If you, or your family, have contemplated buying pet insurance for your beloved dog or cat, know that the financially proactive decision is something that people have been concerned with for more than a century. Looking back in history, the first recorded account of pet insurance dates back to 1890, when Claes Virgin, founder of the Länsförsäkringar Alliance of Sweden, created the first known health insurance policy for animals to protect the health of his livestock.... Read More
{ 0 comments }
Have you experienced the ‘champagne’ interrogation? It starts as you walk around your grocery store collecting the various items you need and includes a stroll down to the chilled wine section to grab a $10 bottle of sparking wine or champagne. Soon you make your way to the checkout line when inevitably someone next to you in line, or even the cashier says with a smile and high pitched tone, “Champagne! What’s the occasion?”
Can’t those who enjoy champagne buy a bottle at the store and not be asked if we just got a raise, got engaged or are celebrating a birthday or anniversary? What’s wrong with enjoying the taste of champagne enough to grab a bottle instead of something else like wine or beer, from time to time?
It is easy to find a delicious champagne that is affordable, just as it is possible to find lobster, crab legs or shrimp that is fantastically fresh, wild-caught and delicious—as well as affordable! For some reason here in the U.S. we’ve got preconceived perceptions that certain foods are out of reach for some of us when the truth couldn’t be more different.
Ask anyone if you can treat them to a live lobster dinner and eyebrows will be raised in enthusiasm. Why does the proposition of eating lobster immediately conjure up the notion that it must involve a great expense or celebration, just like champagne?
Looking at the history of lobster, in Colonial times lobster would be piled up as much as two feet high on the shores of New England, and was then apologetically collected, boiled and served. Indentured servants and prisoners purportedly petitioned that to be served lobster more than twice a week was inhumane treatment, and the petition was granted in mercy. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
Why all the Crustacean Confusion?
What is the difference between a prawn and shrimp? To a few, this may be as clear as the difference between a lobster and crayfish is to me, but I could not answer the question when my fiance returned from his restaurant job the other night. The question came about after he was inadvertently wrangled into a debate taking place between two patrons: What makes a prawn a prawn and different from a shrimp?
Now, we all like to feel like an expert from time to time, and the difference between a spiny lobster, Maine lobster and crayfish are all very clear to this lobster-loving fanatic. However, is the prawn different because it is from a fresh- versus salt-water environment? Maybe it is the absence of an appendage (as is the differentiation between a claw-less spiny and Maine lobster)? Or, maybe it is sheer size? Most importantly, does it matter? Do you tend to have a preference? Is it based on taste?
Here are the biological facts (and of course there are exceptions not mentioned here). Prawns and shrimp are both decapods and crustaceans, and all that this means is they both have exoskeletons and ten legs. Once cooked and on a plate they are nearly impossible to discern because their main difference is the construction of their gills (or a part usually removed in the preparation and cooking process). They are classified in suborders based on gill structure. The prawn’s is branching (named dendrobranchia), but is lamellar (flat or plate like, pleocyemata) in shrimp. Also, prawns usually have claws on three pairs of their legs, while shrimp only have claws on two; and finally unlike almost all other decapods, prawns do not brood their eggs on the pleopods (legs along their tails) but release the eggs into the water after fertilization. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
What is the first thing you think of when you read the word ‘lobster’? Do you immediately see in your mind of a deep red and clawed crustacean with a wedge of lemon and side of drawn butter? Or maybe it is the image of a beautifully grilled lobster tail?
Well, not everyone conjures the image of a delectable meal; for some it is cause for inspiration. Here are a few ways people reflect on lobsters 
that are innovative and even borderline on unusual.
Lobster Pets
An aquarium is a beautiful hobby and interesting conversation piece that takes knowledge and diligence to properly maintain. Owners like to collect rare or unusual fish and other water life to observe, and one unusual yet popular fish store find is a pet lobster.
We are not talking about your standard Maine lobster weighing in at 7 pounds with claws and all. Depending on the size of one’s tank, it could be as little as a few inches long. The trick to keeping an interesting tank is finding other water creatures that it won’t want to eat!
Here we see a Florida native crawfish in a colorful electric blue, photo by Pet Solutions.
Lobster Fashion
It is possible that Salvador Dali was the first public figure to be well known for his obsession with lobsters that he began incorporating into his mixed media work in 1934. Fine Lobster has discussed his infamous Lobster Telephone, inspired by an off-hand remark in which he exclaimed he didn’t understand why when he ordered lobster in a restaurant he wasn’t served a telephone instead. His obsession was contagious.
