My new favourite magazine is Bon Appetite. This is from someone who has about 7 magazines delivered to her door each month. Anyhow, the rest will have to live with the fact that Bon Appetite is my current golden child because it has given me the inspiration for this post.
It seems that for some reason there is a bumper crop (harvest?) of lobsters this year. I do not know why. All I know is that the lobster roll is experiencing a renaissance. I say this because no less than 4 of my 7 regular magazines have featured this dish within the past 6 months, after a long drought of lobster related concoctions. Thermador seems to be passé. Lobster ravioli has also been sidelined. Right now it is the roll or nothing.
In case you have been living in a cave nowhere near the ocean (although these days one does not need to be near the ocean to be near lobster, but I digress), the lobster roll is actually very simple. All you do is chop up some (cooked) lobster, add some mayonnaise, perhaps a few chives, and load it all into an old fashioned hotdog bun. That’s the kind that looks like it was cut lengthwise from the centre of a loaf of bread with an opening on the top to accommodate the bun ingredients. I really hated this type of bun when I was a child as everything got soggy without the protection of adequate crust. Not so for the lobster roll because said bun gets toasted in a skillet with butter. Lots of butter. The lack of crust on the east and west sides means that the butter has ample purchase and everyone knows that lobster is nothing without butter.
But this all sounds a little boring, so here is some additional lobster related information.
1. The lobster in and of itself is an amusing and versatile creature. It was practically nominated for an Academy Award in Annie Hall.
2. I once bicycled the circumference and diameter of Prince Edward Island for two weeks with a friend who was allergic to shellfish. I have no idea what we were thinking as pretty much every breath you inhale on this surprisingly hilly terrain contains about 1,000,000 parts per million of essence of crustacean. We both survived and I did eat close to my fill of lobster along the way, some of it by osmosis.
3. When I lived in Halifax, one of the popular dining establishments (and I use the word dining with great license) was the Midtown Tavern. The Midtown (with Ladies and Escorts entrance) was renowned for its student friendly fish & chips night ($4.99) and steak night ($6.99) but alas had no lobster roll night. For that I had to go to the food court at the Barrington Centre mall where McDonalds could dish one up for less than $3.