Bill Bumgarner

For Valentine's day, my wife gave me a Weed Wacker and I cooked a dinner around the pictured crabs (6 crabs, about 1.5 lbs each -- leftovers destined for crab cakes).

Outside of my son projectile barfing in the car (anyone see Oliver Beene this evening? yeah, like that), it was perfect!

Update: How to cook dungeness crab (or just about any other shelled bug like thing from riverr, pond, or ocean -- cooking times will vary).

1. Obtain some live crabs; 1.5 to 2.0 lbs each, fresher the better. Once caught, crabs stop eating. After 5 to 7 days in a live tank, they start to digest themselves due to starvation and this negatively impacts the quality and flavor of the meat.

2. Fill a pot with water and add a bunch of salt. 1/2 cup per large pot of water. Bring it to a hard boil.

3. Drop the crab in head first. The crab might fight back. Use tongs and make sure and get the crab under water as quickly as possible. That will kill the crab as quickly as possible.

4. Let the water return to a hard boil after dropping in the crab(s). Turn down the heat such that the water is boiling vigourously, but not overflowing the pot.

5. Boil for 15 to 18 minutes.

6. Remove crab from pot, run under cold water.

7. Remove top shell of crab, scoop out guts and gills. Spray with water and clean out that crab!

8. Split the crab in half.

9. Serve. Preferably with little pots of melted butter and some good wine. Sour dough bread goes well with crab.

If you want a bit more flavor than just boild crab, try adding a healthy does of black pepper, coriander, ginger powder, dried hot peppers, thyme, and bay leaves to the salted water prior to bringing it to a boil. Let the spiced water boil for a bit before dropping in the crabs to maximize the flavor extraction.

Steaming does wonders, too.