to be delicious?"
He's losing his patience with me.
I take the bag carefully and tell him thanks.
They smell like seaweed! I can't stop opening the bag to look at them. I thought they were like fish who'd die out of water but these guys were in a dry bag and still alive.
I used the self check-out line and double bagged them, even though they were technically already in a bag.
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| I'm so sorry! |
I talked to them as they sat in the passenger seat and told them that they were being well-behaved.
I cleared out a spot in the fridge and put them in a shallow pan over ice. They looked bored. "No dueling in there OK guys?" I closed the fridge door and couldn't let go of the suspicion that I'd open it to find that the jail-broken lobsters had cut open all the containers and battled while they were in there.
So I checked up on them every hour until Steven got to my house. They were well-behaved little lobsters.
Boyfriend came home with a Hansel-and-Gretel sized witch pot that he borrowed from his parents.
It was like show and tell when he came home and I took the lobsters out of the fridge and we poked them and looked at them together.
We talked about how we were going to cook them after some Google research, we decided to steam them.
Boyfriend cleaned them and I boiled the water in the pot.
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| Awesome sauce! |
"It says put them in head first," I tell him. "I want to cut the rubber bands off."
"What?! They'll bite us!" he says.
"I don't want them to taste like rubber," I say. I hold up some scissors and he's got the lobster in his hand. "Just hold them by the back with the towel, I'll cut the bands off their claws and then just drop them in head first," I instruct.
Before he can protest I snip the bands off and he quick throws the lobster in the pot.
We both peek into it and he's thrashing about violently, flipping up his tail.
"Oh my gosh!"
"He's turning red already!"
"Put the other one in!"
We repeat the process and shut the lid.
I felt really guilty. "I'm feeling sad," I tell myself. "You're just hungry," my stomach answers.
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| This was right before zombie lobster tried to walk off the table. |
We open the pot to find two very lovely red lobsters!
I'm just amazed. "This is so easy! Why doesn't everyone just do this?" I say.
I picked up the littler one to put him on my plate and HIS LEGS MOVED.
I screamed and people in China heard it.
I dropped the wriggling lobster on the wooden floor with a splat.
He's alive!
I didn't cook him enough!
He's mad because I put him in the pot! Oh god why?!
Steven looks at me like I have three heads.
"He-moved-he-moved-he-moved-he moved," I said.
"Jesus," he says.
He helps me pick up the lobster and I notice how the legs dangle and then I feel like an idiot but when I set the lobster back on my plate I'm saying a silent "Hail Mary" in my head and I can't help but think of the American cheese I could have bought for dinner instead for $4.99 a pound.