Perishable

I came home from work last week and found a box by our front door marked "Perishable." My husband, apparently, hadn't noticed the label and just left it unopened. I looked a little closer and noticed it was sent by the Maine Lobster Co. Turns out, my brother-in-law couldn't think of what to give us for Christmas this year. He knows we like to cook, so he sent us lobsters. Live lobsters!

We're both corn-fed Iowa farm kids. We rarely eat seafood, and we've never eaten lobster. Let me tell you, we were stressed out about cooking these guys. Thankfully, the lobsters were packaged in a metal bucket, so all we had to do was add 2 cups of water and then steam them in the bucket. We didn't have to touch the buggers, thankfully.

They were really quick to cook, just 20 minutes in the steamer. The lobsters looked scary coming out of the pot.

The lobster kit came with two bibs and utensils to crack open the shell.

My husband makes a terrible model; he's always making faces when I take his picture. He looks a little like Dr. Evil in this pic. He's actually more like a big teddy bear.

We ended up loving the lobsters. They were so much fun to eat. We quickly discovered why the bibs were necessary. The shells went flying everywhere. I don't think we've laughed that hard in a long time. And the claw meat was so good -- rich yet mild, with a nice salty taste.

I was full by the time I got to the tail meat. My hubby ended up finishing this lobster off and the other one lobster that came in the bucket. It was such a great gift! We enjoyed our date night at home, just me, my hubby and the two lobsters.