I love fresh food!

Yes, most food made at home is fresh, but I mean using top quality ingredients from the seafood place, butcher, farmer and bakery.  And today was one of those meal days.

There’s nothing like a good and fresh seafood dish on a nice warm summer evening, so for this special meal I purchased fresh lobster, and this sucker was swimming/hovering in the tank behind the counter.  As the guy dropped his hand into the cold water all the lobsters started to scatter, but there were no place to hide.

For the short drive home I placed the live animal in the passenger seat of the El Camino, which was fairly creepy.  I could hear and see the little dude gently move around, probably confused as to where he was going.

I placed the bag on the kitchen counter and ask the kids to come.  When they were neatly lined up around me I opened the bag.  The initial reaction was silence, then absolute horror and screaming.  It didn’t help when I asked if they wanted to pet it!

The oldest quickly asked if this was a new pet, but as I told it was dinner her face turned slightly skewed.  Then she asked how I was going to cook it and I told her throw it into boiling water.  Then she started to scream again.

The South American flower (my lovely wife) simply refused to even look at the lobster.  She loves lobster, but has obviously no interest in knowing the source of the food personally.  She screamed and ran into the living room.

I placed the largest put on the stove and started the boiling process.  Meanwhile the lobster, now known as Sebastian, was sitting calmly on the cutting board.  Somehow I don’t he really understood was what about to happen.

When the water started to boil, I started ‘Highway to Hell’ song on the stereo while shouting ‘dead lobster crawling’, and slowly lifted Sebastian over the boiling water.

I swear he was looking at me, begging for his life.  As I slowly started to dump him into the boiling water, he attempted to grab for the sides of the pot saving his life.  I too was feeling weird about this and was starting to have second thoughts.

• Was boiling him really such a good idea?
• How much pain would he feel?
• How big of a tank would I need to keep him as a pet?
• Would I have enough money to free all the lobsters?
• How long would he need to be submerged, before he passed over to reef heaven?

Anyway, I dumped the sucker into the boiling water and held him down with my wooden spoon for a few minutes and then placed the lid over him.

Ave Maria and God Bless mate!

10 minutes later Sebastian had departed this evil kitchen, where we had just outplayed the unhappy alternative ending from the frantic kitchen battle in “The Little Mermaid”.

This time Sebastian was ending up in a nice white wine sauce, soaked with a few garlic gloves, peppers, mushrooms and olive oil, served with a nice portion of pasta.  Bon Appetite!