Good morning. I had an exceptional lobster roll the other day, sitting with my family on the dock at Archie’s Lobster in Bass Harbor, Maine, as gulls soared on a southwest breeze. Some very good steamed clams, too. But it was the crab roll we ate there that’s been haunting my dreams, that makes me want to cook this weekend, to bring that flavor back into my life: sweet and saline meat, ever so lightly dressed, on a warm, buttered bun.
The meat’s not cheap. But as Gabrielle Hamilton put it in The New York Times Magazine during the pandemic, alongside her excellent recipe for crab toast (above), there are moments when being reckless at the fishmonger is exactly what you ought to be. “I can’t escape my morbid thoughts — none of us can, or should — but then you have to make some decisions based on the long brooding,” she wrote. “For me, a pound of fresh peekytoe crab meat is the way to go.”
Me, too! I’ll scrimp and save next week. That’s my Father’s Day plan, right there.
But, if I can’t find the crab, a reverse-seared steak wouldn’t be bad, with roasted duck fat potatoes and a thatch of steamed asparagus, and apple pie for dessert. Or I could go for some buttermilk fried chicken, with greens, mashed potatoes and cream gravy.
And I absolutely want to make Genevieve Ko’s new recipe for trail mix, so I have sustenance for a long walk and talk on Sunday. It’s a cool technique she teaches: You don’t toss the raw nuts and seeds in oil before toasting them, but with vinegar, which gives them a little tanginess against pinches of salt and sugar.
Could I fit a meatball sub into the weekend plan, too? A celery Victor salad? Some spiced Irish oatmeal? Here’s hoping. Dad gets what he wants on Sunday, no?
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Now, it’s a long distance from anything to do with capers or blueberries, but I jumped back into the work of Tana French recently, with her ace 2010 novel “Faithful Place,” which sees a supporting character in her Dublin Murder Squad series take center stage. It’s crackly good.
Also in the murderous vein, I’ve started dipping into Archer Mayor’s police procedurals about Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vt., police department.
Here’s a good read in the Oxford American by Jessica Wilkerson, “Lady Vols Country,” about growing up in Tennessee in the 1990s.
Finally, let’s all listen to Big Thief’s “Shark Smile” this weekend, nice and loud. I’ll see you on Sunday.
