Crab.

[This piece was written only a short time ago, but it seems like a lifetime now that we’re all sheltering in place, and in my own case, far away from any ability to cook fresh crab. So I did a podcast about the wilting vegetables I turned into minestrone instead, which you can listen to here. But I leave this post as it is, in memory of better days, and in hopes of better days ahead.]

It’s never enough.

Dungeness crab, the crab that swims in the cold waters of my native west coast, is arguably the sweetest, most delectable, most moreish shellfish in the known world.

It reminds me of what the writer Saki once said about oysters, that they were the most Christian of animals since they not only forgave us our trespasses against them, but positively incited them.

So I think about the crab. But, like I said, not just any crab. Dungeness crab.

It has not been often, in my increasingly elderly life, that I have eaten my fill of the beasts. Mainly because if you buy them in most markets, too far from where they have been caught and cooked, they do not, um, convey their possible ultimate taste. This is because the minute they are cooked, they start a quick countdown to tasting like balsa wood. I have nothing against balsa wood. But it’s not what I want when I want crab.

Restaurant crab, undoubtedly for the same reasons above, is delicious but expensive. I mean, like second mortgage expensive. Probably because they don’t keep. The one exception to this is Tony’s Crab Shack in Bandon, Oregon, a place I highly recommend. They catch ’em, they cook ’em, and they set a reasonable price on their head. Still, it’s not every day I am near Tony’s Crab Shack in Bandon, Oregon.

(Irrelevant note: Tony’s Crab Shack in Bandon, Oregon, is not only in the same town on the ocean where the Dear Husband and I were married —on a deck over the beach by a Unitarian minister named Robin, with our two dogs in attendance, and witnessed by two motel employees—but it is also the Dear Husband’s favorite seafood restaurant after he passed through one day on his way home from the coast, hungry for breakfast, but too early for their opening—and Brandon, at Tony’s Crab Shack, in Bandon, Oregon, recognized him from our years of eating various flavorful articles in that restaurant, took pity on him, and served him up some oysters on an outside bench. But back to crab.)

As a result of their usual expensiveness and lack of immediate freshness, the divine crabs that I have in my time eaten has been limited in number. Which means I have always eaten them in the same way: boiled, cracked, sucked out of the shell and dipped in melted butter sharpened with a squeeze of lemon. I mean, you can’t beat it. I never thought to go beyond the classic, either. I felt no need.

Also, I never had a place to prepare the crab any other way. It’s messy at best, so you need a decent kitchen area, and a good place to throw the crab shells away after, lest you wake in the morning dreaming that you are a seagull chasing a fishing boat somewhere off the Oregon coast.

But then the planets somehow aligned. And I ended up somewhere with all the right tools to deal with crab.

We could see the fishing boats out at night. They had headed down from a bay above us on the coast, and were out there, flashing lights and coaxing crab into their holds to be brought back to the bay, where they were distributed to markets up and down. A short drive north brought us to a market where the fishmonger was a girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty-two, and who dealt with cleaning two of the fresh caught crabs with all the aplomb of a blackjack dealer at a high roller’s table in Vegas. And cheap. Well, relatively cheap—it had been a good catch.

The first night, we had them the usual way. The classic way. Half a crab and a small dish of melted butter on each plate, with lemon wedges and a nutcracker shared between us.

Fresh sourdough bread. And the first asparagus of spring, roasted in little butter in the oven.

Heaven. Dreamy heaven.

But I still had, oh joy, a second crab waiting in a bowl of ice in the refrigerator.

So I thought, why not try something different? Why not be daring with crab? Who would be hurt by it?

Also, we had run out of bread, and the bakery wouldn’t be open again for a couple of days.

I started a blissful trawl through cookbooks, online and off. Crab casserole? Why did they all have so many ingredients? I liked the mayonnaise and cream idea, but really, red bell pepper, Worcestershire sauce, green onion, AND olives? No, no, no. And why did every recipe I read seem to insist you needed to use panko breadcrumbs?

Then I vaguely remembered a crab and linguine dish I’d had once in the River Café, in London, about a million years ago. That hadn’t been Dungeness crab, one of the only small failings, in fact, of the River Café where I don’t think I ever had a bad meal. But the memory of it teased at me. It was probably some of their great olive oil, a little garlic, crab, and a sprinkling of dried red pepper, since those were ingredients, except for the crab, of course, that I remember in most of their dishes.

I had spaghetti. I had olive oil, two kinds in fact, but I didn’t feel like putting my Oregon crab into some. I wanted Oregon butter. Yes. Okay. That was plain. Oregon butter, and for once, even the dear husband said, “Um. No garlic, okay?” And this in a household where garlic garnishes every other dish. I had to agree with him. We also agreed on a hefty amount of garlic in the accompanying salad of romaine hearts and Parmesan.

I set to work. And at the end of my period of inspiration, this is what we had for our second crab dinner: spaghetti with crab, browned butter, and parsley on spaghetti. A romaine heart salad with minced garlic, green onions, walnut oil, lemon, and grated Parmesan.

It was heaven. The Dear Husband woke up this morning, and almost the first thing he said (after ‘How did you sleep?’ and ‘Get off the bed’—this to the dog) was, “Oh, that dinner last night was one of your best yet.”

Very satisfying.

So if you have some really fresh and sweet crab, and you don’t want the glorious mess of cracking it at the dinner table, try crab and browned butter on spaghetti.

This is how (for two):

A half-pound of spaghetti
One cooked Dungeness crab
A quarter cup of unsalted butter
A lemon wedge
A dash of fish sauce
A generous handful of parsley, chopped
A sprinkling of dried red pepper
Extra lemon wedges for the table

First, pick all the meat you can get out of the crab’s shell. Pile it in a bowl to await further development.

Then . . .

Boil the spaghetti to al dente, according to the directions on the package. This should take about ten minutes at sea level.
While that’s going on, heat the butter in a small saucepan carefully until it browns. The butter should take about five to seven minutes. Plan accordingly.
Keep an eye on that butter, stirring occasionally, while taking time out to chop the parsley.
When the butter is browned, add a dash of fish sauce, a squeeze of a lemon wedge, and a sprinkle of dried red pepper. Keep warm.
When the pasta is done to your liking, work fast. Drain it, return it to the pot away from the heat. Add the browned butter, fish sauce, lemon and red pepper mix. Toss. Add the parsley. Toss again. Now add the crab. Gently mix.

Using tongs and a spoon, put in two bowls. Be careful to give a similar amount of crab to each bowl, or there will be trouble.

Serve with a salad. Some white wine is nice, although not mandatory.

Inhale. Eat. Inhale again. Eat. Sigh with joy.

Really, what more could you want from dinner? Or even, come to think of it, from life itself.