Lobsters on parade

It has taken me until now to recover from cooking my St. Valentine's Day dinner yesterday. By the way, I was at the Latin Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians yesterday, and the priest there said that yesterday was not at the moment technically St. Valentine's feast day. He said that Valentine had been bumped in favor of two other saints.

I was with my friend Michelle and I poked her and pointed to the missal. There it was, in the missal, Feb. 14, St.Valentine, Priest, Martyr.

Right now I am looking at my Catholic wall calendar and it also has St. Valentine for yesterday. It says "Quinquagesima Sunday." Which was yesterday. "2nd Class - Violet. St. Valentine, PrM."

These abbreviations crack me up. PrM could mean Prime Minister!

But in any case, yes, it was St. Valentine's Day, and so after Mass and after going for a V-Day beer at the legendary Otto's...

... with Michelle, I went to the Grant Street Tops and bought two lobsters to celebrate. Howard cannot imagine St. Valentine's Day without lobster.

Squeamishly I had the fish folks at Tops steam the lobster. Good thing I did, too. At the checkout the girl said that last week one of them got out at the checkout and started walking around!

"And he looked at me," she said. "It was awful because their eyes, like, aren't in sockets. They're just there. And he looked at me."

She said she asked the lobster's owner: "Can't you, like, do something with him?"

Ha, ha! This was a Buffalo situation with a whole bunch of strangers in the checkout line all gathered 'round, laughing at the lobster story and asking questions.

There is a classic story in a Texas cookbook about a hostess trying to cook lobster for Leonard Pennario. I will have to quote her in the book. She headlined this one menu: "A Post-Concert Dinner for Leonard Pennario." It included lobster which was one of his favorite things.

Things get so discombobulated that she winds up telling Pennario, "The concert was lovely, Lobster!"

But that is another story for another day.