Mmmm... lobster boil

Occasion: Spontaneous lobster feast with my brother, Yining and Anne

Location: my place

Edibles: whole lobsters with my lemon butter sauce for dipping (recipe below)

Musings: Stuffed on the bounty of Flushing's food courts, we headed to a grocery store to stock up on cheap fruit before heading back to the city. I stopped in my tracks and forgot all about the fruit when I saw that they were selling live lobsters for $4.49 a pound. That's right - $4.49! $4.49!!!!! That's practically free, I marveled.

Now, I had read that lobster prices had tanked with the economy - it's a celebratory food and nobody's celebrating very much these days. In New England, I read, lobster was now cheaper per pound than hot dogs. But that was several states away, near the fishermen. Or so I thought...

You can imagine my delight to discover otherwise. I immediately asked for three, which were unceremoniously stuffed into a brown paper grocery bag and handed, dripping, to me. It didn't take much peer pressure ("Do it. Dooooo it!") to convince Yining to get some, too.

A few hours and five murders later, we made our way to my building's roof deck with two platters of lobster, the butter sauce, a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc and a stack of The Onion to help contain the carnage. We immediately dove in with our bare hands. Shells flew. There may have been some unladylike slurping. In the fading light, we sat back, replete. And yet.... Next time, two lobsters apiece, we greedily agreed. Some corn on the cob would be nice, too.

Kathy, you shoulda been there!

Friends, cooking lobster well is not hard at all. As with all top flight ingredients, you're just trying to enhance (or at least, not ruin). My method:

Boiled/Steamed Lobster

Pour water into a large pot until it's about an inch deep. Bring water to a vigorous boil. Place live lobster inside. Cover, reduce to medium-ish heat (just enough to maintain the boil) and cook 12-15 min for a 1½ lb lobster. That's all, folks.

Some tips:
1) I find 1½ lb lobsters to provide the best value. 1¼'s have proportionately more shell and at 2 lbs, the price jumps. I don't think the 2's are as sweet, either.

2) If you don't want the rubber bands to cook with the lobster, you can remove them just before cooking. I usually don't bother. Be very careful if you do, because a lobster's claw is strong enough to do some serious damage. They don't call the bigger one the "crusher" for nothing.

3) To maximize the tastiness of the claws, clip the tips with a strong pair of kitchen shears or a cleaver so water won't collect in there and make the meat soggy. (Obviously, do this before removing the rubber bands.) This is optional; the claw meat will never be as good as the tail meat, no matter how you cook it.

4) You can cook two lobsters at the same time in a large pot but don't overcrowd. If one is completely on top of another, the bottom one will cook faster than the top one and you risk it coming out tough and rubbery.

Lemon Butter Sauce
(for dipping)

Melt about 2 tbsp of butter per lobster you're serving. Give it a squeeze or two of lemon and grate in some lemon zest (the zest makes a BIG difference). Season with salt and pepper. It looks prettier if you clarify the butter (i.e. skim off the milk solids that separate from the fat) but it tastes just fine if you skip that step.

Bonus points if you can find a way to rig a tealight under the sauce bowl to keep it hot.