A Llllllovellllly Llllllunch At The Hawthornes'.

I know I repeat meals a lot around here. Who doesn't? But when I repeat a meal, that means it's worth repeating. So I give you ... Crab cakes and oysters.

We still had a bunch of frozen crab cakes in the freezer, leftover from when Good Neighbor Bobby brought us mucho crabbies last month. Mr. Hawthorne pulled out 2 today and sauteed them in a combination of olive oil and unsalted butter.

After about 5 minutes on low heat, (They were frozen solid.) he turned them over.

He added a bit of butter on top and cooked for about 5 more minutes.

Next, OYSTERS! We're just starting on our second bushel this month.

I let Mr. Hawthorne shuck these all by his lonesome because I'm such a nice person and I didn't want to deprive him of the pleasure of shucking. Meanwhile, I came up with two different toppings.

First, a very simple combination: butter, wine, lemon juice, green onion, and parsley.

I melted 1/2 stick of butter, chopped the green onions, and minced the parsley.

I added the greens to the melted butter, then added in about 1/4 cup of white wine. And first topping is done.

For my second topping, I have butter and Tabasco sauce. And Parmesan cheese, hot paprika, and sugar.

I grated about 2 parts parmesan to 1 part paprika to 1/2 part sugar.

Then I melted about 1/4 stick butter and mixed in about a teaspoon of Tabasco.

Here are my toppings. The green sauce will go on half the oysters. The butter/tabasco and parmesan/paprika/sugar will go on the other half.

Pretty plump oysters ready for the grill.

Ooh. Look closely. There's a prize in my oyster. A little baby crab.

And another one. Isn't he cute?

Toppings ready for topping. In bright sunlight.

Mr. Hawthorne topped half of the oysters with the butter, lemon, parsley, green onion, and wine mixture.

The other half was topped with the melted butter and Tabasco sauce.

The parmesan/paprika/sugar mixture went on top of the butter/Tabasco oysters.

Mr. Hawthorne closed the top of the grill and cooked the oysters until they started to bubble. You don't want to cook out the fluid and dehydrate the oyster. When the oyster bubbles, it's cooked.

Lunch is served. Oysters with toppings on the left. Top left, crab cakes. Top right, tartar sauce and remoulade sauce. And coleslaw on the right. Recipes for the tartar, remoulade, and coleslaw found here.

Here's a wonderful inch-thick crab cake with lemon. And continuing clockwise, tartar sauce, remoulade sauce, and my coleslaw with apple and raisins. At the bottom, two artfully placed oysters: On the left, oyster with butter & Tabasco with Parmesan/Paprika/sugar mixture. On the right, oyster with butter, wine, lemon, parsley, and green onions. This was the best lunch I've had in a long time. Delicious. Just delicious.

Look at the innards of this crab cake. Very little filler. Just a lot of crab. A truly wonderful meal.