Birthday Goodness

So, after my favorite Chinese food restaurant for the last three years, began sabotaging their food with MSG, and two mornings of waking up with a pounding headache (thought the first day was a stress headache, ate the leftovers the next night, and then boom), I wasn't much in the mood for birthday celebrating on Saturday morning.

Brandy gave me until noon to see if I felt, better, which I did, but I was still not in the mood for a wild night out, or dressing up and going into the city for dinner at Plouf. Instead, I asked her if she would indulge my need to relive my childhood days of summer on the Cape and east coast. She was pretty game, so off we went.

Live and kicking in a tank, next to one full of dungeness crabs imported from Seattleish (our local crab season doesn't start for two more months), sat some Maine lobsters at the bargain rate of $11 a pound. I consider this good, because I imagine if I bought them in Boston, they would be about $8 a pound, and they are just coming off season. They're only going to get more expensive until next summer. Brandy said to grab two and I asked for 1.5-pounders. She said go bigger. Oy... we picked out two 3-pounders. That's the largest lobster I have ever had. She thought she would still be hungry, so we grabbed a crab at $5.99 per pound, too. Guess what's sitting in my fridge?

Off to Safeway to get some corn on the cob, which I boiled in the brand new stock pot she bought me for my birthday, with the lobsters, and seasoned with a parsley and chili butter. Added the obligatory oven roasted potatoes, and grabbed a loaf of sourdough for sopping up shellfish goodness in our bowls. For dessert, she insisted on chocolate silk pie, I wanted flourless chocolate cake. We got both.

Having watched either Alton Brown or Bobby Flay or someone... maybe even Anthony Bourdain, I saved the lobster heads and the coral (also called tamale) inside, and mixed it up with a stick of softened butter, so I could freeze myself some decadent lobster butter. That'll taste nice over some fresh pasta! Or work well napped over mussels... I'll use it for something.

We were sated, and happy, and both fell asleep watching "No Country for Old Men" on cable.