Cheese and Choux

There is no one constant that permeates my childhood quite like the beach.  Even during my parents "lean years," we were fortunate enough to enjoy my grandmother's beach house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  It was there that, almost three months old in the dead of January, I learned the meaning of wind.  I'm told that, perceptive baby that I was, I squirmed and sort of spat at it.  It was there that I learned - quite literally - to swim against the tide, or else by swept out to sea.  I'll grudgingly acknowledge that the metaphor remains poignant today.  To this day, no breakfast is as soul-fulfilling, as awe-inspiring as soggy cereal enjoyed languorously overlooking the bay's boat traffic.  When I'm driving there (crossing the endless Bay Bridge, waiting for the land to flatten to packed sand, riding its slow drift to dunes), I still open my windows to give the salt air a chance to wiggle its way into my car.  I miss it on days like this most of all.  On January days like this, the sky only offers shades of an opaque gray.  The snow drifts pile high on the ground.  Where there is no snow, there can only be sludge and a sort of damp earth.  And on top of this giant hill where Jordan and I make our home, the wind takes on an other-worldly might.  While studying, I have wondered if it's really wind or a steam-powered locomotive chugging towards our place.  Most of all, take a whiff of this January.  It smells too crisp, too clean, and all cold.  On days like this, I miss my beach most of all.

I had a feeling that this inevitable mid-winter pining was coming my way.  Accordingly, on New Year's Eve, I brought a little beach home with me.  We stayed in for New Year's.  I have a friend in New York (with sparkly clothes, luxury stilettos, miniscule miniskirts) who would gasp in horror if she knew that we had stayed in.  However, I'm to the point where I'm ready to roll my eyes and just call it growing up.  After a Christmas #1 and #2 that warranted tremendous mileage on Jordan's car, I think we were both ready for a holiday that felt like a holiday.  A respite.  A break.  Something involving red wine, warm blankets, and just us two.  Alone.  However, I'm still a girl who (before law school took its brutal toll on my personal aesthetic) likes her luxury stilettos.  So I decided, for festivity's sake and because cooking a three-course meal didn't feel like the respite that I was seeking, to have appetizers for dinner.  Like having breakfast for dinner, I couldn't help but ask myself the obvious: why on God's green earth don't we do this more often?  There were veggies to be dipped; there was a cheese plate with crackers; there was a box of truffles waiting to be ripped open.  Still, we needed something else.  Something ceremonial.  Nothing big - just big enough to let my husband know that he's still my favorite New Year's date.  In other words, I needed some beach.  Our piece de la resistance, my friends, was our crab dip.

I know what you're thinking.  You're yawning and thinking that maybe those lame chain restaurants have crab dip, too.  Anyone for Applebee's?  TGI Fridays?  Yeah, I understand what you're getting at.  Accordingly, I think I need to take the time to clarify my love affair with crab.  To me, it isn't simply a crustacean that holds spices well.  No, rather, its briny notes bring back all of my favorite memories.  Jordan sometimes accuses me of exaggerating - perish the thought.  But this is all me, and all true.  Without crabs and oysters and mussels and Old Bay, my life would be wrenched into a disarming cacophony.  After all, a person can best be measured by his or her character, integrity, moral compass, life experience, taste in wine and chocolate, and the last meal.  That's right: what would your last meal be before you died?  I'm still working on mine, but I know that I would at least start with Maryland Crab Soup.

I'm not sure that Jordan originally gave my family's Eastern shore culinary obsession the respect that it deserved.  He seemed a little unnerved when my father intoned (half-joking, I think) that Jordan must crack crabs with the family before we were to get married.  Fortunately, my husband was game.  I should say here that, while I adore the fruits of my labor, I always romanticize the notion of cracking crabs.  I think of wielding the mallet, the corn on the cob, the fried chicken, the sheer unapologetic messiness of the whole affair, the pitchers of beer, the family, and I want to be there.  Now.  When I'm actually there, the feeling is reminiscent of when I've seen ex-boyfriends after they've become ex-boyfriends.  Sort of a kick-in-the-gut, hell yes, THIS is why we don't talk anymore.  Cracking crabs is not for the hungry, hence the side dishes of fried chicken and corn.  Cracking crabs is for the masochist infant who likes to play with his food, rather than actually eating it.  However, I do get all nostalgic for it and was genuinely excited for Jordan to join us. 

Jordan performed admirably.  I must have beamed like a proud mother.  In short, Jordan acted exactly like one of the family: he didn't say anything; he took his mallet to crunch the crab; he came up for air only for long sips of dark ale.  He took to the silence like a cat to milk.  Yes, I did say silence.  The men in my family generally find speaking unnecessary in this environment, and focus on the crab with a piercing intensity that is normally only reserved for - well - sports.  It was very Old Man in the Sea.  Hemingway, in all his sweaty machismo, would have been proud too.  When the paper tablecloth was torn away and our hands were washed, Jordan fell into a satisfied smile.  We were already engaged, but that might have been the point that they let me marry him.  That might have been the point when he became family.  My family.

Still, that was the summer.  Moreover, we don't exactly live on the coast anymore.  The question for me has always been: how do I keep my beach with me for the rest of the time?  The answer comes in a nondescript yellow container: Old Bay Seasoning.  This will always, until the day I die (there's that flair for drama that my husband loves), be my favorite spice.  I'm not as enthusiastic for it as my brother; Tim generously douses his scrambled eggs with the stuff.  However, for all you non-Maryland people, this salty goodness renders an anonymous crab, a Maryland crab.  And because I take my crab dip seriously, I would urge you to sprinkle yours with this novel spice.  That is, if you take your crab dip seriously too.  I give this recipe to you on a Monday, because it's mid-January.  If you live anywhere other than maybe Miami, Mondays generally pucker the lips like a bad taste in the mouth.  So, I say, don't wait until the weekend.  Enjoy a night of appetizers.  Uncork a bottle of wine.  For your grand finish, have a chocolate truffle.  It's the wettest stretch of January people, and we could all use a little more beach.

Eastern Shore Crab Dip

Ingredients

Old Bay - copious amounts

1 (6 oz.) can of real crab meat, drained and flared.  *You use the imitation stuff, and I'll be able to feel it.

1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese

1 cup Miracle Whip

Green onions (at least 3)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 celery stalk, chopped

*If you like it more tart, you can add non-fat plain yogurt.  It's better for you than sour cream, and you won't be able to tell the difference.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Lightly grease a baking dish.

Mix all ingredients together.  Chop with cheeses and Tim-style sprinklings of Old Bay.

Bake in oven for 30 minutes.