*Florida stunt lobster -- not actually Aliso Creek. Photo by Flickr user baxterclaus

This story also ran in today’s OC Weekly

Shellfish lovers: the commercial season for local, spiny lobster opens today! Recreational divers and sport fishermen got a head start, literally grabbing bugs by hand from our local waters since last Saturday.  Those of us less inclined to make like Steve Irwin and dive for our own catch can buy them from some of our waterfront fish markets until the season ends on March 16, 2011.

There’s a few differences between Pacific spiny lobsters and Atlantic lobsters. They have no claws, but bigger tails. The meat can be a little firmer, but also sweeter in flavor, depending on who you ask. As with any shellfish, the key is to not overcook the meat. The myth that bigger lobsters are tougher than smaller ones is a lie to cover up poor cooking technique.

Prices will fluctuate during the first few weeks until the market settles on a fair price. In past years,they’ve sold at $25 / pound or so, with the smallest legal lobsters weighing in around 1 1/4 pounds. As a reference point, Maine lobsters were selling for $7.99 / pound at Irvine’s 99 Ranch Market this weekend.

What’s that? You just want to be the judge and not the executioner? Some fish markets will also cook your lobsters for you. Seafood this fresh should be enjoyed simply – steamed, boiled, grilled, perhaps even raw as sashimi. The following waterfront fish markets will sell you truly local lobsters that were caught just hours before, and a few will also cook them for you.

In Dana Point Harbor, Jon’s Fish Market will sell you live lobsters to take home for $23.95 / pound, or boil / grill them for you to eat on site. General Manager Megan Fitzgerald says that their lobstermen work the waters from San Clemente to Laguna Beach.

Jon’s Fish Market 34665 Golden Lantern St Dana Point, CA; (949) 496-2807 www.danapointharbor.com

Set back on a side street off of Coast Highway, Pearson’s Port Fish Market sits on a floating dock on Newport’s Back Bay.  They do not cook seafood on site. They sell local shellfish in live tanks holding local shellfish. Chuck Pearson says that their spiny lobsters are caught in local waters around Newport and Laguna Beach, and the price, today anyway, is $19.99 a pound.

Pearson’s Port 100 E Coast Hwy, Newport Beach; (949) 675-6771

Skunked at the Newport Beach Dory Fleet

I only saw only one fisherman working this rainy morning at Newport Beach Dory Fleet fish market. It’s a co-operative of independent fishermen based at the Newport Beach Pier, and each boat specializes in different catches. Ara Kara of Live Fish Company shrugged at today’s poor weather and water conditions and prepared his gear for this weekend. He expects the two guys in the co-op who specialize in crab and lobsters to be selling later in the week.

The fishermen return with their early morning catch between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m., and sell directly to the public as weather allows. They do not cook anything on site either. Weekends are the best days because the entire fleet should be working. Sometimes, like today, they don’t go fishing at all. But if you wanted a sure thing, you’d be buying frozen jumbo prawns raised on a farm in the Philippines and not wild, local sea creatures.

Newport Dory Fleet 2111 W. Oceanfront, Newport Beach; www.doryfleet.com

In Long Beach, Berth 55 Fish Market will sell you live bugs, and serve them steamed or grilled. Their fishermen didn’t bring back any today either, but they plan on selling starting tomorrow.

Berth 55 Fish Market 555 Pico Avenue, Long Beach, (562) 435- 8366; www.berth55fishmarket.com

That’s a list of waterfront fish markets in Orange County confirmed to sell local lobsters, and there might be others as you move inland. In past years, I’ve seen spiny lobsters for sale in Little Saigon live seafood markets (such as T&K Food Warehouse) but I haven’t been able to verify any that intend to carry this year. If you spot any clawless spiny lobsters, let’s hear about it in the comments section!

Don't go changin'...

This story also ran in today’s OC Weekly

Sorry to break this news to you on the first day of autumn, but The Filling Station in Orange–known for their mile high, shortbread-crusted pumpkin pie–is about to change hands. The legal notice has come down, and the place is in its 30 day escrow.

Current owner Hyun Sook Chung is training the new owner on all the recipes for the baked goods the place is known for. According to management, the new owner, nicknamed “Tippy,” is intent on keeping everything exactly the same–the staff, the menu, everything. I actually want Tippy to improve the savory menu, which I think is meh-at-best, but the pies are holy-shit-amazing.

Hyun’s tired of running a one-woman bake shop, and wants to hand over the keys to someone with more energy for it. During the peak holiday season, Hyun bakes hundreds of pies a day solo, and who can blame her for wanting to stop?

But what about me, dammit? And my holiday pies? Everyone’s been asking the staff about that, and only time will tell if the new owner can really fill in at the Filling Station.

The Filling Station Cafe
201 N. Glassell St., Orange, (714) 289-3714
www.fillingstationcafe.com

This story is also published on the OC Weekly’s food blog, Stick a Fork In It. Difference here is I have more photos.

Sprinkles!!

Let’s say you somehow got talked into baking the cake for your little niece’s birthday party. You were thinking of a Betty Crocker box, and icing from the supermarket. Then you find out Niece would just adore you if you’d bake a cake in the shape of a certain Disney princess. You can’t buy that at Costco, and that luxe cupcakery you indulge yourself with can’t help out either. Now what?

Rent a character baking pan and get it done yourself. ABC Cake Decorating Shoppe in Orange sells and rents scores of cake pans shaped like cartoon characters, and other random molds like a palm tree or a beer mug. Problem solved!

A small bit of the cake pans for rent

Well, problem solved if you know how to bake already. ABC is a large specialty store with a wide selection of ingredients, pans and tools for the expert baker. Candy making stuff? Sure. Need a brown paper cupcake liner so your home baked treats look like the ones at the chichi cupcake shops? Yup. Rental equipment like multi-tiered wedding cake stands? Got that.

The best artificial flavor essences New Jersey ever devised

Wait, you don’t have the slightest idea how to bake or decorate cakes and cookies? Then take a class. In the four decades that ABC has been in business, battalions of Scouts, shoals of schoolkids, and droves of DIY-ers have learned to squeeze colored goo artfully from a piping bag.

Still flustered by your lacking cake skills? Have ABC bake you a custom cake in their production kitchen–and why not use that princess cake pan for your niece. I could have told you in paragraph one that their pros will bake and decorate just about anything you want, but then you’d miss the work fun in doing it yourself.

I've driven past this strip mall a hundred times before I spotted ABC

ABC Cake Decorating Shoppe and Bakery
429 N. Tustin St.
Orange, CA 92867
714-633-2055

Here’s a terrific HD video made at the recent Que’n For Kids BBQ Contest by Deep End Diner Eddie Lin:

The Bacon Explosion from Ed Lin on Vimeo.

I never thought that bacon can actually “lighten” a dish as calorically dense as the bacon explosion, but it does. In case you don’t know about the Bacon Explosion, it’s a mat of woven bacon wrapped around the sausage encasing a core of crispy, cooked bacon. It was an internet phenomenon a couple years back and I’m finally getting around to making one and blogging about it.

Listen – if you’ve ever seen an uncooked Jimmy Dean chub, it’s a fat cylinder the diameter of a soup can. If I were to cook this chub as is, sliced it into rounds, and served it, it would be a dense, 3 inch disc of meat, fat and gristle. The way to lighten this dense disc, ironically, is to press out the sausage into a thin layer first, wrap it around a core of crisp, coarsely chopped bacon, and reform it into a log. The bacon in the center actually breaks up the dense texture of what would be a solid slug of sausage and makes it much more pleasant to eat.

Now that we’re clear on the definition of “light,” do these jeans make my ass look “fat?”