La granchia

As the boys descended the stairs this evening, I hid behind a corner and then jumped out with this guy and startled them. Hilarious. Jack said "thank you," and when I asked why, he said, "isn't it a crab sculpture for my room?" Ah, no. Oliver did a double take and said, "I am not scared but why is that here?" For dinner, small sirs! This gal is a Dungeoness, pre-steamed so I don't have to murder anything, and I just picked her clean in prep for dinner tonight. All I know thus far is that I'm going to put it on King salmon, peas will be involved and maybe avocado too. Keep ya posted!

Thoughts: why did seven hours at gymnastics camp not completely exhaust my children? And, why at my somewhat advanced age do I still believe picking a hangnail and/or zit will lead to good things?

Crabvocado towers for lunch

Not bad, not bad. I just made this recipe up and while it needs some tweaking, it's definitely got potential. I needed to use up a gorgeous pound of lump crabmeat I'd bought for father's day but not used, and I wanted a delicate base on which to showcase it. Here in the kitch I had some spring onions, fennel, avocados and a couple Yukon gold potatoes. What about a chilled stack of some blend of those items with crab salad as the pinnacle? I steamed the potatoes, then chilled and sliced them into thin rounds. I sliced the avocado in the same manner -minus the chilling- and mandolined a Gold Rush apple for a sweet crunch. I stacked those in alternating layers and then topped them with chilled crab salad; this I'd made by sauteing diced spring onions and fennel in butter, Dijon, salt and a little white wine. For the final touch, I made a mayo-Dijon-whey sauce which I drizzled over the towers and then the whole thing got dusted with fennel fronds. I say this was a pretty good lunch for a random Tuesday. And almost best of all, I had one piece of plum tart left for the finale. Aah!