So there I was……
Wheeling my grocery cart out of the produce section of Food Lion where I’d just bagged some fresh ginger (for fresh ginger and mint tea -Hairaqcuban style) and traipsing leisurely past the packs of pork and poultry (that’s called Alliteration children) I stopped to peer into the free-standing refrigerated section in the middle of the aisle to look for the frozen shrimp which FL has on sale like literally every other week. This week the Jumbo Raw shrimp was on a BOGO. Mehhh. I want the medium, guess I”ll have to wait until next week to get that on BOGO. I toss around a couple of the bags just because, when this catches my eye.
Seriously? This just isn't right.
Lobster in a Box.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. Yes I do…its just not right! Sure it’s convenient and offers those who just don’t have the time to run up to Maine between work and home the ability to serve their loved ones a certified Maine Lobster from Nantucket. But look at the experiences you trade in! You forfeit the joy of getting gussied up and going out to a not- so-inexpensive dinner at a fancy nautically themed seafood joint and indulging in the hot, sweet, buttery goodness of Lobster which you don’t often have; let alone served to you with lemon wedges. OR you stay in the comfort of your own kitchen and earn your Lobster Homicide Girl Scout badge by joining the ranks of those who are brave enough to look the rosey crustaceans in their nasty beady eyes and tell them everything is going to be okay as you send them to their watery crockpot grave. Lies! Both of these, however, are acceptable methods for having Lobster for dinner…NOT tearing open a cardboard box and dropping it into the same pot, the very same pot! , you make the kids mac and cheese in. How could you?! Heaven forbid if it should have directions for preparing it in the microwave! It’s an abomination I tell you. You can put shrimp in bags, fish in bags, scallops in bags and even King crab legs in bags but the line has to be drawn somewhere! And here is that line. Surely knowing their destiny we owe all of Lobster-kind the dignity of being served as a special meal. What self respecting Lobster wants to find himself shipped in a cardboard casket to a suburban food chain? That’s not going to make his family proud. Boxing Lobster’s takes away it’s specialness. Soon folks will be recklessly using Lobster all willy nilly like putting Lobster meat in their hamburger helper (for special guests) and having Lobster sausages with their cheesy scrambied eggs and jelly toast in the morning (yes I meant to say scrambied). Kids need a snack? Shove a couple of Lobsters in the microwave and serve it with red flavored kool-aid…it’s perfect for after school!
This madness must be stopped.
“Hey! I don’t know about every day, but you know what…we should cook something out of that cookbook once a month! Yeah, yeah…we could get together on the weekends…and it can be like a girl’s get together type of thingy.” Bonne idée! (Good idea!). We don’t have the book(s) yet; but as fate would have it, after making known my dislike of zucchini and squash(yuck) in the produce section of Wally World, I was romanced by the idea of cooking the dish that inspired an animated feature length film (No, not Bambi. Ratatouille). Plus…she contended…the kids had been wanting to make this dish so we could kill a couple of birds with one stone. Along with the Ratatouille we attempted a Bruschetta (not picture); althought not Julia’s recipe, I would consider it a success as the whole plate of about 12 pieces was inhaled in under 5 minutes by three people. Though we both agreed, somewhat disappointed, that it didn’t look “anything like it did in the cartoon”, it turned out very good. Apparently though I hate zucchini and squash and am not a big fan of eggplant outside of it’s lovely color, if you chop ‘em up, mix ‘em together with diced tomatoes, serve it over rice and give it a french name….I actually like Ratatouille.
