Day One Hundred and Fifty Four - Live Lobster

Dear all,

ITS EMMA AND BENJ'S 10TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! We decided to celebrate by cooking up a feast of live lobster! I had been telling Em all about our lobster antics and she was on a mission to get her lobster quota whilst here in Canada. We thought why not go all out and bring home a fresh catch and needless to say D was very amused by it all when I called him to invite him over to dinner as we had 'three live lobster in the car'. He chuckled.

The lady at the fish counter in Loblaws was very helpful and had a vast knowledge of lobsters in all their various forms. She showed us how to distinguish between male and female lobsters ( males have these weird protruding pincers on their underbellies), which lobsters would taste better (girls) and spent ages picking out the most delicious looking crustacea for our dinner.

We bought three 2 pound lobsters after much debate and packed them up in a large polystyrene container and whizzed them home with the odd question from Lucie as to 'what was in the box?'. We popped them straight in the fridge ( apparently good for one day like that!) after naming them ( always important to name ones pets):

1. Claude ( he has big claws)

2. Sharon ( she slapped her tail a lot. Brits will get this reference)

3. Pinchy ( One must always have a lobster called Pinchy)

We decided Pinchy would go 'into the pan' first. We boiled up a massive pot of water, added a dash of salt.

With bated breath, I held Pinchy's tail, Darren took off his elastics, we threw him in the pot and Em slammed down the lid. Apart from a brief slap on the lid ( sorry for the gory details, this post is rated PG13) after a minute or so, Pinchy had gone bright pink andwas bubbling away nicely.

Darren took control and after 20 minutes, he picked Pinchy out of the water using a useful sieve that we found had in the Garage. It was triumphant!

Next in was Sharon and while she was cooking, we starting to work on Pinchy. Now, cracking lobster we discovered, is quite an art, especially without any cooking utensils and/ or lobster forks. After attempting to crack the shell using a handy door knob, we found a hammer in the cupboard and used that instead which indeed proved to be very efficient in doing the job.

As we worked away on the lobster, Lucie helped Em with setting the table in between episodes of 'Dora the Explorer' and before long we were ready to eat.

We had bought a huge bottle of Cava to celebrate Emma and Benj's wedding anniversary and it was just wonderful. All three lobsters tasted delicious! Heres to another 10 wonderful years!!!

Below, video footage of 'the cracking of Pinchy, the cooking of Claude and the fear of Sharon'.