the saga of the $75 mac and cheese

A bunch of the restaurants around here have lobster mac & cheese on the menu. I don’t know whether this is really an east coast thing, or if this is, like, a 2009 thing? But anyway, places I’ve been visiting recently have it, and it sounds GREAT, so I always order it. And it’s…good. But I always end up wishing it was better. So I figured…I have $79 I don’t need! I can MAKE it better!

Parmesan reggiano, fontina, white cheddar, gruyère – about $5 each
Three lobster tails – $15
Tub of crab – $15
Celery – $29

The fontina, incidentally, is splendid at lunch with ham.

The thing is, I’ve read Consider the Lobster. I’ve considered it. I can’t kill a live lobster. I know, I know, I’m a terrible hypocrite – I’m perfectly willing to snarf pre-killed lobster, not to mention pre-killed crab, pre-killed fontina, pre-killed cow, blah blah. But, though Ian has repeatedly professed his (disturbingly insistent) willingness to kill one for me, and has informed me that he’s done this before at someone else’s house, I don’t want anyone to kill a lobster in my house. I don’t want to buy a lobster that will be killed in my name. So it was either the lobster meat they had at the store ($36 A MOTHERFUCKING POUND!!!!) or frozen lobster tails. The frozen lobster tails seemed wildly cheap at $5 each, so I got a few of those. Out of wild and obviously totally unnecessary paranoia, I also got a tub of crab meat, just in case, and figured I’d have mega-awesome crab salad sandwiches for lunch for a couple of days instead.

Shocker, I know, but…this is $15 worth of frozen lobster tail meat:

No crab salad sandwiches for me! But actually, I think using half-crab was a good thing: maybe it’s because they were tails, or warm-water tails, or because they were frozen, or because the crab was local and fresher, or something, but…the crab was frankly more flavorful and sweet and tasty than the lobster. Next time, I’ll go full-crab. It was easier, at least, if not cheaper. The lobster you had to skewer, and steam, and open (the recipe directions for this segment read, in their entirety, “Steam the lobsters [15 minutes], cool, pick out the meat.” I don’t know whose delicate hands were about to “pick out the meat” from THEIR lobsters, but mine were soldered shut and had to be smashed in half between my meaty paws before stingily surrendering their two bites of meat each), before then cooking again via sauté in butter. The crab came pre-cooked and in a little plastic tub. It didn’t even have a shrink-wrap seal to pull off! One good thing about cooking lobster, though: they change color! That’s cute.

(Until, you know, you Consider it, and remember that it’s because they’re burning, like a sunburn, and if they had been alive at the time you STILL WOULD HAVE SKEWERED THEM FIRST and then you would have STEAMED THEM TO DEATH.)

So I kind of made the recipe up, combining a few different ones, but the main one I used was, as the cute story goes, from a lobster fisherman’s blog! The dirty little secret that Ian does not yet know, of course, is that he uses Martha Stewart’s mac & cheese recipe and just adds lobster. He should have guessed by now, frankly. It always comes back to Martha when I do the foodblogs.

So. Was it better than the restaurant versions? Yes. I totally think it was. Was it still kind of disappointing, though? Sigh. Yes. Good things about it? The celery, the selection of cheeses, definitely the crab. Bad things? It wasn’t creamy/ liquidy enough (though, ahem, perhaps that’s because I used an entire pound of pasta), and I would have added more cayenne, more black pepper, more salt, and maybe some like Old Bay or something? Ian was in charge of the cheese sauce and I don’t think he added enough STUFF. Then again, I had a monster cold, so I also just kind of couldn’t taste anything. The recipe also recommended nutmeg, which I don’t really generally like and also couldn’t find our bottle of anyway, so we skipped. But I think it needed SOMETHING that was lobster-specific, you know? I really think the Old Bay is a good idea, though I didn’t think of it at the time. Just a tiny bit so you can taste something, but not enough so you’re like, “wtf, is that Old Bay?” Also, more salt and less colds. And not less pasta but more sauce. And probably also a green. Asparagus or something? Or tomato or red pepper? Tomato, probably, rather than red pepper. Red pepper might overpower the fish, which is vaguely delicate and I guess the whole point. And seasoning or something in the panko, maybe? Also, fuck it – if you’re cooking every single separate component in butter, and spending $30 on sea-bug, why the fuck aren’t you using heavy cream in your cheese sauce?? Whole milk?? Psh. That shit’s for amateurs. Also, lobster mac & cheese is overrated – next time it’s crab mac & cheese all the way. I feel like I’m complaining a lot, and I don’t mean to. It was good. It was really good. But was it worth $94? Um. Yes? Because I have to say that or else I’ll feel really really terrible for not sending a bunch of money to Haitians?

PS – Okay. So. I just turned to Ian and asked him if he had anything to add.

“Did you mention that we always fight over making cheese sauces?” he asked.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT.