Hand me down my walking shoes... and Pick 'em..

couple of dissimilar topics, but...

Shoes…

One of the things retired people are supposed to do is travel. While lately we’ve had our share of going back and forth to Wisconsin, that’s not the real concept of “retirement travel”. So, we decided to join a tour of Ireland called “Exploring Maryland’s Irish Roots”. It will be led by Dr. Henry Miller, the Director of Research at Historic St. Mary’s City. There are several important Irish ties to the early colony at St. Mary’s City, like the Calvert and Carroll families who played important roles in early Maryland’s history. It should be a learning experience, and I am told they have beer in Ireland as well as Irish Whiskey.

Anyway, we will be departing this coming Monday (the 20th) and will return on October 1st. Given a little taste I've had of blogging from the road, this trip poses even more challenges for the Feeder. The old “doing” takes the place of “writing” conundrum. The laptop, camera gear, and the little leather notebook will accompany me, but how that integrates with traveling, touring, tasting, etc., remains to be seen. Plus there may be some, um, marital pressure to not spend any free time hacking away at the computer. So, I will do my best, but I am not sure how the Bottom Feeder will fare.

We will be starting in Dublin, and then over the course of the trip visit Athlone, Galway (pronounced Gall-Way, not Gaaal-Way I am told), Kilkenny, Wexford, then back to Dublin for departure. We will be visiting Galway during the time of the Oyster Festival and the world oyster opening championships. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. We’ll see. I have been scouting out restaurants/pubs and am doing fairly well in Dublin and Galway, but if anybody knows of anyplace in those other cities I would appreciate it. Of course the “group eat” syndrome comes into play which is always difficult to deal with.

But, I’ll be doin’ me best!

Pick ‘em…

After my recent episode of extracting meat from callinectus sapidus, I contacted my source for the picking technique used by his expert wife. He was kind enough to share with me, so I’ll share with you!

Eleven steps to perfect crab picking:

1. Flip the crab on its back and remove the convenient pull tab.
2. Insert a knife at newly created opening between upper and lower shell and pry apart, removing mustard with the knife at the same time by pushing it into the upper shell
3. With the knife, remove the feathery gills (deadmen) from the left and right sides of the crab body
4. Break off the claw arms and set aside
5. Break the crab body in half along the centerline.
6. Pinch the back (swimming) fin at the body joint and break/pull away the lump crab meat.
7. Break the remaining body segment apart and use the knife to pick out the meat.
8. Repeat the other side.
9. Break the crab claw arm apart at the joint and break off the pincer from the claw.
10. Place the knife edge at the midpoint of the claw and tap with a wooden mallet to score an edge in the claw
11. Break the claw in half at the score mark to get the chunk of meat.


I also checked the web for techniques and came up with one good article and a video. With little variation they are about what is given above. Note that beer is a key ingredient.

Now this all sounds easy, right? Well, guess what. You could give me and Vincent Van Gogh “eleven steps to painting “Starry Night”, and only one of us would have anything to show for it. There is still that darn thing called “talent”. But, at least we can try..

And when picking crabs, there is a different standard for

DFD

ps, i had a little one on one coaching on Facebook yesterday, look out world, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!