Beyond the Kitchen

Friends, I have a confession to make. I love baseball at least as much as I love food. And given that humans pretty much count on food to survive, I think that's saying a lot. Specifically, I love the Yankees. And I have a healthy respect for the Boston Red Sox. I was lucky to grow up in New York during the Yankee dynasty years, and I was lucky to move to Boston in 2003 - just at the time that the Red Sox finally came into their own and won something. In the end, I feel blessed to have been surrounded by good baseball teams my entire life (the 1980s and early 1990s in New York don't count in this equation - they're just a figment of your imagination. It's my blog, and thus it is truth).

The last few days of the baseball off-season have been especially interesting. We're in the "hot stove" period. Look, a cooking reference after all! The hot stove is the period when most trades are made and most of the free agent players get signed. All the team general managers, and all the players' agents, are meeting at the Bellagio in Las Vegas this week. Things have moved pretty quickly: the Yankees signed free-agent pitcher CC Sabathia, one of the dominant pitchers of this generation, and they're not done yet. The Red Sox, meanwhile, seem like they're in the hunt for Mark Teixeira, a switch-hitting, slugging, defensively strong first baseman who still has his best years ahead of him.

I admit, I've been cheating on this blog. I've been much more interested in following baseball news and blogging about it on my other blog, The Bride of Hankenstein. But I did want to follow up on my lobster post from aways back. We are thinking of getting cheap lobsters for dinner tonight. I'll let you know how that goes, and how I go about killing the poor innocent creatures (always a concern with lobster). If that doesn't work out, I'm planning on making some sort of pasta with chicken. Not as exciting, but at least there's no maiming and severing of central nerves involved.

Lobster, and Some Housekeeping Matters

I will begin taking and posting pictures on the blog as soon as I find my camera's memory card. I feel your pain...

Also, while I was writing the CSA post, below, I remembered that here in Boston, as elsewhere, the price of lobster is plummeting due to people wanting to cut back on spending. I've seen it as low as $5.99 a pound here. This is bad news for Maine, but good news for me. Whoever thought that cheap winter comfort food could be lobster? According to chowhound, lobsters have the thickest shells and the tastiest meat in late fall/early winter. I think I might be on to something. And, if I were to go out and get lobster for dinner in an effort to save money, I would undoubtedly go to James Hook to get it. James Hook is a Boston institution, right on the water, and cheaper than the grocery store.