Friday, October 19, 2012

Home Food.

 There's nothing - not even two weeks of road food -
that a bowl of greens can't fix.

 The greens were all volunteers in my garden.

 Cook 'em down in a little water
with some ham,
serve with a sprinkling of vinegar
and you got some good eats.

 We stopped at Billy's
to get our crab fix.

 This time of year, 
the crabs are huge.
They're fattening themselves up
before burrowing in the sand for their winter dormancy.

 This is a mature male crab, known as a Jimmy.
Jimmy sports the euphemistic "Washington Monument"
on his abdomen.


Here you can see the difference
between the male and female crabs.
The mature female crab, known as a Sook,
is on top.
She sports a US Capitol building.
Jimmie is on the bottom,
with his "Washington Monument."
Heh.
So that's what the kids are calling it these days.

I pulled this picture from my files.
These crabs are from early in the season
and are tiny compared to the Jimmies we got at Billy's.

 Mr. Hawthorne steamed the crabs.
Put an inch or so of water in the pot,
dump in the crabs, cover, and turn on the heat.
After steaming for about 15 minutes,
cut off heat and let cool.

 Now the fun part comes -
picking the crabs.

 And unless you know what you're doing,
you could easily starve.
At any rate, 
one can work up quite an appetite picking crabs.

  Dahlia from my garden.

 Mr. Hawthorne likes the ambiance
provided by my flowers
when he picks crabs.

 My fall roses.




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