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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