Eating What You Kill

As the weather gets warmer and we inch closer and closer to summer I’ve developed an obsession with lobster. These days my food obsessions have been more about finding a product and trying to teach myself a method of cooking it as opposed to trying to find it at a restaurant ready and prepared for me to eat. I’m not sure where exactly this lobster obsession came from, I think it’s a combination of seeing lobster all around me (in stores/markets) and fond memories of eating lobster in Maine when I was a kid (don’t we all have similar lobster memories?)

All of last week I couldn’t help thinking about lobster, and how to cook it at home. I wasn’t interested in the straight boiling process, I wanted to learn to use lobster as part of a composed plate. Since I haven’t cooked much lobster before I turned to the French Laundry Cookbook, one of my favorites, for guidance. Using the knowledge that stabbing a lobster in the brain is the most humane way to kill it, and some direction form the cookbook, I decided to create my own variation of Thomas Keller’s butter poached lobster.

The night started out with me preparing a ton of clarified butter to poach the lobster in and to finish my vegetables with as well as a blanching of sugar snaps, and leeks. I also decided to try to make some potato chips with my newly purchased mandoline and happened to take a healthy chunk out of my thumb after a brief loss of focus.

I then had to slaughter the lobsters. While we understand that all the meat/fish we eat were once living, it’s one thing to buy the product and something completely different to kill the product yourself. I wouldn’t say that I was squeamish, but I did feel a little sorry for the lobster sitting on my cutting board moving around with no idea what was about to happen. I sharpened my knife and looked down at the little guy and started to feel a little bad. Then I found the spot on the top of its shell where the brain is supposed to be and plunged the tip of my knife down into it. It went in fairly easily only I realized that as I was stabbing the lobster in the head I found myself saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” to the lobster I was killing. I then twisted off its tail and arms as directed. After a brief steep in boiling water I removed the meat from the shells and came up with this:




The lobster poached in butter tasted amazing, as did the melted leeks and fresh sugar snaps. The potato chip added I nice texture (it was very crisp) but the sauce (lobster stock mixed with fennel and saffron) lacked body and needed to be thicker, notice the fact that it looks more like a broth. Overall, I was happy with the taste and not terribly mortified by my first time cooking lobster at home but I understand that I still need to learn a lot more about this delicious tasting creature.

***Note that butter poaching is an amazing way to cook lobster, something I plan on doing a lot more of.

Pearl Oyster Bar

I remember a day in my childhood when I got over my fear of eating a spiny, clawed, ugly, creature with oozing green innards and learned to embrace the lobster. It happened when I was a child on vacation in Maine, and I have enjoyed the taste of lobster ever since.
After a brief end of summer stint in Maine, and a day of steamed lobster, fried clams, lobster rolls, and blueberry pie, I decided that it was time to visit the restaurant in New York that is heralded as the closest thing to authentic Main cuisine: Pearl Oyster Bar.

Until this past Wednesday, I had been reading about Pearl on a pretty consistent basis and had really wanted to pay a visit. The trip to Maine allowed me to remember how much I liked lobster rolls (Pearl’s most famous dish) and pretty much forced me to go to Pearl’s as soon as I had the chance.

Finally, this past Wednesday I had the chance to try the famous Pearl lobster roll and it was good. It was actually really good, but I couldn’t help but feel like there was something missing. I appreciate Pearl’s efforts to re-create the Main lobster shack with its wood interior, cramped seating and the little wafts of salt water air that seem to surround the place but something is terribly missing from the lobster roll experience. For several hours after dinner I thought about the tasty lobster roll and couldn’t figure out what was unpleasing about this mayonaiss-y lobster-y sandwich on its perfectly grilled sweet hot dog roll. After much pondering, I finally realized that it was the price (I was treated to dinner otherwise I might have realized this immediately.) It’s not that the lobster roll isn’t good, but at $25 dollars a piece, I believe that the concept of the lobster roll is completely misinterpreted.

As I understand it from my childhood, the lobster roll is the leftover claws and other parts of a lobster served with mayonnaise and celery and a little bit of seasoning on a hot dog bun. Because we are receiving the less desirable cuts of lobster, the lobster roll is generally a relative bargain. It’s a cheap taste of Maine that you can eat on the beach with a beer or lemonade, as you smell the sea and play with the sand between your toes. The lobster roll is the food item you purchase in Maine in lieu of regular lobster. You do so because it tastes like lobster but is much cheaper. This is where Pearl Oyster bar fails. I applaud the taste of their interpretation of the lobster roll, but I was let down by what I had heard was close to an authentic lobster shack. I like to eat my lobster rolls within sniffing distance of the water for less than what I would spend on a full steamed lobster; its not that I’m cheap, it’s just the concept. And no lobster roll no matter how lobster filled and tasty it is can even compare to a bad lobster roll on the beach in Maine.

A Proustian Experience in Maine

The Marginal Way in Ogunquit, Maine

I was eating dinner at a friend’s house last week when she asked me the question, “did you have a good childhood?” I thought this was a rather odd and random question, but I thought about it for a moment before responding, “I had an excellent childhood.”

She then looked at me and replied, “well, what were some of your best memories?” I thought about my childhood, and some memories came to my head, but I couldn’t think of any that I would describe as being the ‘best.’ Could it be that I didn’t have a good childhood? I knew this wasn’t true. I could see my friend getting patient so I told her “there are none that really jump out,” at the same time feeling like I was letting down my parents.