Elsa Schiaparelli was known as a daring fashion designer and quite possibly the first one to ever use and market the color known today as ‘hot pink’. She referred to it as ‘shocking pink’ and it quickly became her signature. At peak of her career between the World Wars, she went toe-to-well-shod-toe with Coco Chanel, her main competitor. Salvador Dali also influenced her and together they collaborated on a number of pieces including the ‘Lobster Dress’ for her summer and fall collection in 1937. Here we see it on the Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson (1895-1986), in a photo by Cecil Beaton (1904-80) in England (also in 1937) just prior to her third marriage to the Duke of Windsor.
Guinness Book of World Records
Tim Edwards is a student in England attempting to make the Guinness Book of World Records for a rather unusual feat—to run the fastest marathon in an animal costume. Now known as Lobster on his Nottingham Trent University campus, he is training for his first ever marathon, the 2010 Virgin London Marathon April 25th. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
The facts, health benefits and nutrition of lobster.
Lobster has gotten a bad reputation as an unhealthy yet delightful indulgence. The truth is that the way lobster is prepared is what can make it unhealthy. Alone and prepared by boiling, steaming or grilling it, lobster is 
an excellent source of many minerals, vitamins and low-fat protein.
Did you know that in a standard serving size of one lobster (approximately 150 g, 6 ounces or just more than ½ a cup), one consumes only 135 calories, 1 g of fat, and 28 g of protein (not to mention vitamin A, iron, zinc, vitamin B-12 and calcium)?
Lobster is so low in fat let’s compare it to an equal portion of chicken breast to get the idea. What comes to mind when contemplating eating chicken? It is a meat Americans generally consider a healthy, low fat source of protein–but let’s be honest, it is rather unexciting. In one standard serving size of ½ a breast of deboned, skinless chicken (approximately 142 g) there are 156 calories, 1 g of fat, and 32 g of protein (and nearly equal portions of vitamin A, iron and calcium). If one is counting calories there is a healthy and more exciting option–lobster! Also, an equal amount of lobster has half the fat and calories of not only pork, but turkey and salmon. For an astonishing comparison, see our nutritional facts to see what is in a choice top sirloin or New York strip steak. From now on, I’ll order the lobster, please.
The easiest way to enjoy a guilt-free lobster feast is to prepare it in a way that doesn’t add unnecessary fats. In other words, dunking every morsel in melted butter or sauteing it in cream might be delicious but these are also not very health-conscious preparations. Find a recipe that draws out the flavors of lobster with ingredients that can add to the taste without adding cholesterol, such as a Fine Lobster-favorite marinated lobster, avocado and corn salad.
Lobster is an excellent source of high-quality, amino acid-complete protein with about 89% of its calories coming from protein (this is exceptionally good, by the way). It is also considered low on the glycemic scale and therefore doesn’t have an effect on blood-sugar levels (making it a friendly protein for those with diabetes). Further, lobster is full of the ‘good’ kinds of fats (Omega-3 fatty acids) that can reduce cholesterol levels, reduce risk of heart disease and promote brain functions. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
Some have suggested that our continuing series of “Lobsters You May Have Heard Of” borders on the surreal; and we agree that there is something at least slightly surreal about presenting a list of obscure lobsters while insisting that you “may” have heard of them. In that spirit, of course, we present to you this week’s lobster profile.
Borne of Salvador Dali’s strangely comical notion that he never once received a telephone in a restaurant when he had ordered a live lobster (“I do not understand why, when I ask for a grilled lobster in a restaurant, I am never served a cooked telephone;”), the small sculpture known as Lobster Telephone typifies Dali’s unpredictable nature as an artist. Known widely for his surrealist paintings, and less so for his writing, Dali also produced an impressive number of sculptures, with Lobster Telephone (1936) arguably the strangest, and most identifiable, among them. 
In his 1942 autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Dali noted that lobsters and telephones are never confused for one another. Perhaps in an effort to remedy such an unfortunate slight against telephones (or maybe against lobsters), Dali sought, six years earlier, to combine the two disparate creatures for the purpose, presumably, of pointed surrealism.
But Dali’s notion that the two could somehow be confused, the lobster and the telephone, presumably gives rise to the idea that if the two can be somehow confused in one’s mind, then certainly they could be combined in one’s art.
Of course, only in certain minds, Dali’s for example, would lobsters and telephones so easily relate. Indeed, Lobster Telephone comes to you from the mind of a man who once thought it necessary to kick “a legless blind man sitting in his little cart,” so there may be no explaining Dali’s thoughts (a life’s work alone it would seem). But from the moment that Dali replaced the handset in that cradle with a lobster, people must have wondered, as the kids say today, WTF? [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
By guest bloggers Rachel Hulin and David Hirschman who love lobster, think that lobsters rock, and are newly engaged! Congrats!
