A month or so ago, we had noticed a wee delight in the seafood section of our neighborhood supermarket – they actually carry Dungeness crab!

When we were in San Francisco a few months ago, we lived on Dungeness crab. We often had it for lunch, dinner and breakfast. We had it for late-nite snacks. We used it to floss with before going to bed at night. We couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

Knowing we could have another tantalizing taste of it here at home prompted us to plan a night where we would bring home a few of the little beggars. Along with some melted butter. Last night was that night.

On our way home, we stopped at the supermarket, and asked the helpful seafood clerk to steam up one of the culinary delights, while we did some other shopping (looking at how big the one we chose happened to be, we decided one claw-clacker to share would be plenty). That took about 25 minutes, of drooling anticipation. Which reminded us that we needed to pick up a couple of bibs.

After we raced home with our freshly-steamed dinner, we changed hastily into clothes that we could afford to spatter onto, and buttered up a couple of mini-bagels, to go along with our crab. Which to be honest, we never should have named.

Chester looked almost as lively as when we had initially chosen him from the tank, even though he was clearly beyond feeling anything, let alone lively. Mrs. That Dan Guy immediately felt pangs of guilt, for subjecting him to a fatal hot shower.

That guilt notwithstanding, I began the process of splitting his riches for consumption. I yanked off each of his little legs, and started to use a can opener to break up his shell, body-proper. That was when we discovered that unless we are really unobservant, there’s nothing edible on the body-proper of a Dungeness crab… Which left us just a few scrawny little legs, to try and glean a meal from.

By the time we had cracked open everything we could find with meat on it, our dinner plates had more bagel than crab meat on it – a less than drool-inspiring proposition. However, by this time, we were too hungry to care – we made short order of our short friend, and noted not to bother trying THAT idea again.

Oh yeah, the icing on this crab cake was the cost – Thank God we only decided to have one! It was just over thirty dollars, for a hint of crab!!

Clearly we need to think things through more, before we rush out to treat ourselves…

Chow for now!!