Cooking lobster is something I enjoy. Cooking lobster for other people, particularly Aki and now Amaya, is even more gratifying with higher expectations. Eating lobster either on the shore or in your backyard evokes memories—memories of the last time you had the lobster, where you were, what you were doing. Usually, corn is not too far off when lobster is cooked. The butter, a frivolous luxury for both the corn and the lobster for Aki, is a necessity in my world.
Eating lobster is often messy business. I remember eating lobsters and corn, juices dripping, mingling, and having to wipe my face and my legs, occasionally losing my napkins in the fray. In my haste to grab my errant napkins, occasionally a weed or two would be caught with them. I am not going to presume the weeds under the picnic table were the same as those we are cultivating, though they could have been.
In any case, we have rethought our past. We used the peeled lobster claws with a buttered popcorn puree and balanced them with weeds, I mean herbs, from our garden. The lobster preparation resembles a risotto in appearance and texture. It is not a real risotto as served in Italy, although the analogy serves us well in describing the dish. (We recently received a thoughtful and passionate email about our menu terminology from someone we respect and are slowly digesting the contents.)
We punctuate the dish not with lemon, the traditional go-to for lobster garnish. Instead, we use our weeds: oxalis leaves and pods and a few tips of purslane. The flavors are easily imagined, the texture is familiar, and the finished dish is something slightly different and simply delicious.
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