“Good!” she said, “Psychological studies have shown that children with good childhood’s have trouble remembering the best moments while children who have been abused or had miserable childhood’s have a couple that stand out because they are few and far between.”


Despite this assurance that my childhood was, in fact, good, my response to this question has been haunting me for some time. Why couldn’t I think of the best moments of my childhood? I have some very distinct memories, but most of them are rather strange. I very vividly remember thinking there was an octopus clinging to the outside of my bedroom window on the 10th story of our Manhattan apartment, I remember looking at a sparkler for the first time, still glowing orange after sparkling, and touching it (it hurt) and I remember my uncle cheating at soccer by carrying the ball all over the field when I was 5 and we were in India. I also remember the water buffalo strolling down the street shortly after.

Why can’t I remember anything that is distinctively ‘good’?

I think the reason for this is because as a child, ‘good’ might be more of a sate of mind than an actual moment. While there may be moments of sensory greatness, there is no equivalent to the habitual happiness you experience as a child.

I came to this conclusion when I went to Ogunquit, Maine over Labor Day weekend, a place my family and I used to go to every summer when I was younger, but also somewhere that I haven’t been in at least 8 years. Everything about Ogunquit made me happy and a rush of memories came racing back to me. I could distinctly remember my first lobster roll on the beach, breaking open mussels to catch crabs (so we could race them) eating mini Reese’s peanut butter cups from the candy store, and eating pie from Pie in the Sky bakery (something my parents would dutifully bring me every year when I was at college.)



Going into Pie in Sky Bakery and smelling fresh pies baking in the back, and eating lobster rolls while looking at the water helped make Ogunquit feel familiar to me again. We ate lunch while looking at the water, walked on the beach, and finished up the day eating steamers and lobsters with lots of butter and some extra bread for sopping it all up.

I don’t think it was the food alone that affected me, but I believe tasting and smelling familiar food in a familiar place that had been lost to me for quite some time did more than simply walking around. I used all five senses to eat my lobster, first smelling it as it arrived at the table; then seeing it, bright red in front of me; touching it as I pulled the meat out of the still hot claws; tasting it as I listened the sounds surrounding me—something that years ago, I had done several times in that exact same place and something that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

As I fell asleep on the ride back home, with the heavy scent of drawn butter and lobster coating my lips, and sand in between my toes, Ogunquit became familiar to me again and I remembered several summers of a childhood that was very good.

Lobster isn't cheap...

Last week I had two meals that were on completely different ends of the price spectrum. On Wednesday night I met up with a friend who had a dumpling craving and we went to New Green Bo on Bayard Street for soup dumplings, pan fried dumplings and chow fun. The total cost of our meal, including two Tsingtaos came to $25 dollars. The soup dumplings were both soupy and savory and very satisfying and the pan fried dumplings had a nice layer of crispness contrasting the soft texture of the rest of the dumpling shell. For $25 dollars, the meal was a bargain.

On Friday I got together with some people for a mini celebration. The terms of our restaurant choosing specified that our destination had to have lobster and had to be on the water; the only restaurant that came to mind was The Water Club.

This was my first visit to The Water Club and while the setting and location with views of the East River is a very nice one, I can’t help but feel that the restaurant is incredibly archaic in a fine dining sense. Walking around the place one gets the sense that the crowd isn’t a particularly food knowledgeable one and that the restaurant is a place where people go to show off how much money they can spend on very large lobsters.

When we sat down and inquired about the ‘market price’ of lobster we were told that it was $30 dollars a pound. I haven’t had steamed lobster in a restaurant recently, but $30 dollars a pound seemed a little high. What made this pricing incredibly awkward however, wasn’t the high price per pound of lobster but the fact that the smallest lobster a diner can order is two pounds, making the price of lobster $60 dollars and up. That’s right, a $60 dollar entrée. A steamed two pound lobster has no business costing $60 dollars--the preparation involves buying a lobster, dunking it in boiling water and cracking it table side. $60 dollars is $14-$16 dollars more than the lobster served at Aquagrill, Joel Robuchon, Gotham Bar and Grill, some of the cities most expensive and revered restaurants…Their preparations also involve a lot more effort and thought than steaming the lobster and serving it.

The funny thing about the lobster at The Water Club is that people other than myself didn’t seem fazed by the pricing. The man sitting behind me was visibly upset when he was told that the restaurant had recently sold its last 4 pound lobster. I guess he really wanted to show his date (who looked like she wasn’t going to be eating anything) that he could spend enough money for the two of them. The sad part about it is that anyone who appreciates lobster (and isn’t ordering it to show the size of his____) knows that lobster loses both flavor and texture when it gets to a certain size. You’re better off ordering two 2 pound lobsters than ordering one four pounder.

I’m never spending $60 dollars at the water club again but just for fun, here’s a list of foodie things I can spend $60 dollars on and feel satisfied.

4 corned beef sandwiches and 4 egg creams at Katz’s Delicatessen
3 Prix fixe lunches at Blaue Gans
1 Six course tasting menu at Devi (one Michelin Star)
20 oysters and a glass of Muscadet at Aquagrill
Lunch for two with wine at Gotham Bar and Grill
A three course dinner at The Bar Room at The Modern w/ Champagne and Rosewater cocktail
One Bistro Burger and 21 beers at Corner Bistro

It’s now my personal quest to find cheaper and better lobster (because I can never stay mad at lobster for too long.)