The Crabs are a cumin in

I have one excellent crab recipe. Get on a plane for Washington, D.C. From National Airport, take the Metro to Dupont Circle. On 19th St., not half a block from the subway entrance, you'll find a place called The Front Page. Order the Maryland crabcakes. You can't go wrong. I don't know what seasonings they put into those cakes, but they're better than anything I've ever had in Baltimore or elsewhere in Maryland.

Hmmm, maybe there've got a website, I'll look.

<the police cars with the twirling lights were the last after the long line of jingle bell honking trucks, so it's over for another year, sigh>

We have places here, crab shacks, where they grab the whole Dungeness crab from its swim in the container of ocean water and dunk it in boiling water, clean it, and hand you a package... and it's five minutes to get home..

then what?

I had the fine opportunity to meet a2kers in SF earlier this year and sat next to Mr. and Mrs. PDiddie. The three of us ordered whole crabs. My plate, after I was done, looked like Chaos City, and his was all tidy. The man is very practiced at the fine art of whole crab connoisseurship.

Osso, what I wouldn't give to be where you are instead of land-locked winterland.

Not being where you are << sigh >> I have to look it up, but this looked so simple and so scrumptious.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
4 Dungeness crabs, about 1 1/4 pounds each, cooked, cleaned and cracked
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Heat oven to 500 degrees. Heat butter, olive oil and garlic in saute pan over medium-high until hot. Add crab, season to taste with salt and pepper, toss. Transfer to oven and roast until the garlic turns light brown and the crab is heated though, about 12 minutes. Toss once halfway through.

Pour contents into warm serving bowl, add lemon juice and parlsey and toss well. Serve.

I'm heading south in February, to the land of fresh seafood, so I'm going to remember this recipe.

McKenzie, I like that one, simple but delicious. I'll print it out...

My favorite all time crab legs were cooked in a wok by our vietnamese chef friend, with some sort of curry seasoning, I think, but I am not in touch with him now to ask.
<hmm, maybe I should just write him, but then I'd have to explain the divorce, etc.>

I just typed a reply to MAndrew and lost it with a wave of my mouse. The tenor of it was that I couldn't find much re the Front Page and Maryland Crab Cakes online - the links were all about the bar and appetizers and the thirty something crowd. (I have good if short memories of Dupont Circle myself... the American Society of Landscape Architects used to be headquartered there, were when I visited, and the Phillips Collection gallery is nearby.)

PDiddie did this maneuver with a tool that carefully sawed a line at the top of the crab leg, and after this patience requiring bit, he easily removed the shell and had crab sans shell bits. Very smart, it seemed to me, and I haven't seen anyone else do that.