Wednesday, January 1, 2014

December 31, 2013 - Shopping for and eating a broiled lobster with salad for New Year’s Eve Dinner

December 31, 2013 - Shopping for and eating a broiled lobster with salad for New Year’s Eve Dinner

Today was one of those rare, ultimate food shopping experiences.  
 
Eating fresh lobster for New Year’s Eve has become one of our food traditions.  We have been talking about it for days because the logistics are always tricky.  After a meeting yesterday afternoon I went by Ta Lin Market at Louisiana and Central to see if they had any lobsters and they said they had ordered some to be delivered today.  Sonia, at the main customer service desk, said she could take my information and reserve me one.  So I gave her my name and phone and credit card number.  I took a card and she said I could call tomorrow after 2:00 p.m., which is when the lobsters were expected to arrive.

I called today around 12:30 p.m. and the person who answered told me the lobsters were on their way but had been delayed to the next flight and would not arrive until closer to 3:00 p.m.  This was starting to sound like meeting an old friend for a New Year’s Eve Party at the airport.  So I planned my trip to pick up a repaired suitcase, so that I would arrive at Ta Lin around 3:00 pm.

When I arrived at Ta Lin around 3:00 p.m. I was told that the plane had arrived and the driver was in transit with the lobsters.  I walked back to the fish department and spoke to my favorite fish monger, who I have dealt with for over fifteen years and speaks little English but we have some of the best conversations in broken English about fish and seafood I have ever had and he made a motion of a driver driving a truck and then waved his arms and in a sweeping motion to indicate that I should shop and said, “In few minutes.”  So I shopped for a few minutes, selecting a few essentials: dried rice, bean and vegetarian noodles, fresh Japanese eggplants, shallots, and fresh brown button mushrooms.  When I returned to the fish department, there was a large box sitting on a rolling table filled with large lobsters and one a couple eyeing the lobsters.  The man made a comment that it was arduous to buy a lobster and I said, “Yes, it takes two days” and he smiled and then he and his lady companion picked two 2 ¼ pound lobsters.  I had been eyeing the lobsters as soon as his lobsters were bagged and taken to the register in the fish department I selected the largest lobster of the several that were out of the box.  It appeared that the box contained about one dozen lobsters, all over two pounds each.  The lobsters were all alive and moving, so next to a tank at the shore in Maine, this was as fresh as one could get one anywhere.  My lobster was bagged and taken to the register in the fish department where it weighted 2.69 lbs. and was put in another large plastic bag.   At $13.88/lb. (the usual price for lobster at Ta Lin) that came to $37.34.  Not a bad price considering your new found lobster friend had just been flown in from the East coast by airplane freight in a large heavy cardboard box and driven to you from the airport by special limousine service.  

When I paid for the lobster at the cash register, the attendant even asked and gave me a packet of ice to keep my new friend comfortably cool on the drive home.

When I arrived home around 4:00 I put the lobster in the fridge and emptied the large pot that had held the mulled apple juice at our Christmas Eve party of its contents and drank a cup of mulled apple juice as I washed the pot and filled it with clean water and put it on the stove.   I then checked a phone message and discovered it was from Sonia at Ta Lin telling me that my lobster was on its way.   
At around 5:15 Suzette arrived and I confirmed that the lobster was in the house.  We had discussed dinner in the morning and decided to not go out, since I am under the weather, but instead to eat a simple meal of a salad and broiled fresh lobster, if I was able to obtain one.  Suzette had only had a blintz and blini for lunch at her Greenhouse Bistro’s New Year’s Blintz and Blini luncheon, so she was hungry.   She turned on the heat under the pot and ground up several old dried out rolls and pieces of bread in the Cuisinart to make fresh bread crumbs.  My favorite way to prepare lobster is the way my mother did; to boil the lobster to kill it and then to split it open, so it lays flat in a roasting pan belly side up and sprinkle it with bread crumbs and pads of butter and broil it until most of the moist internal organs are coagulated and cooked, but still tender.  I have found this method retains the greatest amount of sweet ocean liquid in the meat, while imparting a wonderful broiled flavor. 

I started making the salad by spinning a couple of handfuls of organic greens from Costco ($3.99/lb.) and placing that in my large teak wood salad bowl with some sliced cucumber, cubes of French Beaufort cheese and fresh pear, a couple of palm hearts sliced and a bit of cubed red bell pepper.  Suzette blanched a handful of fresh sugar snap peas and added those to the salad, while I made a salad dressing with about 1 Tbsp. of balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp. of Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard, the pulp of three small cloves of garlic pressed in a garlic press, 1 tsp. of Herbs Provence and enough olive oil (Kirtland Extra Virgin from Costco) to balance the harshness of the vinegar (about 1/3 to ½ cup).  When you stop gagging at the back of your throat and the oil has not separated from the vinegar, you have reached balance.

When the water in the pot came to a boil I went to the fridge in the garage to fetch our newly found lobster friend for dinner and went through that momentary moral and physical tussle of getting it into the pot of boiling water to kill her by boiling.

After about ten minutes of boiling we removed the lobster from the pot, placed it belly side up on a board and I split it open along the mid-section of its belly from head to tail with a large sharp knife.  It was still very wet inside, which was a good sign. Suzette took over as I finished the salad making and placed freshly made bread crumbs in the lobster’s cavity and then put pads of butter along the split open crease running the length of its body and squeezed lemon juice on it.  We put it in a roasting pan and put it in a 500˚ oven on broil about six inches from the heat for five minutes.
Suzette filled a small ramekin with butter and microwaved it to melt the butter.



After about five minutes we were ready to eat.  We filled bowls with salad and placed the lobster halves on a large Chinese steel platter.  I got a plate to use to stack the discarded shell as I ate the lobster and Suzette used the platter for her discards.  We opened a bottle of Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvée that Cynthia and Ricardo brought for our Christmas Eve party.  I have never drunk Barefoot Bubbly before.  I enjoyed it very much.  It is a true bone dry brut.  Upon examining the back label as I write this article, I see that Barefoot Cellars in Modesto, CA recommends it as perfect with fruit, sharp cheese and buttery lobster.  Perhaps it tasted perfect with dinner because we included all three of those ingredients in this evening’s dinner.   The champagne had a clear color and was very bubbly, with all the characteristics of traditional French brut champagne.   

 It won the gold medal at the Winemaker’s Challenge International Wine Competition in 2012.  I recommend it.
For those of you who do not know it, Ta Lin typically has the widest selection of fish, both frozen and fresh.  It also the largest world food market in New Mexico.  If you have not been there, you should go.  

As I reflect on Ta Lin’s timing and logistics for the arrival of the lobsters, they were perfect: the lobsters were packed and shipped to arrive in Albuquerque by air freight by around 2:30 p.m., they were picked up at the airport by a waiting driver and driven to the store and selected and paid for by 3:30 p.m. and ours went into the pot alive and kicking by 6:00 p.m.
Bon Appétit

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