Last Saturday, Andrew and I had a really good reason to go 2 hours out of town for the day right before we moved….

Steak and Lobster. On someone else’s dime.

That’s right, we were invited to Lobsterfest 2009.

Andrew’s co-worker Keith’s dad (whose name I didn’t even get) for the last 5 years has hosted a steak and lobster shindig at his house every year.

Having LIVE lobsters flown out from Maine and cooked in the backyard (you’ll see).

We felt so lucky to even be invited, and sooo glad we decided to go (even though it was in San Clemente the day before we moved)

Basically, we got there …. got a drink … and hung out in the backyard for several hours with the other guests/friends/family of Keith, his dad and his brother. …

Dim-E (no idea how he spells it – it’s short for Dmitar) brought plum brandy (aka Serbian Tea) … it smelled good and fruity, but they tell me it BURNS …

So, about 3p or so dad and Uncle Jack and I don’t know who else left to go pick up the lobsters. … and since they arrived with boxes of LIVE lobsters, I’m just going to take a guess and say they picked them up from the airport?

They were all crawling on top of each other, their claws restricted – and you could just tell they were MAD …

Nicky checking out the lobster … really, when else are you going to get a chance to hold your dinner like this?

While the lobsters were being picked up, other helpers were grilling the steaks, the corn-on-the-cob, grilling onions in foil, making garlic bread …. yum yum.

(note: ALL of Andrew’s coworkers I’ve only ever met a couple times. The girlfriends I’ve met maybe once before, and everyone else pretty much not at all. I was nervous to spend a day with all these people I didn’t know, but it turned out to be awesome!)

Keith (Andrew’s co-worker, one of the assistants) and Shannon … they got engaged a few weeks ago in Hawaii and Shannon says she’s thinking fall 2010 for the wedding … Andrew’s already offered to start campaigning for me to shoot it.

Koichi Sanchez. I (again) have no idea if I’m spelling that right. This guy was great. I can’t wait to see him again. 1/2 Peruvian 1/2 Japanese. SOoo nice. So interesting. One of those people you can just tell it’s easy to be friends with ….

Andrew told me he’s a composer or something and a “gear hound” … always hooking Keith up with gear, etc.

Nicky and Jordan. Jordan worked with Andrew at Resonate (and now they’ve both moved on) and Nicki is his girlfriend. She told me they’ve only been dating a few months, but were best friends for years before that … pretty cute.

And Nicky saw my camera and talked my ear off all day about photography. … so cute. She’s just starting out and had all kinds of questions for me about the business and the camera, etc …

I could have talked to this girl all night …

Plus, she’s Czech so she told me a little about that … and she has friends in Czech who own a farm house about an hour outside Prague and run it like a bed and breakfast/agrotourism business … so I have a fun place to go when Andrew and I finally get over there …

And this is Dim-e / Dim-E / Dimmy / Dimmee / Dmitar … however you think it should go. I personally prefer the pseudo hiphop star “Dim-E” (so we’ll go with that).

Dim-E is easily one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met … I think he’s Serbian. He used to be the assistant of Andrew’s boss (like Nik and Keith are now) but now works for Desk Doctors and repairs gear…. but is always at Andrew’s work. Dim-E gets specially requested.

He is rebuilding his vintage car (ugly as sin now, but you can tell it’s going to be lovely) … and he knows stuff. … Saturday he was talking WW2 history .. and talking to Nicky about the ‘old country’ …

Awesome.

On to the lobster ..

I made sure I was around when those suckers went in. So so interesting …

This is what I learned -

• If you put the lobster in headfirst, you won’t hear any ‘screaming’ … which is not really screaming anyway because lobsters don’t have vocal cords. Instead, it’s the air being forced out of their lungs.
• There is a very precise way/length of time to cook these guys. They had 7 pots set up with boiling water. There was a assembly-line type arrangement in order to pass the lobsters from box to pot as quickly as possible all while removing the rubber bands from their claws in the process. AND Keith had his iPhone set up with 7 different timers, so each pot cooked the lobster exactly 9 minutes (I think I heard 9, I could be wrong).
• There is a reason the last guy is wearing gloves. He got his finger pinched by an unbound lobster claw at least once.

Check it out -

(this is when my camera lens started to get all fogged up from the steam)

Andrew was standing behind me, insisting that each one had been named … Margaret, Charles, etc.. …

Tessa (came with Koichi), Nik (Andrew’s co-worker), Nicky and Jordan

… and just check out that view. Beautiful San Diego (suburbs)

Dinner time. Someone just yelled to ‘come and get it’ but I really think they could do with a gong ….

There were 3 long tables set up the length of the backyard, with a couple other round tables sprinkled here and there too ….

bright blue (vinyl) table cloths with salt/pepper, silverware and napkins all down the length

There was a buffet style table set up with big trays of lobster (with the claws/tail already cracked for us), steak (rare and well-done), grilled onion and corn … I tried to find the smallest lobster I could, but still got one way bigger than the plate …

This is Andrew’s (that an onion with olive oil in the foil)

I opted for 2 plates. Lobster on one, steak and everything else on the other … gotta say I did much better than Andrew….

The steak was SO good. The best steak is the kind that melts in your mouth and doesn’t need any added A1 sauce or other added beyond how it is cooked …

I would have been happy with just the steak …

You may want to avert your eyes. Andrew didn’t have the best luck with his lobster. He ate half his steak, then pulled the meat out of the lobster tail and all this guts/poop/blech came out … all over his plate.

And he was pretty much done eating after that.

But he knows now how to do it for next year …

Outdoor dinner at sunset in Southern California = magic

everyone looks full and sleepy, don’t they? I could have EASILY taken a nap …

Nik (the other asst) and his girlfriend Theresa (she’s an actress)

Now, while a lot of us WANTED to take a nap, Dim-E actually did .. at the table. Andrew says he never sleeps, is always working. So I suppose it’s not that surprising that he dozed off…

Keith and Shannon again …

The end….

Andrew already knows he has to stay friends with Keith so we can be invited next year …]]> >

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