A Case of Crabs
At the height of the season, by the Bay, Dungeness crab is ludicrously cheap--around five bucks a pound if you buy it directly from the crabbers on the wharf. Fisherman's Wharf is one of those places where real San Franciscans do not go. It is a tourist sacrifice zone, all dazed-looking out-of-towners wearing I Love San Francisco fleeces and trying to find the ferry to Alcatraz. You can buy crab sandwiches and goopy New England clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls, and somewhere there is always a busker playing pan pipes. I pretend that this place does not exist and I rarely think of it at all, but it is where we keep the crab.
The length of pier 40-something (five? is it five?) behind the Musee Mechanique is row-upon-row of seafood suppliers, loading their catch into trucks destined for restaurants. Aloha Seafood. Pacific Seafood. S & M Seafood. I laugh. You can see Alcatraz from the end of pier. I take a photo with my phone. J and I have overslept because we stayed up late entertaining visiting hackers from San Diego, so we miss the crabbers by about half an hour. The docks are empty and the trucks are gone. We buy our crabs via special order from Whole Foods, which feels like cheating, but at least we've seen where crab comes from.
30 lbs of crab is enough to fill our entire refrigerator. There's hardly room for milk or cheese, vegetables or condiments. Later, one of the packages of crab will leak crab juice all over the deli meats. I find a tub of ricotta from 2013, which which requires hazmat-style disposal. The refrigerator stinks of crab every time it is opened. I am glad we chose not to buy live crabs. I don't know how we could possibly boil all of this, even on our enormous stove.
People arrive at Bunker 3 for the purpose of crab consumption. They bring wine and champagne and obscure varieties of ale. They bring gluten-free brownies and some sort of delicious still-warm jalepeno corn bread. N has made Syrian cole slaw. E brings a little wheel of Vacherin d'Or, which we immediately dub "attack cheese." It is gooey and pungent and its deployment against civilians is possibly prohibited by the Geneva Convention.
I tear crabs apart: pull off the legs, then pop open the carapace, remove the squishy gills, and crack the body in half so that people can get to the sweet meat inside. Again. And again. And again. Guests open the crab legs with nut crackers and small mallets and eventually empty champagne bottles. I break a plate. We lose many, many wine glasses. J melts down a variety of butters--one Old Bay, one saffron, one sumac (I think). We gorge until everyone is groggy with crab meat and wine and then we dump the crab shells into the giant pots we use for brewing beer and making gumbo, throw in all of the onions and carrots and shallots and lemons that remain in the refrigerator and boil them to make crab stock.
By 1 am, my sleepy guests had retreated to their homes, and J and I wrestle with pot after pot of boiling hot liquids while something or other happened to not-quite-period-correct Victorian prostitutes on Ripper Street. By 2 am, the Bunker 3 kitchen is mostly clean, we are weary and tipsy and sore, and we had 18 gallons of crab stock.
Whatever you are having for dinner tonight, know that it pales in comparison to the crab risotto we will be making.
The length of pier 40-something (five? is it five?) behind the Musee Mechanique is row-upon-row of seafood suppliers, loading their catch into trucks destined for restaurants. Aloha Seafood. Pacific Seafood. S & M Seafood. I laugh. You can see Alcatraz from the end of pier. I take a photo with my phone. J and I have overslept because we stayed up late entertaining visiting hackers from San Diego, so we miss the crabbers by about half an hour. The docks are empty and the trucks are gone. We buy our crabs via special order from Whole Foods, which feels like cheating, but at least we've seen where crab comes from.
30 lbs of crab is enough to fill our entire refrigerator. There's hardly room for milk or cheese, vegetables or condiments. Later, one of the packages of crab will leak crab juice all over the deli meats. I find a tub of ricotta from 2013, which which requires hazmat-style disposal. The refrigerator stinks of crab every time it is opened. I am glad we chose not to buy live crabs. I don't know how we could possibly boil all of this, even on our enormous stove.
People arrive at Bunker 3 for the purpose of crab consumption. They bring wine and champagne and obscure varieties of ale. They bring gluten-free brownies and some sort of delicious still-warm jalepeno corn bread. N has made Syrian cole slaw. E brings a little wheel of Vacherin d'Or, which we immediately dub "attack cheese." It is gooey and pungent and its deployment against civilians is possibly prohibited by the Geneva Convention.
I tear crabs apart: pull off the legs, then pop open the carapace, remove the squishy gills, and crack the body in half so that people can get to the sweet meat inside. Again. And again. And again. Guests open the crab legs with nut crackers and small mallets and eventually empty champagne bottles. I break a plate. We lose many, many wine glasses. J melts down a variety of butters--one Old Bay, one saffron, one sumac (I think). We gorge until everyone is groggy with crab meat and wine and then we dump the crab shells into the giant pots we use for brewing beer and making gumbo, throw in all of the onions and carrots and shallots and lemons that remain in the refrigerator and boil them to make crab stock.
By 1 am, my sleepy guests had retreated to their homes, and J and I wrestle with pot after pot of boiling hot liquids while something or other happened to not-quite-period-correct Victorian prostitutes on Ripper Street. By 2 am, the Bunker 3 kitchen is mostly clean, we are weary and tipsy and sore, and we had 18 gallons of crab stock.
Whatever you are having for dinner tonight, know that it pales in comparison to the crab risotto we will be making.