I'm catching dinner!!!!

[Jenise]

Crab season's open, and I just got back from putting my traps out. Whatever I get is tonight's dinner, along with some crusty sour dough, corn on the cob, a fresh tomato salad and a never-ending supply of champagne. Life is good.

In fact, it's pretty damned grand.

You can have my share of the seafood as usual, but the rest sounds pretty darn fine! What time should I be there?

[James Roscoe]

I'll be there around 7:00 PDT?

I will eat Cynthia's crabs.

I hope you don't get what Jack and Kirk got every single time they put the crab trap out. A big basket full of starfish! Nary a crab was caught...sob. We had to buy them like the rest of the
underprivileged masses...
Good luck!
Ines

Had starfish once.

Wouldn't do it again.

Crab season's open, and I just got back from putting my traps out. Whatever I get is tonight's dinner, along with some crusty sour dough, corn on the cob, a fresh tomato salad and a never-ending supply of champagne. Life is good.

In fact, it's pretty damned grand.

I've been up all night with a small coughing boy (don't worry, he's fine, or will be tomorrow!). Your joie de vivre has brightened my weary morning. Life really IS wonderful, thanks for reminding me!

I will eat Cynthia's crabs.

Sounds like the title of some sort of weird fetish porno movie.

Just kidding, James!

[James Roscoe]

I will eat Cynthia's crabs.

Sounds like the title of some sort of weird fetish porno movie.

Just kidding, James!

LOL!

Crab season's open, and I just got back from putting my traps out. Whatever I get is tonight's dinner, along with some crusty sour dough, corn on the cob, a fresh tomato salad and a never-ending supply of champagne. Life is good.

In fact, it's pretty damned grand.

I caught a 25 lb striped bass from the shore last week - we grilled it whole with corn on the cob, your XXX potato salad, spinach salad and grilled sourdough bread brushed with olive oil that had been steeped with garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage

add 10 friends, about 15 bottles of wine/champagne and a jet black night sky with the Milky Way and you get the drift

Life, indeed, is grand.

add 10 friends, about 15 bottles of wine/champagne and a jet black night sky with the Milky Way and you get the drift

Hmmm, I never would have thought to pair Milky Way bars with Champagne. I'll have to try it sometime.
'Winger

So...so, jealous! Can't wait to hear about it! YUM!

Crab season's open, and I just got back from putting my traps out. Whatever I get is tonight's dinner, along with some crusty sour dough, corn on the cob, a fresh tomato salad and a never-ending supply of champagne. Life is good.

In fact, it's pretty damned grand.

Isn't August a weird time for crab season? I think of Dungeness crab season in NorCal as Nov-June. Different in your neck of the woods?

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

I caught a 25 lb striped bass from the shore last week - we grilled it whole with corn on the cob, your XXX potato salad, spinach salad and grilled sourdough bread brushed with olive oil that had been steeped with garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage.

I don't know striped bass from anything, John, but 25 pounds from shore sounds ginormous. Congratulations, both on the catch and the fine meal you made with it. I'll have to drop by Nantucket sometime when you're in residence.

[Jenise]

Crab season's open, and I just got back from putting my traps out. Whatever I get is tonight's dinner, along with some crusty sour dough, corn on the cob, a fresh tomato salad and a never-ending supply of champagne. Life is good.

In fact, it's pretty damned grand.

Isn't August a weird time for crab season? I think of Dungeness crab season in NorCal as Nov-June. Different in your neck of the woods?

Mark Lipton

August is usual here. It opens in a different week every year in each of the Puget Sound regions based on what some genius at Fish & Wildlife decides is in the best interests of the crabs, but Birch Bay is the last region to open and in the five years I've lived here it's opened was early as the 3rd and as late as the 18th. The season only lasts six to eight weeks.

[Jenise]

I hope you don't get what Jack and Kirk got every single time they put the crab trap out. A big basket full of starfish! Nary a crab was caught...sob. We had to buy them like the rest of the
underprivileged masses...
Good luck!
Ines

That's too bad! Starfish are curses--once you have one of them in the trap, crab won't go near it. We caught three starfish, one bullfish, two rock crabs, and among the Dungeness, 33 keepers and about 133 non-keepers (females and juveniles). We had a blast--I must post photos.

That's too bad! Starfish are curses--once you have one of them in the trap, crab won't go near it. We caught three starfish, one bullfish, two rock crabs, and among the Dungeness, 33 keepers and about 133 non-keepers (females and juveniles). We had a blast--I must post photos.

Please do!

That's too bad! Starfish are curses--once you have one of them in the trap, crab won't go near it. We caught three starfish, one bullfish, two rock crabs, and among the Dungeness, 33 keepers and about 133 non-keepers (females and juveniles). We had a blast--I must post photos.

33 keepers??!! Holy ^%$%$%^, Jenise. You cooking for 50, or just acquiring some pets? I can eat 5-10 good size blue claws for dinner, but a single Dungeness is more than enough for me. Jean, chauvinistic East Coaster that she is, claims that only the claws of Dungeness are worth eating anyway, but even she eats only 2 crabs' worth.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

33 keepers??!! Holy ^%$%$%^, Jenise. You cooking for 50, or just acquiring some pets? I can eat 5-10 good size blue claws for dinner, but a single Dungeness is more than enough for me. Jean, chauvinistic East Coaster that she is, claims that only the claws of Dungeness are worth eating anyway, but even she eats only 2 crabs' worth.