How to buy, steam, and suck out every last ounce of meat from your favorite crustacean.
Our love of lobster has leaked over into our professional lives; David wrote a piece for New York Magazine a few years ago about how to get the most out of your lobster. I thought it’d be fun to reprint his tips.
1. The Claws
Separate the arms from the body. Hyperextend the lobster’s “thumb”and pull it off. Use a cracker or knife (or your hands) to break the shell, and pull out the meat with a fork. Because of the rubber bands placed around lobsters’ claws in tanks, the claw meat may have atrophied (a sign of a not-so-fresh lobster). The claw meat should be nearly as large as the shell around it.
2. The Head and Thorax
Additional meat can be found toward the front of the body cavity. Peel off the outer shell, split the body down the middle with your thumbs, and pick it apart (either with a fork or with your fingers).
3. The Knuckles
The connections between the claw and the body have sweet meat inside of them. Use a cracker or knife to break them into pieces and push the meat with a small fork.
4. The Walking Legs
When eating a whole lobster, you can break off the six small legs, separate them into sections, and suck the meat as through a straw. You can also press down on the legs with your fingers, moving from the ends toward the body. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
Celebrity Lobsters, Part 4
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” – Andy Warhol
In 1968, Mr. Warhol might never have envisioned that his now infamous quote would someday be applicable to a lobster. Indeed, however, even lobsters have come to enjoy their “15 minutes.” We profiled one recently but, believe it or not (couldn’t resist the pun), there are others.
This week we bring you the lobster that helped revolutionize both the television and the telephone, fusing the two technologies and paving the way for a wide variety of terrible television programming and rip-off telephone services. You’d think that such an influential lobster might enjoy more than “15 minutes” of fame, rather than becoming a mere footnote to chronicles of advancing technologies, but, alas, this week’s lobster in our ongoing series of Lobsters You May Have Heard of met a short-term fate that precluded his longer-term celebrity.
On April 10, 1982, Eddie Murphy penned and performed a skit on Saturday Night Live that involved a lobster…a lobster that he named “Larry.” Murphy, in what was perhaps an inadvertently revolutionary sketch, introduced Larry The Lobster to the studio and television audiences and then proceeded to present television viewers with a remarkable pair of options.
The first option presented involved sparing Larry The Lobster from a trip to the boiling pot. Viewers were told that if they were interested in saving Larry’s life, they should call 1-900-720-1808 to help secure Larry a trip back to the ocean (or at least the New York harbor). Viewers wishing to see Larry boiled and eaten as Maine lobster dinner, on the following week’s program, were instructed to call 1-900-720-1809. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
It is that time of year again! Love will be dancing in the air, as will St. Valentine. He is drawing back his bow, tightening his red cape and getting ready to hit the skies in search of couples to strike with his love arrows.
When is there a better time than the Valentine’s holiday to surprise your loved one with a delicious live lobster dinner? Fine Lobster is well experienced in the art of surprising and noteworthy meals, and pulling one off is easy once you know how to prepare and order a lobster dinner for two this Valentine’s Day.
To take the initiative and plan a surprise meal speaks to your romantic forethought and care for your loved one. Spending a lot of money on a fancy night on the town isn’t necessary. You can prepare the most memorable night to take place right at home and for an affordable price.
One writer shares the ritual of romance she shares with her husband, and her thoughts on how an evening, such as a lobster dinner, can be so much more than a nice meal. She attributes the monthly ‘date night’ ritual they’ve stuck to for years as a way to honor their marriage, be a model to their children, and essentially be a responsible for keeping the relationship going.
{ 0 comments }
Celebrity Lobsters, Part 3
If we told you abou
t a smash-hit television series that featured a toned, and tanned, lifeguard as the supervisor of beach-goers on a glamorous stretch of sand, you’d certainly be inclined to think that we were alluding to The Hoff. But what if we told you that said lifeguard was actually a lobster? Well, you might just think us crazy, or you might think that this mystery lobster should have been ranked higher in our list of Lobsters You May Have Heard of.
But the reality is that The Hoff’s Mitch Buchanon, on Baywatch, wasn’t the only lifeguard captain to man the tower on a hugely popular American television show. In fact, to some it might appear that The Hoff passed the lifeguard captain torch, or at least maybe one of those flotation thingamajiggers, to none other than Larry T. Lobster.
That’s right, because even on a television show set entirely underwater, and featuring a rich cast of sea creatures (and at least one squirrel with a breathing apparatus), lifeguards are important, and buff, and a little intimidating, and overly competitive, and really, really red. It’s true on Baywatch and it’s true on Spongebob Squarepants.
{ 0 comments }
