FedEx delivered half-a-dozen lobsters to our door yesterday, less than 24 hours after they were picked up from Free Range Lobster & Fish in Portland, ME. They were nestled in seaweed with three frozen icepacks and placed in a Styrofoam container that in turn was put into a cardboard box for shipping.
We invited people who would appreciate fresh lobster. We are happy to share the feast with our close neighbors and closer friends, Vivian (from Massachusetts) and Jim (from upstate New York). Then, when I learned we were getting six lobsters rather than four, I invited Audre (from Massachusetts) and Dimitri (born in Egypt to Greek parents). I had "met" them through their inspiring website about their perpetually traveling life. They are currently in Denver, beginning a six-month stay in Colorado. Even before they walked through our door, I knew that part of what they treasure about their world travels is food, so even before I learned where Audre grew up, it seemed right to offer them a taste of New England, here in Boulder.
The lobsters' carbon footprint (clawprint?) might have been significant, but we made up for it with much of the rest of the other food. I confess to store-bought pepper hummus and crackers eaten while the lobsters were boiling. The sit-down dinner menu was truly simple and as local as we could make it: boiled lobsters with melted butter, home-made cole slaw (Colorado organic cabbage and carrots) and skin-on oven fries (ditto) with truffle salt. Dessert was Vivian's apple crisp, made with Macintosh apples from their own tree and accompanied by two flavors of local gelato. Six hours after the lobsters arrived, they were in two big pots of boiling water (below left), and 14 minutes after that, they were on the table (right).
The conversation zipped around the table, covering places we have lived, worked and traveled, and what some of our interests are. Of course, we found many overlaps. Vivian and I had Boulder Philharmonic tickets that evening, so we had to leave earlier than we would have liked. We did manage to finish three bottles of white wine that were as international -- actually intercontinental -- as our varied experiences: Cepas de Familia Torrontes, Gimenez Riili, 2007, from Mendoza, Argentina; Kenwood Vineyards Chardonnay, 2006, from Sonoma County, USA, and Anselmi Tocai, 2007, from Friuli, Italy. The beverages upped our dinner's carbon footprint again, but they were all good and all paired well with lobster.
Now I have six lobster shells that today will become the foundation for lobster broth and then lobster bisque, lobster sauce or something else. But best of all, we share the memory of a great evening and new friends. The evening reminded me of the childhood ditty, "Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver, the other gold." And there's nothing like good food and good wine to cement friendships, whether silver or gold.
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1 comments:
I ate some of the best seaofood ever this summer in POrtland , Oregon - salmon and scallops.
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