Mark Lipton

Are you midgets? Typically, most adults will eat 1.5 to 2, depending on what else is on the menu. Since this weekend was a crabaganza, we ate two each at our first meal. The next day, lunch was crab two ways: a hot crab, artichoke and cheese gratin for spreading on grilled sourdough and a crab and orzo salad with white truffle vinaigrette. Next day (also the hottest day of the year) our dinner was a cold crab cocktail of crab, tomatoes, and avocado with a lime-serrano dressing followed by a cheese plate, and Sunday breakfast was an crab and asparagas strata with local peaches and blueberries. The majority of the crab we didn't eat got picked and went to Seattle for a family dinner, and I kept enough to make 12 half-cup sized crab cakes for the freezer. It didn't really seem like that much--we didn't catch our limit any of the three days we went out.

I caught a 25 lb striped bass from the shore last week - we grilled it whole with corn on the cob, your XXX potato salad, spinach salad and grilled sourdough bread brushed with olive oil that had been steeped with garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage.

I don't know striped bass from anything, John, but 25 pounds from shore sounds ginormous. Congratulations, both on the catch and the fine meal you made with it. I'll have to drop by Nantucket sometime when you're in residence.

Jenise, my brother lived in South Carolina and his widow still has a mounted 40+ pounder on the wall there. He said it was a medium size but that he was damned well going to put it on the wall anyway.

33 keepers??!! Holy ^%$%$%^, Jenise. You cooking for 50, or just acquiring some pets? I can eat 5-10 good size blue claws for dinner, but a single Dungeness is more than enough for me. Jean, chauvinistic East Coaster that she is, claims that only the claws of Dungeness are worth eating anyway, but even she eats only 2 crabs' worth.

Mark Lipton

Are you midgets? Typically, most adults will eat 1.5 to 2, depending on what else is on the menu. Since this weekend was a crabaganza, we ate two each at our first meal. The next day, lunch was crab two ways: a hot crab, artichoke and cheese gratin for spreading on grilled sourdough and a crab and orzo salad with white truffle vinaigrette. Next day (also the hottest day of the year) our dinner was a cold crab cocktail of crab, tomatoes, and avocado with a lime-serrano dressing followed by a cheese plate, and Sunday breakfast was an crab and asparagas strata with local peaches and blueberries. The majority of the crab we didn't eat got picked and went to Seattle for a family dinner, and I kept enough to make 12 half-cup sized crab cakes for the freezer. It didn't really seem like that much--we didn't catch our limit any of the three days we went out.

I can't even begin to put into words how jealous I am!!!! I love, love, love Dungeness crab. They look like sea monsters and I get a little squeamish tossing them into a pot of boiling water. But, make no mistake, I am happy to kill the bastards. I can eat perhaps one 2#er in a sitting (salt and pepper or ginger stir fry, please). But, I am ready for another in about 6 hrs (crab cakes, with a bottle of Pinot Gris). Never went crabbing, but hope to have the experience one day. I am still salivating over your catch and feast. Wow, 33 crab. Huh, imagine that!

Once December rolls around here, you see a drop in Dungeness prices and the charity crab feeds pop up all over the place. Most of them serve the crab in a manner that does not honor it, but there's one where they do a ginger stir-fry type of thing that's fantastic. It's hard to know for sure as they're served in pieces, but I'm figuring I ate at least six or seven of the things at one of those events. There were probably 200 people there and one of my friends and I were the last two still eating at the end of the evening.

I caught a 25 lb striped bass from the shore last week - we grilled it whole with corn on the cob, your XXX potato salad, spinach salad and grilled sourdough bread brushed with olive oil that had been steeped with garlic, rosemary, thyme and sage.

I don't know striped bass from anything, John, but 25 pounds from shore sounds ginormous. Congratulations, both on the catch and the fine meal you made with it. I'll have to drop by Nantucket sometime when you're in residence.

Jenise

These days 25 lbs is might big especially from the shore. Until the mid 70s it wouold have been considered almost typical and people fairly regularly caught 40-50 pound stripers - but overfishing etc did the trick.

I always catch and release - but this one was so significant that a dinner party made sense

[Jenise]

They look like sea monsters and I get a little squeamish tossing them into a pot of boiling water. But, make no mistake, I am happy to kill the bastards. I can eat perhaps one 2#er in a sitting (salt and pepper or ginger stir fry, please). But, I am ready for another in about 6 hrs (crab cakes, with a bottle of Pinot Gris). Never went crabbing, but hope to have the experience one day. I am still salivating over your catch and feast. Wow, 33 crab. Huh, imagine that!

Jo Ann, we get into all kinds of conversations about the best way to cook crab up here, but I who never thought I could kill anything decided that a moral/ethical basis, if I was going to both catch and cook these I would need to do the step inbetween. And I've learned to, and after two seasons I'm not squeamish about it any more. And if I could get over it, just about anyone could. (You should hear me talking to the females as I gently remove them from the trap--it's easy to pull off their legs, and I so don't want to do that--and toss them back in the water, you'd think they were kittens.) Sometime if you and Carl would like to make the drive up, we'd be happy to take you out with us. The crab fishery is quite literally right in front of our house, and we have our own neighborhood marina so the boat's right here, too.

Hey, I forgot to post my pix from last weekend. Let me go find my camera.

And I've learned to, and after two seasons I'm not squeamish about it any more. And if I could get over it, just about anyone could.

Geez, you're just one step away from being a Republican... (just kidding).

What did you think about the crab preparation at the Cambodian restaurant? I didn't get the name of the crab preparation but the first one (not the hotter one) was something I'd like to be able to make!! Do you think one of the flavourings was Tamarind paste?