Crab night

Ryan decided to spend his winter break working for The Man, so he came down from Wisconsin and has been staying at my house for the last couple of weeks which has been really fun. He says crab legs are one of the things he misses most about living here--apparently they are wicked expensive up north and Ryan is a cheap bastard. So he was really looking forward to wandering up to our neighborhood Publix and getting some for a serious crab throwdown. Fortunately Betsy was in town for work as well, so she got to share in the bounty.

Ryan bakes his in the oven rather than steaming. It defies logic, but they retain all the sweet juices and do not dry out, probably because it is rather low heat. He wraps them in tinfoil and bakes them at about 250 for at least 30 minutes. Then they can just sit in there, waiting for certain parties to get back from shopping the thrift stores, visiting Mel and getting eyebrows waxed...probably they'd be fine for at least 2 hours. Ryan says "all day," but I'm not so sure about that. The point is--they can be ready when you are.He made snow crabs, which were smaller, and Alaskan King, which were covered in deadly spikes. Ryan says the Alaskans are normally more delicious but the snow crabs were actually the better of the two this time around. I made a couple butters--one was garlicy and way too strong, but the other was a winner. It was 1 tablespoon capers, 1 tablespoon mustard, and the juice from 2 lemons, mixed into a ton of melted butter along with salt and pepper. We pretty much would have drank it straight.