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bucket o’ crabs

crabs

This, if you can’t tell, is a bucket of crabs.

I was done early today, so we lit out for a nature reserve at the seaside. There, we met a dour woman catching crabs. It was an older couple with their granddaughter, but clearly only grandma was into it. And boy, was she into it.

She had a crabbing net (an open-topped wire basket on a string, for those who, like me, grew up a thousand miles from the sea) baited with rotten chicken. She’d go to the edge of the pier and play it down into the water until it touched bottom, let it rest a couple of minutes, and haul it up again. She had two or three of the little pinch-monsters in there every time (plus a few shrimps).

She let them go in the end. At least, she said she was gunna, so we could watch with clear conscience. I could never stand watching food struggle to escape.

After that, we went to a cafe for a sandwich. It was sunny and fine. The end.

p.s. First time I ever saw the ocean, I was nine. I’ll never forget my dad showing us the right was to pick up a crab. He scooched it up from the back, gave an almighty howl and flung it out to sea as far as ever he could. We thought he was clowning around, but no – he was bleeding freely from the hole it pinched in his thumb. Heh heh.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: August 16, 2017, 11:35 pm

The right way to pick up a crab is to say, “Hey, Phil. Pick up that crab.”

It seems a mighty a safe bet, Stoatie, that you’ve never cooked lobsters.


Comment from Weaseltablet3
Time: August 16, 2017, 11:52 pm

You would win that bet, Uncle All. I was devastated to learn the recipe.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: August 17, 2017, 12:15 am

Primitive man (er, vegetable that I am), I love crab. There is simply no better way to spend a nice summer evening than sitting at a picnic table that’s been covered with newspaper eating boiled blue crabs, hush puppies, and roasted corn, washing it all down with beer. For more formal occasions there are king crab legs…. or deep fried soft shell crab.

Oh, and when the Judge finally sends me to dat ‘lectric chair, Maryland Crab Cakes will definitely be on my appetizer list.


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: August 17, 2017, 1:20 am

Pussy pilfering: Spike in the number of cat thefts around the UK. It’s up 40%. Lojac your cats!


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: August 17, 2017, 1:26 am

I hate when sandwiches struggle to escape.


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: August 17, 2017, 1:53 am

@Durnedyankee – Cutting the crust off slows them down a lot.


Comment from bds
Time: August 17, 2017, 1:58 am

I grew up in Northern California, and a couple times a year we’d get over to the coast (the rocky northern part, not the beaches). On one occasion my father wanted to fish. I don’t remember what for or what he had on for bait, but I do remember that we eventually ended up standing on a rock, dropping the line straight down in the waves below, and then pulling it almost immediately back up, each time with a crab holding tight to try to get at the bait. We ended up with a bucket full.

Boy it stank when my mother cooked them on the stove in our little camper (and continued to, for days), but they were mighty tasty.


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: August 17, 2017, 2:56 am

The idiots at HBO leaked the final two episodes of Game of Thrones on the internet. lol


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: August 17, 2017, 11:55 am

That’ll teach those hacker/leakers!


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: August 17, 2017, 2:13 pm

I admit that I found one of them – epi 6 and it was pretty good. Hats off to the writers.


Comment from David Gillies
Time: August 19, 2017, 6:08 pm

Crab beats lobster any day. They’re just aquatic spiders with a nervous system about as well developed as Maxine Waters’, so have at ’em, I say.

My brother saw someone try to cook a live lobster on a grill. Put him right off, he said.

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