Shellfish/Shellfish Stock (Woody Allen Redux)

I thought now that I got through my revulsion for eggs, nothing could stop me from doing the sketchiest things with food. I was wrong.

The morning started out pleasantly enough, with a lecture about the types of shellfish we eat: crustaceans like shrimp and lobster with their exoskeletons, bivalves like clams and oysters, the univalve like sea urchin.

The knives came out and we practiced dicing the same vegetable mix as on Friday to add to our soup -- in fact, other than the proteins, this would be the same soup. Then we worked our way into the seafood. Large 16-20 count fresh shrimp were distributed, and easily fabricated. I've been cleaning and deshelling shrimp at home for a year now. I always left the little end of the tail on, which would have to be eaten around, picked up with the hands and set aside. Why? I assumed it was just the correct way to do it, like if the tail didn't stay on, the shrimp wouldn't cook right. According to Chef M, it's purely presentation and quite inconvenient for eating. Never shall I leave the tail on my shrimp again.

A live lobster was given to each student. Chef M demonstrated how to dispatch and fabricate the crustacean. First, hold the body and the tail with firm hands and twist until the tail pops off. Quickly tear off the two big claws. Reach into the body cavity and clear out the 'guacamole,' and if you find an egg sac, hold that aside.

I took a lobster, and its many arms and 2 big claws (restrained in rubber bands) moved about. I felt a little queasy. I picked it up, put my hands around the appropriate spots, and started to twist....and it JUMPED and started flailing, and I dropped in on the cutting board. I felt like Woody Allen in Annie Hall, when he attempts to drop a lobster in a pot of boiling water and drops it on the floor instead...then hops on to the chair, hoping the lobster will just crawl its way out of the house and back to the sea.

I felt the tail start to come off, but when I got such a strong reaction from the lobster, I could not continue. I know rationally that dispatching the animal yourself is morally upstanding -- if you're going to eat animals and animal products, the closer your connection with its life and death means you're going to be eating more healthfully. Less steps, less processing, and less corporate finagling between you and your food is a wonderful thing. And yet, when I was called upon to butcher this brainless sea-bug, my fight-or-more-likely-flight response kicked into high gear. I tried to take a picture and just fumbled with my phone. I felt a little dizzy, very nauseous, and my mind raced. If I work in a restaurant and am asked to prep 20 lobsters, I can't claim that I'm too delicate for such work!

After a quick 3-minute boil, we cracked open the lobster claws, knuckles, and tails and extracted the meat. I watched as the Chef deposited the lobster shells into the pan for browning before deglazing for the stock pot. The legs were still moving. I know it's an involuntary nervous system reaction, but the queasy feeling came back. (Deglazing, by the way, is when you add a liquid to a pan where you were browning something -- the cool liquid hitting the hot pan will loosen the 'fond', the yummy brown bits that would otherwise stick to the bottom of the pan.)

Squid was actually a lot harder to look at than the lobster, but its lack of movement was comforting; if we were in Korean culinary school and it was a live squid, I surely would of freaked the f*#k out. But after coming off the lobster, pulling apart a squid was kid's play. The tubular head contained a weird quill, and chopping the eye from the tentacles allowed me to squeeze and pop the beak out. I started to relax, I got my nerve back. As I worked away at taking apart the squid, I started to think, "How will I regain my honor in class?" Though B won't be happy about it, I'm going to have to get some lobsters and dispatch them at home.

Mussels just needed a cleaning -- they would open in the cooking. Oysters look like large old corroded clams, and take some work to get a knife in to pry open. Theres a lot of liquid and boogery meat in those shells. Clams are smaller and neater looking, and a lot more work to open, unless their dead, then they're loose and need to be thrown away.

ADDENDA:
I weighed 230 pounds this morning, up another pound despite riding hard on the 5 boro bike ride yesterday -- I DID eat a lot too: a lot out, even more in. Just because I feel I'm being virtuous doesn't actually mean I'm losing weight.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, .25 bowl, hunger 2/5
Tired, grumpy. Stupid scale.

AM SNACK: 9am, small piece of french bread, hunger 4/5
As I'm chewing on this, I'm thinking, hmmm, this super refined white bread is kind of like snacking on sweets -- after such a nothing breakfast, this can't be helping my weight.

LUNCH: 1pm, pint of shellfish soup, 1 homemade pizza, quart of water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Despite the existential angst, the soup was fantastic. You could taste the freshness in the shrimp, scallops, clams and, yes, the lobster. Shared my quart o' soup with my father-in-law, that was satisfying.

DINNER #1: 6:30pm, samosas, sesame noodles, curry sauce, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

At work into the evening, a quick meal from Green Symphony

DINNER #2: 7:45pm, shrimp tempura, small green salad, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

Food on the company dime, really didn't need it but needed to be sociable.