Go for the Gold!

Who else is enjoying these Olympics already? The athletes are blowing my mind (swimming, gymnastics, shooting, more swimming!), and I love the pageantry of the games in London. The Queen? Awesome. Zara Phillips and the GB team getting silver, awarded by the Princess Royal, a former Olympian herself? Priceless!

All of this has inspired some gold, silver, and bronze crab searches for those of us watching the games at home:

GOLD!

This is good not only for the Olympics, but also for 

steampunk-themed weddings (love you Courtney and Rhys)!

 

SILVER!

Take victory in your own hands claws!

BRONZE!

Bling with a (telson) spike!

And for the top athletes who win a Nike endorsement (because there is NO WAY they could afford it otherwise):

No, I'm not lying when I tell you this GOLD fiddler crab ring is $5,720!!

London Olympics 2012

Who else is excited for the Olympics this year!?!? I love watching all the competitions, cheering for pretty much any and every athlete out there. I especially love the swim competitions and track and field since those were my sports in high school (remember the swim team picture from this post?).

In honor of the Olympics, I tried to find a London-inspired crab recipe for you all to enjoy. I'm not sure if the recipe I chose is true to London or the UK, but I do know it's from the Two Fat Ladies (who I grew up watching and just adore), so that's got to be good enough! Please enjoy this dish featuring our denizens from the deep:

Crab, Corn, and Coriander Fritters
(from the Fish and Shellfish episode)

Ingredients:
6 ears fresh sweet corn
3 ounces crab meat
1 medium onion, grated
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 ounces flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Peanut oil (although I'm sure vegetable oil will do)

Directions:

1. Cut the corn kernels from the cob with a sharp knife. Mix together all the ingredients except the oil. Cover and refrigerate for at least half a day.

2. Heat a spoonful of oil in a frying pan and drop in tablespoons of the crab mixture. Fry in batches briskly until brown and flip and cook the other side. Drain the fritters on paper towels and keep warm until all are cooked.

3. Serve as soon as possible. I bet Jennifer would enjoy these with a good stout beer and Clarissa would wash them down with some tasty tea.

"Grab that crab, Clarissa!"

Wish Larry Luck!

Watch out, ladies, Larry's on the loose in Long Island Sound!

7-11

As you saw here, we just got back from the lower 48 and enjoyed our fair share of great food, both slow prepared and fast! One of the places we stopped when we stayed over in Seattle was the 7-11! Really, it was just for water, but it was hard to turn down these bad boys:

TAQUITOS! how can something so bad be so good?

If there's one thing 7-11 reminds me of (other than go-go taquitos and hot dogs with molten "cheese"), it's this Crabday's crab:

Seven-Eleven Crab

Carpilius maculatus

just chillin' on some coral in Bali (lucky!)

The 7-11 crab gets its name from the 7 spots on the top of its carapace and 4 additional spots on the abdomen. Hawaiian legend says that the spots came from the sea god after handling the crab.

"I pinch... even gods!" - 7-11 crab

This crab is used for food (just like 7-11!) but may also be poisonous (just like 7-11?), but the toxicity is most likely from the crabs munching on bivalves that bioaccumulated toxic algae or the like and not from the crabs themselves (similar to our Dungeness crabs in southeast Alaska). This penchant for potential poisoning may actually help out the crab: it is listed as endangered in Singapore. These crabs need a lot less harvesting and a lot more reproducing!

"Hey, I'm working on it!"

Good luck, seven-eleven crab! But stop reminding me of go-go taquitos! The last time I ate them was the summer of 2006 (buffalo chicken flavor on Long Island), and I want to keep it that way!

Travel With Crabs: San Francisco

Sorry it's been a while since I posted, but my husband and I just got back from a whirlwind adventure in California to celebrate our friends Katie and Kyle's wedding! I've known Katie for 14 years, and Kyle was the officiant at our wedding, so you can imagine how happy we were to step away from Alaska for a bit to party with these two. While I was down in San Francisco I just couldn't help myself to devour any crab dish I found. So here you go: a gastronomic version of

When I think of crabs and San Francisco I think of... Cancer crabs! (That's not what you were expecting right? Get your heads out of the gutter, people!)

crab molt at the Crissy Field beach

Remember this little girl's adventure of trying to video crabs with her dad by the Golden Gate Bridge? It inspired me to try as many crab dishes as possible while visiting the City by the Bay.

 gotta love that SF fog, amirite?

We first stopped at one of our friends' favorite breakfast spots, Stacks on Hayes and Octavia. There were a ton of tasty crab choices, but the one that really struck my fancy was a crab fritatta with tomato, onions, avocado (which was exciting since those suckers are expensive up here in AK), and topped with hollandaise sauce. It came with country potatoes on the side and a whole bagel, which actually stretched this meal into two, and boy was it delicious!

the hollandaise sauce comes on the side,

but I was not about to waste ANY of it!

For dinner one night we went to Boudin Bakery at Fisherman's Wharf. If you're having trouble finding it, just follow the smell of fresh-baked sourdough in the air. I really wanted to eat one of these guys:

Boudin's sourdough crab

but opted for real crab instead of the doughy kind. My other friend Katie and I shared a crab cake sandwich on sourdough bread with avocado slices as well as crab and corn bisque in a sourdough bread bowl. Both were great, but if I were to go back again I would've stuck just with the chowder - it was SO creamy and delicious!

you can see the bread bowls here, as well as

a different crab friend and some tasty turtles

Finally, we were really craving sushi one night and found Ryoko's on Taylor Street (it had some pretty stellar reviews on yelp), and we were not disappointed. We went in looking for a light dinner and left happy and full after inhaling 6 different rolls and some mackeral (saba) sashimi. As far as crab went, we avoided the California Roll but still went with some fancy, not-so-authentic rolls: the Dragon Roll (crab and cucumber with flying fish roe and BBQ eel on top) and the Checkerboard Roll (crab and avocado with tuna and yellowtail on top). I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy eating, but you can take my word for it that they looked pretty and tasted amazing!

another molt at Crissy Field

All in all, it was a happy trip celebrating a lovely couple and eating a lot of good food!