Lobster at the Lake

If you look at my Face book page for July 4, you’ll see that my family had a lobster feast to celebrate the holiday. I let technology lend a helping hand for that.

There’s an app for everything. Who said that, anyway? They weren’t kidding! I have always been an early adopter of technology gadgets. I am not necessarily proud of that. It is quite addictive, after all.

Last week I downloaded iLobster (lite version is free from the iTunes store; pay .99 for the full feature version that I purchased). This fun app teaches you how to get the most out of your lobster dinner. As if I didn’t already know that, but still, I just had to get it.

The app includes a restaurant locator so you can find the nearest place to buy fresh lobster or order it delivered to your door. The full featured version includes cooking instructions and a video on how to crack and extract the most lobster meat from your Maine dinner.

So how will I use this app? Admittedly, I already know most of the info provided, but it is a fun app to share with guests who want to know (or are unsure about) how to efficiently attack a lobster. If you live in Maine, you’re going to want this app. And if you’re not from Maine but you like to eat lobster, you definitely need it.

More lobster!

Last weekend I ate a lot of lobster, so I decided to read up on lobsters.


In his book The Lobster Coast, Colin Woodard reports that coastal new Englanders of the early 19th century fed lobsters to prisoners and indentured servants. One group of indentured servants got so sick of this diet that they took their owners to court and sued them . The court judged that they would not be served lobster more than three times a week. Geez!

Lobsters look pretty funny too. Here’s what Woodard has to say about their appearance:

“ . . .lobsters are armored and buglike, cold blooded omnivores from an alien realm few humans ever visit . . .In basic design, Homarus americanus resembles a self-propelled Swiss Army knife, with deployable appendages for every occasion. Around the mouth is an assortment of forks, clamps, brushes, paring knives, and crushing devices . . .There are retractable stalks for each eye, long whiplike antennae for touch and smaller ones for smell. There are walking legs and cleaning brooms, plus long sets of swimming paddles, modified in the female for clutching eggs. In all, the lobster has twenty pairs of appendages . . .” Woodard, The Lobster Coast, pp. 242-3.

Sometimes in colonial New England, lobsters were strewn on the fields as fertilizer. But eventually the lobster got some respect. Maine lobster was the second food canned in the U.S. (oysters was first), and in 1850, three lobster canning factories were the only canneries of any kind in the entire country.

Now lobstering is big business in Maine, and I find Homarus americanus mighty good eating.

Dinner in Portland

Last night my guests and I ate dinner at a floating restaurant docked in the Casco Bay of Portland, Maine. Of course, there were lobster and clam chowder at our table, even though one of my guests is a vegetarian. She tasted the tiniest morsel of lobster at the urging of her friend and pronounced it delicious. I felt smug.




We had a table by the water, and we watched as dark rain clouds approached from the west, blotting out the sun and ruining any chance we might have had of viewing the sunset as we feasted on our seafood and sipped our wine. Then came the rain. Then came the sun. As we watched the harbor seals playing in the water beyond our window, one of us spotted a rainbow forming over the ocean. First it was just a comma reaching out of the water towards the sky, but before our eyes, it soon formed a brilliant arch over the water. Out came the cell phones and cameras in an effort to capture the moment. A beautiful Maine moment. Did I mention that I felt smug? Rainbows carry great promises.