#508 • My One Lobster Dinner

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Every summer I try to have one lobster dinner. The last year we had lobster dinner we bought a bunch from the Swan's Island Co-op. This year I didn't get one in, but I did have a roll. I had one just before hauling our boat and leaving the coast for the winter.It's an absolute must and one I can afford once a year. Like the Greeks and Romans did, I still consider lobster a delicacy mostly because it is. I don't even use butter. And I always thank the lobster because I kind of feel guilty, but not all the way yet.

As all Mainers know, lobster wasn't always a high-priced delicacy. European settlers fished and ate the readily available and surplus of lobster off the New England coast, and used them for garden fertilizer and fish bait. Lobsters were consider trash food and a symbol of poverty, fed to prisoners and slaves. Servants, when possible, forced employers to sign contracts refusing to eat lobster more than a few times a week.

The advent of canning made lobster accessible to the rest of the country in the mid-1800s. Railroads shipped fresh lobster to urban areas in the early 1900s and chefs began featuring them as an exotic fish item on their menus. It even became a symbol of Guilded Age luxury and a staple of upscale restaurants. And so it remains.

My one sacrificial lobster dinner and lobster roll is my donation to Maine's fishing community. The rest goes to NPR these days.

My One Lobster Dinner • 8" x 8" acrylic framed to 12" x 12" • $300

 

 

#507 • The Beach

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When I was living in Portland I didn't have air conditioning in my ghetto apartment. My computer would stage a mutiny and start smoking after a while, so I'd shut it down and head to the beach with my chair, towel, lunch, and a good book. I'd read a while, take a dip and fall asleep while drying off. When I woke up I would sit back in my chair to watch the afternoon show.

Making up stories about people strolling by was one of my favorite past times, but it was the people and their dogs that just plain fascinated me. I found it to be true that people and their dogs took on certain qualities of one another, whether it be physically or in character - the way they carried themselves for instance.

Over the years the beach got crowded, the people louder, and the scene began to remind me of why I left my home state over 50 years ago. The ice on the lollypop was a $40 gift from the Scarborough Police Department - didn't see the newly minted NO PARKING sign hidden behind a big SUV in my regular parking spot on a side road. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth and an ice cream headache. 

I never felt good about the scene down there after that. So I took up surfing instead, but that's another story.

The Beach  • Acrylic on wood panel trip triptych • $550