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Killing Creatures in the Kitchen

For a few days now, I have had a hankering for lobster because I found a recipe that seemed too good to pass up. Lobster, corn, lemon, butter, grilling. See what I mean? I finally followed through last night to great success.

With one exception, Bon Appetit, I only buy magazines occasionally and only on my iPad—and usually when I’m traveling. At home with no travel plans, I have discovered that Martha Stewart Living for the iPad is one kick-ass magazine. I never bothered with it in paper form because I find Martha Stewart to be a bit too anal, but the iPad version offers a sensory surprise with every swipe of the screen. It moves and plays music and is embedded with links. Even if I never make or do a single thing in an issue, I’ll download it just for the moment-by-moment amusement it provides.


In the latest issue, I found a recipe for grilled lobster and corn on the cob and knew I had to make it. I bought two lobsters at my local grocery store, which has them shipped in—they arrive in Styrofoam crates lined with wet newspapers and seaweed and go straight into the tank. When you bring them home, you put them in the fridge until ready for cooking—as the meat counter guy says, do not put them in the bathtub because lobsters are salt-water creatures. I knew that already.


Emily, a vegetarian, was disturbed that I would be killing things in the kitchen, and she picked up one of the lobsters to show me how its little legs were squirming and how its eyes were googly with confusion. She named the lobsters and made up a scenario in which they were married, and I was about to end their long life together. BS, I told her. They are the equivalent of cockroaches and do not have the capacity to be confused.

You know what else? They don’t scream when you dunk them in a big pot of boiling water. If you detect a noise at all, it’s air escaping from their shells. It takes about five minutes to cook them in boiling water, or at least cook them partially, because in the case of this recipe they finish on the grill. You boil them until bright pink, about like this:


And then you cut them up and grill the parts to completion about like this:


The real finishing touch is the butter, which is what really drew me to this recipe. It’s not just plain drawn butter, it’s browned and infused with red pepper flakes. I didn’t have access to the pepper named in the recipe, so I used regular flakes, and the end result was wonderful. I also skewered locally grown grape tomatoes and grilled them along with the corn instead of just tossing them in at the end.

All in all, this was a great meal at least beloved by the meat eaters.

Comments

dive said…
Yummy!
Sorry, Emily, but marine creepy-crawlies are scrumptious.

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