The first time I ate lobster was at the wedding rehearsal dinner of a friend from high school who was getting married. Lobster tails were served with something, probably steak, but the lobster was so tough and rubbery — and just plain bad — that I don’t recall anything else that was served that night. Of course, that may be pretty typical of wedding rehearsal dinners. I don’t even recall what I had at my own.

I’ve had lobster prepared really well a handful of times, but two stand out in my memory. The first was in the Bahamas when my husband and I spent a long weekend on Green Turtle Cay. I was pregnant with my son at the time, and we had left our then two-year-old daughter with her grandparents. At a beachfront barbecue at our hotel, lobsters fresh from the ocean were grilled and served with melted butter, and they were just perfect. The second was the lobster pot pie on the tasting menu at Michael Mina in Las Vegas, where my husband and I again traveled sans-children for a long weekend of fun and good eating.

Looking back, it’s possible that it was the context that made those lobsters so delicious. After all, both times my husband and I were on vacation without our children, enjoying a weekend of no parenting and all fun. It’s entirely possible.

Regardless, when this month’s copy of Saveur arrived in my mailbox and I saw the Lobster Macaroni and Cheese recipe, I knew that I had to make it. Cooking the lobster – and potentially ruining it – was not something I was keen on doing, however. Plus, I’m not quite up to the emotional challenge of killing a live lobster by shoving it into a pot of boiling water à la the scene in Julie & Julia. I was spared the lobster drama by finding that our fish market sells great lobster and they’ll even steam it on request.

After reading the recipe in the magazine, and then the one next to it for Artisanal Macaroni and Cheese, I decided to blend the two. The recipe below is an adapted version of those two recipes, and the dish was amazing. With the first bite, I was nearly speechless.  But not totally speechless – I think I did utter, “Oh, my God.”

There is just one downside to this recipe — the amount of gym time I’m now going to have to put in to work it off my hips.

For a wine pairing, I wanted something that would be able to cut through the richness of the dish. I was thinking of either a not-very-oaky Chardonnay or a dry Riesling, or maybe even a sparkling wine or rosé. I ended up choosing this 2007 Beringer Napa Valley Chardonnay, and I think it was a good choice. It wasn’t very creamy or heavy at all, and it had great acidity and a refreshing quality to it – great for cutting through the richness of the cheese and lobster in this dish.

Yield: Serves 8.

Lobster Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients:

Kosher salt, to taste
12 ounces elbow macaroni
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup dried breadcrumbs, preferably panko
1 cup finely grated Parmesan
1/4 cup flour
3 1/2 cups milk
4 ounces grated Gruyère (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 ounces grated Comte (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 ounces grated fontina (about 1 1/2 cups)
8 ounces cooked lobster meat, cut into 1 inch chunks*
1/3 cup minced chives
2 scallions, thinly sliced crosswise
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring a 4 quart saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until not quite al dente, about 3-4 minutes. Drain pasta, transfer to a bowl, and set aside.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 4-quart saucepan over low heat. Add the breadcrumbs and Parmesan, toss to combine, and transfer to a small bowl. Set aside.

Wipe out the pan and set over medium heat. Melt the remaining butter and whisk in the flour until smooth. Whisk in the milk and cook, continuing to whisk often, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes. Stir in the Gruyère, 1 cup of the Comte, and 1 cup of the fontina and whisk until the cheese is melted and incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove pan from heat and stir in the reserved pasta. Add in the cooked lobster pieces, half of the chives, and half of the scallions. Stir well to combine.

Pour the mixture into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish and top with the remaining Comte and fontina. Sprinkle breadcrumb mixture over the top and bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

*I purchased lobster from my local fish market and they steamed it for me. If you have a fish market you trust, you can use this method. Alternatively, you can poach or steam your own live lobster. I am not that brave and have not yet tried cooking a live lobster.

Adapted from and inspired by this recipe and this recipe from Saveur, May 2010.

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We are blessed to have an abundance of fresh seafood available year round. We live in a town almost equidistant from both coasts of Florida. Cedar Key is just over an hour to our west, and St. Augustine is perhaps an hour and a half to our east. Fresh seafood is celebrated with festivals throughout the state, but especially in this part of northern Florida. Cedar Key will celebrate their 41st annual seafood festival this October. St. Augustine, the nation’s oldest city, held their 29th annual seafood festival in March. There’s the Blue Crab Festival in Palatka and the Fiddler Crab Festival in Steinhatchee.

