Best Lobster of My Life

It was not like my first big lobster feast, shared out at Spruce Head on a picnic table with Dan's family about 30 years ago--in 1987, when I was 26--or my first lobster ever, which my mother-in-law, Mary Hurley, dropped into a pot of boiling water in her Hampden kitchen on my maiden voyage to Maine.

Nor was it like the rich lobster stew made by my brother-in-law Mike's mom, Judy, in the dead of dark winter and lovingly ladled into shallow bowls. Or like the lobster rolls we clamored for in Kennebunkport, at that little place by the bridge.

But simply put, it was the.best.lobster.ever.

Dan got a pound and a half of cooked meat at Young's Lobster Pound in Belfast, so he could take it to his baby sister's today and make lobster rolls....not for his baby sister, who doesn't like most surf on the menu, but for the rest of us, and especially for his mom, who is recovering from surgery.

It was a luxury for sure, close to $25 per pound, I think, but I have to tell you it was the sweetest, most tender lobster meat I have ever had the privilege of eating.

I tasted Maine waters and fresh day boat hauls, blue mountains, beach days and deep bays, sunset and sunburns and lobster boats and rolling waves in the first bite and every one thereafter. It captured bright buoys and old salts and the summer days when our young nephew, Chris, an excellent swimmer, dove off the dock to the bottom of the bay and brought up a lobster. [He could not keep it; it's against the law.] It smacked of every buttered, toasted hotdog roll I've ever seen the sweet meat heaped on, including the rolls Dan grilled today, and of steamed corn and coleslaw and blueberry pie and young Figgy in her aqua terrycloth Gap dress, running around with her cousins on the coast of Maine.

Every plump morsel brought back lobster bibs [silly, but practical] and lobster picks and big, tall lobster pots. It was just so delicious. I had come so far from home, and ordinary life.

I thought Dan should finely chop celery and put it in the lobster mixture, along with the squeeze of fresh lemon and dollop of mayonnaise, but luckily, the Maine purists in our family stopped us. The celery would have ruined the lobster rolls, they said.

It was a meal I hope to always remember. Good night, sweet dreams.  

TCOY [the color red in honor of Best Lobster Ever]

1. Ice water.
2. I stopped at one excellent margarita with salt on the rim; my sister-in-law made it. A second may have brought on a spiky mood, sugar rush, etc.
3. Walked in and around the town of Belfast with Dan and his brother Mike and with Punchy.
4. Shower with that bath gel from City Drawers on Main Street. Very refreshing, though may have attracted mosquitoes when evening fell.
5. Washed my face with a fat squiggle of the pure white Estée Lauder Perfectly Clean cleanser Sis gave me. Felt good.