People often ask me about my favorite foods, and I have a lot of them. But one edible that I rarely cite is lobster. Now, you know that I adore the crustacean and its glorious insides. I am the first to tout its virtues as a protein, and encourage folks to wait in line for an hour in the summer sun to get a roll at Red's Eats in Wiscasset.
But kids who grow up along the Maine coast are spoiled. Half of our friends (or someone in their immediate family) haul traps for a living. We learn how to determine their sex (that's male or female, you pervs) in high school bio class. Our McDonalds locations are among the few in the nation that carry McLobster, and they aren't half bad.
I am the person who asks what the market price for lobster is, just to grumble when the waitron is out of earshot --"$50? Are you kidding me?" Hell, my father has his own pot colors in Cundy's Harbor, and we can haul traps in our backyard. And very often -- if you are outside of New England, it likely isn't Maine lobster anyway, so what's the point?
My name is Jessica and I am a lobster snob.
Deep breaths. All of this makes me even more proud to announce that this fall I tried, and devoured, a food-orgasm worthy lobster dish that I can now proudly call one my favorite ever small plates: the truffled lobster "mac and cheese" from five fifty-five in Portland, Maine. Torchio pasta, butter-poached lobster and shaved black truffle. Seafood and cheesy pasta? Not a sin! Nutty, creamy and unctuous. At a table of 14 women, who only two hours beforehand had eaten a three-course meal at my wedding shower, we had four orders and everyone was moaning for more.
I feel better. Now, if only they delivered to Virginia.
