When life gives you lobsters...

You eat the shit out of them. Am I right?

lobster canoodling

Set the scene: Underneath the desk of my cubicle is a box labeled "LIVE SEAFOOD" encasing three fresh and deliciously plump lobsters. How did I get them, you ask? You see, having a Chinese mother has its many perks. The most important being that she will always bring you food - even if it means checking her purse when she gets to the airport so she can instead carry-on her bounty of live crustacean. Thanks mom (and United airlines for your spacious overhead compartment space!) Finally the work day is over and it's time to go home and boil some lobstah! After I obtain my note from the facilities department allowing me to take my sea friends out of the building, we hop in a cab and head to Brooklyn. A quick trip to Union Market to pick up some corn on the cob (gotta have corn when you're eating lobster) and some bread, cheese and pate (gotta have snacks while you're cooking), and we're home at last. Open the box et voila - lobster party! 

DIRECTIONS FOR LOBSTER FEAST:
When it comes to handling live lobster, there are many ways to go about it. Personally, I prefer the scaredy cat approach of using long barbeque tongs and girlish screaming to take it out of the box. Other - some say braver - lobster wranglers use the hands-on approach of simply grabbing it by the torso (the claws are, after all, tied with rubber bands). But really, either way...either way. 

Now, to cook these bad boys you'll either need a large pot or wok (jigga what!) filled with water and brought to a boil. In our apartment, our stove only has one large burner that produces a big enough flame so we don't have the space to cook more than one lobster at a time. But if you're so fortunate to have a chef's kitchen and a spacious stovetop then by all means, cook those fellas altogether. Once the water comes to a boil, place the lobster inside and cover immediately - and be sure to hold on to the lid as those suckers can flail quite wildly during their last grasp at life (awww...so sad). Now one of the most important things to note is, DO NOT overcook your lobster! Many online recipes or misinformed folk will say to cook the lobster for an hour, but if you cook it too long it will lose all flavor. Ours were done in about 30-40 minutes or so. You can always take a little peek under the lid and check on its progress. 


While the lobster is cooking, it's time to prepare the garlic butter. All you need are the essentials: garlic and butter. Depending on how many lobsters you have/how much you love butter the amount will vary. For the three lobsters we cooked, we melted just about a stick and a half and had plenty to go around! Arteries, run for the hills!! In a small saucepan, melt down the butter on low heat. While the butter is melting, take two large cloves of garlic and mince. This will later be added to the butter to add an extra yumminess to your dippin' sauce. After the butter is completely melted down, take a small spoon and skim the cloudy white layer off the top of the butter. This is a lot of unnecessary fat and let's be honest, we're all trying to watch our figures here eh? Now that we're all in agreement, add the garlic to the butter and stir. Your dippin' sauce is now ready. Just get your corn on the cob boiling and you should be good to go as soon as those lobsters are done. If you're still waiting on your lobster to cook, maybe you should take some of that bread, pate and cheese you bought earlier and snack a bit. What? You didn't get any of your own? Well sorry, you certainly can't have any of mine. That was just bad planning on your part.

Once your lobster(s) is cooked, corn is done, butter is ready...you're dinner is served and should look - in some variation or another - like the image above (flowers and champagne are optional). Now, close the computer and eat foo!