Omar S.
Yelp
My 61st birthday is this weekend. To celebrate such events, My Beloved and I usually dine at a nice steakhouse - Cowboy Star is a favorite - or we enjoy excellent Italian food at Solare at Liberty Station.
But I've been dieting, limiting myself to 1000 calories per day, which is to say, I can have a stick or a rock, but not both. So, when my bride asked where I'd like to have my special dinner, I thought not about the experience, but about the calories that our favorite places serve up. Then I decided that we ought to try something different.
I'm a longtime fan of Gulf Coast-style boiled seafood - crawfish, shrimp and crab - especially as it's prepared in southern Louisiana. I often crave the spices used there, and I'm knocked out by the way that boiling works the spice in under the shell and bathes the meat with flavor.
I am chiefly fond of blue crab. Not monstrous, tough king crab. Not Dungeness, which I find too dense to take spice well. Definitely not salty, mushy, scrawny snow crab, which is offered on all-you-can-eat buffets for a reason.
Nope. I'm a blue crab man, born and bred, immoderately addicted to the hunt for small bites of firm, slightly briny and buttery meat, a crab at a time, all day long.
At about 30 calories per ounce, blue crab has little fat and no carbs, and while it's true that crab boiled the way I like it is high in cholesterol and sodium, those aren't problems for me.
In San Diego, I can buy live blue crab at the local Asian markets, in season, for about $5 per pound, which is double what one pays at the docks in St. Bernard Parish or at the seafood market in Westwego.
Despite the price, I'd be happy to buy and cook my own crabs (I own an 80-quart pot with a basket for just that purpose), but the live blue crabs available in San Diego are tiny fellers, suitable only for flavoring a gumbo or soup. They're heartbreaking, if your heart is set on a substantial meal.
An alternative is to have live crabs shipped from the Gulf Coast or the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake. I've done so, and find I lose 15% to 20% of the product, which raises my cost per crab and worse, leaves me short when it's time to cook.
Of course, there are Asian-Cajun boil-in-a-bag seafood restaurants, but I think they're for people who've never had crawfish, shrimp or crab cooked properly. I eat that food, but as I do, I always feel a bit sorry for the shellfish; they deserve to die a more respectable death.
Another choice, the one I made for this birthday weekend, is to buy crabs already cooked and have them delivered. This makes the price unreasonable, mostly due to shipping charges, but it gets me what I want.
I'd stopped in at Today's Ketch a few times over the years, on my way back from fishing out of Shell Beach or Hopedale, so I knew their boil was good, and I'd read about their catering operation, but until last week, I didn't know that they ship out of state. After talking with similar operations in Kenner, Houma and Belle Chasse, I gave Today's Ketch a call.
While I ordered over the phone, an exchange of just a couple of calls, I was struck by how patient the staff were. I'm not sure that they should have been so tolerant of my monkeying around with shipping arrangements, as I tried to bring down the cost of my birthday dinner.
But the real surprise was that although they could have sent me small, scruffy crabs that were missing claws and were cracked along the back - you know, the ugly ones at the bottom of the pot - Today's Ketch boxed up 18 heavy and intact #1 Jimmy's, truly "pretty" ones, then laid in eight or so ice packs, strapped the box shut, and got them to my house less than 24 hours after they were cooked.
It may surprise the uninitiated to hear that not all seafood boils taste the same, but it's true; the quality of the food itself matters, of course, but so does timing: time in the boiling pot, time spent cooling down and hold time after the boil. Too much or too little of one of these, and your shellfish will stick to its shell, or be tough to chew, or taste washed out or overly spicy, or something else disappointing to the people you're trying to feed.
Quality is also found in the boiling spices: in the region, from one town to the next, even from one boil to the next, there can be variations in the flavors underlying the first hit of cayenne in the spice mix. Today's Ketch makes, uses and sells their own private blend of boiling spices, which I enthusiastically recommend.
Finally, and not for nothing, the gorgeous crabs they sent were delicious, but my recent experience with Today's Ketch was more than just a meal or a financial transaction.
The folks that helped me - especially June (my first contact) and Mandy (who handled my order) - treated me like a good, regular customer, a friend, reminding me why I enjoy the time I spend around Chalmette, and locking me in as a customer when I'm in da parish and as a customer by phone, every birthday or so.