...on lobster

I came down to phoenix a couple of days ago to be with my sister as she celebrates her 30th birthday!  Because she is an adult, she had to work on her birthday so we decided to make a special dinner from the Julia Child cook book in the evening.  We had done this once before and, while the meal turned out great, we did not eat until about 9:00 or 9:30 at night.  Apparently Julia spent ALL day in the kitchen, everyday, in order to have dinner ready by 5:00 or 6:00.  The recipe we selected was Lobster Thermidor-ambitious, yes.  AND, we wanted to go all the way-no lobster tails for us-we purchased three live lobsters.  If you have seen the movie Julie and Julia you will remember the scene where Julie is making the same recipe and is dreading having to kill the lobsters.  Her reaction to throwing them in the pot was nothing compared to the scene that Annie and I had going on last night.  Here's some pictures and then I'll explain...

Nope, your are not seeing things, that is a live lobster on the floor.  The bottom dropped out of the box and the lobster crashed onto the floor.  You can imagine the screams that were coming from the house.  I think that Jack and the bulldogs were totally confused as to what was going on.  

Thankfully, my brave, 30 year old sister, wrangled it into the pot.  (I know this pictures is blurry but I had to put it in)  I was actually quite proud of her!  She got all three of the the lobsters into the pot on her own.  I could not bring myself to do it.  

This is lobster #1 going into the water

Now this guy was a booger to get into the pot!  It probably took us at least 15 minutes to get him off the stove and into the water.  I did try to help with this one but he was a fighter!  He would not go in and I'm pretty sure at one point her was using his claws to grab onto the grates on the stove.  He must have known what was coming.  

We finally got the lobsters in the pot and followed the remainder of the recipe.  About three hours later we sat down to eat.  And about 2 1/2 hours in we gave up on trying to use the lobster shells as serving dishes as is recommended in the cook book.  All that work and we ended up with this.

Don't get me wrong, it was very tasty and we had a lot of fun doing it, but I would think twice before trying this recipe again.  

Happy Birthday Annie!  My present to you next year is that you don't have to kill and make your own dinner for 3 hours after working all day!  Love you!