Valentine Day? Valentine
's Day?? I don't know... grammar fail or whatever.
So we did our usual tradition for V-day (which I now realize I explain every year on this blog) of making a fancy dinner together at home. We've done
shrimp,
crab legs, tenderloin, beef wellington, sushi. I've blogged about a bunch of them (and I also added
this snarky post back in 2009...oh I should have known that would come back to bite me!). This year Mr. Incredible wanted to do LIVE lobster.
"It'll be so fresh and cool to make." I was kind of squeamish about it all... I'm fine with preparing freshly caught fish, I know where my burgers come from, but lobsters kind of have faces and seem more substantial than a fish. And having its living, blinking, beady eyes staring at me just prior to being on my dinner plate just might be a little much.
But I obliged and we went on a Lobster Hunt over the weekend to find fresh, living, lobster (to be purchased the day of because what would we do with live lobster for two days??? Mr. I already nixed the idea of storing them in the fish tank...). With Corbin in tow, we clawed our way through three crazy busy Asian markets back to the fish section only to turn up empty handed (we did find some unusual products and received plenty of stares for being the only white people in said markets but no delicious crustacean to be had). We ended up getting frozen lobster tails from Costco. Mr. Incredible was disappointed... but still looking forward to a lobster dinner.
Now I need to add a little side note about lobster, being cheapskates, etc. Our usual Valentine's Day tradition is great for a variety of reasons but namely because its so dang cheap! We can have the most expensive item on a menu in our own home for a fraction of the price... However, lobster is subject to market prices and even at Costco, they were twenty bucks a pop (or tail or fish or something). So this was a little pricey for us. But we bit the bullet and even threw in a $10 wine to go with our lobster (whoa!! big spenders!!)
We 'researched' how to prepare our extravagant purchase (i.e. we watch youtube videos of people making lobster... there's surprisingly a lot of people whose contribution to humanity includes youtube videos of themselves preparing seafood...anyone sense a new calling on their lives? Just asking...) and when Mr. Incredible came home from work we went about preparing the lobster. The number one rule we discovered in all of the youtube lobster videos is Thou Shall Not Overcook Your Lobster (or you will end up eating very expensive fishy-tasting rubber). So we were were cautious.
Here's our lobsters pre-cooking:
Did I mention these were huge? Like almost didn't fit in my 13 inch pan and each one over 1 lb??
We set the timer, turned on the over light so we could carefully monitor things, and followed our cooking instructions exactly.
When the timer beeped, I removed the lobsters and leerily looked at the translucent meat.
"I don't think they're done."- me
"Don't overcook them!!!!"- Mr. I
I won this round and they went back in the over for a few more minutes. That seemed to do the trick as the tops looked nice and white so we took them out and sat down for our Valentine's feast.
It was delicious. Corbin was cooperating for the most part and just starting to look wimpery from his scooter car thingy but I figured we could make it through dinner before he melted down and required holding.
I was happily munching along when suddenly the bite in my mouth turned to slime. I felt the color drain from my face as my stomach immediately tried to figure out how to send everything in it back out. I gripped the table and stared at Mr. I with wide eyes and a moan.
ME: "I don't think its done."
HIM: "What?! What's wrong with you? Its fine. If mine is done, then you's definitely is."
ME: "ooooooohhhhhhhhhh."
HIM: "Don't tell me you're not going to eat your $20 lobster???"
So I regained my composure and picked carefully at the crusty part on top. And ate my salad. And some bread. And scooted my RAW lobster around on my plate. Until Mr. Incredible started gagging across the table.
HIM: "I don't think mine is done."
So our lobsters got sent back to the oven... twice actually. And Corbin realized,
hey, they seem to be enjoying themselves too much not holding a baby at the table, and turned into a terrorist... a valentine's day terrorist.
Eventually our lobster turned out ok... but even though it was unspoken (because they cost $40!!!!) we didn't really enjoy each bite as we carefully considered if it was indeed done or still RAW! (RAW LOBSTER IN MY MOUTH EW EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWWWW!)
So that was our 1st V-day with a baby. Next year we'll maybe get a sitter and go see a movie or something. At least the $10 wine was good.
