Monday, October 19, 2009

God's Gift to the Atlantic: The Blue Crab


I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was well, entertaining...... We had Virginia Wine Fest here in Downtown Norfolk..... I love wine, and it holds a special place in my heart, but for the love of God... Around 5 PM, both Saturday and Sunday, the restaurant was bombarded with drunken bafoons. Literally every person that walked in the door would have failed a field sobriety test..... Beer bottles were broken every couple minutes, restaurant napkins were folded and tied around guys heads and used as bandanas.... Patrons would leave the restaurant and urinate on the street in front of us.... Female patrons attemped to take their shirts off, while the wine spoke to other patrons as they provocatively kissed, and groped their dates in the corner. I can't count on one hand how many people fell out of their chairs, or tripped coming down the stairs. One guy got thrown through the front door.... he cut his head on the railing outside our door.... don't worry he totally deserved it.... Anyway... the weekend is now over.... and I am now winding down work... All I have left is the 3 block walk to my car through the gale force winds, and the unseasonably cold air that has been haunting us for the last week or so.....I just hope the misting rain has stopped, and the leather seats in my car aren't too cold....




There are so many reasons to call it the Holy City. Businessmen step down the front steps of their 300 year old, vibrantly colored, colonial homes onto Meeting Street and stroll towards their law offices, brokerage firms, and doctor's offices. They are laden in 3 piece suits, or perhaps searsuckers, carrying briefcases, and wearing Cole Hanns - living the same lives as their fathers, grandfathers and the generations before that lived in this tide swolen city. Embraced with salt marshes, barrier sea islands, and tidal rivers, Charleston is beautiful in every since of the word. Every bronze tinted sunset that collapses over this city is unprecedented, marvelous and a new miracle. As the sun begins to set, the fishermen exit the harbor heading inland up Shem Creek with a boat full of the day's harvest. They are stalked by herds of seagulls as porpoises occasionally surface, catching a breathe of air, drifting in the opposite direction.... drifting back to their homes in the vast Atlantic Ocean. Vacationing children look on from the front porches of the restaurants that line this creek , and gaze in wonder at the boats, and the fisherman below who have docked and are beginning to clean the fish that paddled this ocean only a few hours prior. For years I was one of these children - a vacationer, an outsider; one that so desperately wanted to belong and be a part of this beautiful, mysterious city. Something about it had a magnatic, radiating pull on me. My family spent our carefree summers on Charleston's beaches. Our mornings were spent splashing in the tides building sandcastles, while our afternoons were spent with my grandfather, Pop, religiously devoted to catching the sacred crustacean of the Atlantic - the blue crab. At the inlet where Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms meet we would cast our crabbing lines into the salt water and wait patiently while marvelling at Fort Sumter in the distance. Our modest grossings of a dozen crabs was pale in comparison to the myths we heard of my father and uncle, when they were our age, in this same salty water some 30 years before. Growing up on the Chesapeake Bay they wrung in hoardes and hoardes of these tasty creatures. They pillaged these waters and in doing so created an unattainable standard in the eyes of my grandfather. When he felt like we had been adequately sunburnt or when he felt like we had captured enough sizeable crabs to yield a modest appetizer for our oversized family, we would pack up, and head back to our beautiful house over looking the vast ocean. For hours my grandfather meticulously picked crabs as we laid down for a nap, or maybe played cards in the living room - out of the danger of the sun - this was our parents orders that were intended to distract us from the sun, and the exacerbation of our sunburnt skin. Occasionally I would help my grandfather, but however mundane and tedious it was, I got the sense that he enjoyed the solitude of this task. Sitting on the porch, cooled by the slight breeze coming off the water, I got the sense that this was his time to reflect on the long, admirably lived life that was now in it's denoument - it's final chapter. Pelicans glided overhead dancing with kites in the sky, as his eyes chased cargo ships exiting the horizon in the east, heading off to sea, off to another port, another world , a world very far from here. Nevertheless, the crab was always picked flawlessly and we always had a homemade cocktail sauce to accompany it. Our parents would sip on whiskey sours, while us kids relished the gift of Coca-Cola. Life was good. The crab was great and will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you Pop. Crab to me will always in a sense be, well, you.

I have been working on a couple different crab cake recipes that are a little more unique than the typical Crab Cake.... I will probably attach one at the bottom of this post. If y'all have any recipes to share leave them below, or search the Food Bar at the top of this page for Crab Cake Recipes - There are some good ones.... Just make sure you use Jumbo Lump Crab, go easy on the fillers, and easy on the mayo......

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