Foraging Crab In The Pacific Northwest

Crabcake from katie kwan on Vimeo.

The last day of summer was also the hottest day of the year.   June seemed promising, but July found me in long johns and Russian shearling hats.  Never to take the fickle temperament of San Francisco for granted, Liz and I speed off to Stinson Beach at the first scent of warm air.

We walked up and down the 3.5 mile stretch of beach (me, in my velvet Sperry topsiders) as the sun descended into the redwood mountains.  It must've been crab season, as we spotted at least ten dry shells strewn about the sand.  We thought about taking the shells home-- even carrying some for a mile or two--but ultimately decided against it.

However, just as we started to head back, luck would have it that we stumbled upon a 1 lb dungeness crab, sputtering about on shore!  Immediately, I stuck my rubber souled Sperrys out for him to cling to, and dragged him further onto dry land.  Being someone who can't ever invest in one's own appearance, I had an arsenal of bootleg office rubber bands for Liz to use to secure his claws shut.

From there, I picked him up and carried him home.  "Cake", as we liked to call him, was either in shock or anti-shock (as blood was certainly being supplied to his internal organs by the way I carrying him).  Nevertheless, he quieted down and found peace in the paper bag that Liz had previously been using as a waste bucket.

At Liz's house, we prepared him, using only a bit of steam, and ate what proved to be the freshest, tastiest, and most flavorful crab we had ever eaten.  Caught only an hour before eating, on the shores of the wild Pacific Northwest, this crab provided the most pure and cleans flavors of the oceans I had ever encountered.