When I was a little kid, my parents would occasionally take me to the Boston Whaler, a New England seafood restaurant located on the San Francisco Bay Area’s southern peninsula.   I suspect they were there because, East Coasters at heart, they were craving lobster. But, on the west coast of the 1980’s, with imported lobster far overpriced and even farther under quality, Alaskan King Crab legs was the closest they could get.

I’ve always been a big eater, despite my relatively small (5’6″, 145#) size; enough so that my family has long referred to me as the ‘garbage disposal’, willing to eat the leftovers off any of their plates. But I hadn’t yet garnered that reputation when, at the Boston Whaler, me all of two years old, my parents ordered a full additional adult serving of King Crab legs, and the entire waitstaff of the restaurant gathered round to watch this tiny tot siglehandedly polish off the whole thing. 

Back then, I certainly wouldn’t have paired those legs with shrimp, oysters and a stiff martini. But, in today’s world, there’s no better way to fix an afternoon that’s otherwise off to a terrible start.