BEST Crabs EVER

So after traveling to our northern neighbor (Maryland) for work for the past couple of weeks, I decided that it was high time that I started to soak up the local culture of the place in a way that did not involve scream obscenities at other drivers.

Fortunately, I had the perfect opportunity this past Friday – Mike came to town and Phillip took us crab picking, which is not to be confused with crabbing. Crab picking is where you eat crabs, crabbing is where you actually catch them to then pick them. We packed up into the car and headed up to Annapolis, specifically Cantlers, where there was an “all you can eat crab special” for three hours.

This is what came to our table:


As you can see from the lunch tray and plastic cups, crab picking is not something that is very sophisticated. The process of picking is more of a sport than a meal. There's a lot of work involved and not much actual food. The way it works is the crabs come, and you dig in, with the aid of a small mallet. It turns out that underneath their hard shells, beyond all the mustard (also known as “guts” or “doody”), and underneath the lungs (which look like crab meat but aren’t), crabs are pretty delicious little buggers, especially when covered in butter and Old Bay. Carly and Phillip were pretty good sports about walking us through how to pick and Phillip but forth a strong effort with the whole “all you can eat” thing:


Mike and Carly dig in....



Kimmy's first crab....

All in all, a delicious night!

As a program note, crabs are not to be eaten as depicted above. If you want to learn how to properly pick a crab, and Phillip isn't available, you can check this out