Crab labor

Magnet #1128 - Florida Crab

I hate labor-intensive food.

In fact, I stopped eating steamed crab, once my parents stopped feeding me. I hate having to spend time cracking open shells and legs just to get the smallest crabmeat ever. Too much labor, so little reward.

On the other hand, I love going crabbing. It's actually why I picked this particular magnet up from the Tampa airport last week. I haven't gone in years, but my parents used to take us crabbing all the time, all along the Atlantic seaboard.

We'd spend the night out on the pier and all night long, we'd check the chicken neck bait and empty the traps. So much fun. Looking back, it was probably just fun because we could mess around the pier in the middle of the night, and we were spending it outside, instead of tucked into bed.

Though we wouldn't have as much fish as my parents hoped, we were always successful when it came to catching crabs - one morning, we ended up with a giant cooler filled to the brim with scritchy-scratchy live crab. Pretty awesome.

And it's always a party when we get home from a fishing/crabbing trip - my parents can't ever wait to get those suckers into the steamers.

Yesterday, we discovered a new seafood shop in Spencer (yes, Spencer) - they were stocked with live crab, which thrilled my dad to pieces. I swear, I could feel him wanting to throw me out of the driver's seat, so that we'd get home faster, so he could get the steamer going.

It's been a while since I've seen live blue crab trying to escape our kitchen sink, but I'll tell ya, it was like I was ten years old again, watching him cook them and enjoy the hell out of eating them.

Of course, despite all my hints that said "I like crab, I just don't want to work for it", I didn't end up having any.

Hmph.

The Old Man and the Sea

Magnet #228 - Shrimpy McShrimperson

A friend of mine bought this for me at the San Gennaro Festival last year, just because he was there, and just because it was a funny little thing.

What he doesn't know is that my dad is a big-time seafood eater. Won't touch meat or fowl of any kind, but if it swims in the water, he's generally all over it.

Growing up, we had two sets of meals cooking - the Filipino dishes for my dad, usually with shrimp, crab, squid, fish, etc., and then the American dishes for my sisters and me.

I swear half my early childhood was spent on a fishing pier or lakeshore, or driving to seafood restaurants or fish markets. The restaurants were dotted all over NC - Pat 'n Mick's in Albemarle, or any Mayflower Seafood, or hell, even the kids at Captain D's know my dad.

The fish markets were the five-hour drives to Washington, D.C., or South Carolina. That eased up a bit when my dad got to be friends with the fishmonger in our hometown, and knew when the freshest deliveries were made. You see, that's what you do in Salisbury, NC, you end up pals with the fishmonger...the one who owns Spanky's, the (best) homemade ice cream and sandwiches shop in the town square. (And that's what I miss about the 'bury, ya'll.)

The fishing hasn't stopped though. You'd think by now my parents would have fished out the entire eastern seaboard. The funny thing is, my mom is actually the better fisherperson - she's a veritable Ariel of the sea, while my dad always catches the ones that got away.

It's kind of unfair, I suppose, given that mom usually ends up having to clean the fish in the end. Whenever I hear or see seafood, I can still see my mom as she's angrily gutting the fish...and hear her voice ringing in my head, "joy, never marry a man who loves fish!"