I think you get my point. Seafood is a big deal here.

When the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened a couple of weeks ago, we started wondering about the future of seafood in our area. Our seafood comes in part from the Gulf, and in part from the Atlantic Ocean – also potentially threatened by the oil spill. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding the long term effects of oil leak, but it’s certainly not a good thing. A well-written article by Kim Severson in the New York Times highlighted the fears of Gulf coast residents and the potential impact on the fishing and shrimping industry.

My mind has been on shrimp lately because of all of this, so I decided to roast some. It’s such a simple preparation that you don’t really need a recipe. In fact, all you need are some great shrimp, some olive oil, and some seasonings which you can vary to your taste. I used St. Augustine shrimp, the most common type we buy at our local seafood market.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and drizzle a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil over the peeled and deveined shrimp. Toss the shrimp with some kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, chopped fresh rosemary, and chopped fresh thyme. Spread them out on a sheet pan and roast them in the oven for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the shrimp are pink and firm and cooked through. I served mine with some cocktail sauce as an afternoon snack, but I’m sure they would be great in a simple pasta or risotto dish.

I have always been intimidated by the kitchen. Even now, at times, I’ll see a recipe and feel a queasy sensation starting in the pit of my stomach if it looks a bit too long, a tad too complicated. You know the recipes I’m talking about – the ones that are so long that they carry over to the next page, or the ones labeled “intermediate” on the Food Network website.  Thoughts of “I can’t do that” start creeping back in my mind.

I have to confess – it wasn’t until recently that I’ve started learning my place in the kitchen. It doesn’t seem to come naturally to me the way it does for a lot of people. Over time, though, things are starting to make sense. It’s hard to explain how liberating it felt the first time I took the risk of not following a recipe exactly the way it was written…and it turned out fine! That was a great discovery, and I’m continuing to work on being more creative with my cooking. It’s a journey, but an exciting one to take.

Along this path to culinary wisdom, I’ve set some little challenges for myself. Making potato gnocchi was one of these hurdles that I was determined to overcome.  So, one day when I had an entire Saturday afternoon to myself, I did it. I made gnocchi. As it turns out, the process wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as I had built it up to be. In fact, it was a lot of fun. My technique could seriously be improved, but those gnocchi tasted darn good. I felt pretty proud of myself.

One challenge down, many more to go.

P.S. Shortly after making the gnocchi, I read about my friend Jennie’s experience making gnocchi. After reading her post, I almost couldn’t write this. Her little gnocchi were just so beautiful and perfect. She is definitely my pasta hero.

Yield: Serves 6.

Potato Gnocchi

Ingredients:

2 pounds whole baking potatoes
2 beaten egg yolks
1 1/2 cup flour
Pinch of kosher salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pierce potatoes in several places and bake until soft, about 1 hour. Cool slightly. Cut potatoes in half. Working in batches, scoop hot flesh into potato ricer or food mill. Rice potatoes onto rimmed baking sheet and cool slightly.

Line large baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Prepare a work area and dust it with flour.

Transfer potatoes to large bowl. Add the flour, toss to coat. Form a well in the center of the potato mixture. Add the egg yolks, salt, and nutmeg. Stir with fork until the mixture is evenly moistened and mixture looks shaggy.

Turn the mixture out onto the lightly floured work surface. Knead dough until it comes together, sprinkling dough with flour very lightly only if dough is sticky. Form dough into ball; divide into 4 pieces. Roll each piece between hands and work surface into 3/4-inch-thick rope. Cut each rope into 3/4-inch pieces. Place gnocchi on prepared baking sheet. Using the tines of a fork or your fingertip, press lightly into each gnocchi, making an indentation in the pasta.

At this point, you can freeze the gnocchi by placing them into the freezer spread out on a baking sheet dusted with flour or lined with wax paper. Once frozen, place the gnocchi in a freezer bag. To cook them, place the frozen gnocchi into simmering water (next step).
Working in batches, cook gnocchi in a large pot of boiling salted water. Continue to simmer gnocchi until cooked through and tender, stirring occasionally, until they rise to the surface. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a bowl. Serve with your favorite warm pasta sauce.

Recipe blended and adapted from Elise Bauer's recipe here on Simply Recipes and from the Bon Apètit recipe from February 2010.

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