Brad had been born and bred in Maine and still spoke in the flat tones that “Mainiacs” are well-known for. For those who have never visited, Maine is a beautifully rugged state with short summers and long, hard winters. Those born in Maine consider anyone not born in Maine an “outsider,” no matter how long that person may have lived there. They are for the most part a taciturn folk with a caustic, bone-dry sense of humor. An example of a Maine comic bon mot: Once, trying to make polite conversation at an uptight gathering at a small “yacht club,” I asked a member whether he had lived in Maine his whole life. His reply was a very deadpan, “Not yet.” The conversation petered out pretty quickly after that.
However, eating lobster plucked from Maine’s ever-frigid coastal waters with friends and family is one tradition that seems to scrape the patrician barnacles off even the most stoic of the state’s residents. The effort required by everyone at the table to break down and properly dissect a steamed lobster is an act that causes the participants to help one another complete the task. This act removes all barriers and can’t help but spark conversation. I have eaten lobster in England, the Maldives, Ireland, and many other places, and yet my favorite is still a one-and-a-half-pound lobster from Maine. I am not one who cares for his lobster grilled, thermidored, or Newburged, however tasty they may be. I am not saying I don’t like lobster bisque and don’t often crave a lobster roll on a lightly toasted, buttered bun. But when it comes to fresh lobster, I think, they are best gently boiled in salted water, and only butter, ideally clarified, is needed to enhance their flavor. This is how Brad cooked them every summer on the beach of a small island off the Maine coast.
On the day of our arrival, Brad would look at the upcoming weather forecast and decide when might be best for our annual island/lobster outing. After breakfast on the chosen day, we would fill coolers with beer, water, and soda, hunks of cheese, and homemade smoked fish paté; stuff plastic bags with ears of corn and loaves of bread; gather the life jackets; and head down to the rocky shore that the house overlooked. In two old burlap sacks, Brad carried a battered and blackened aluminum pot, a small wire shelf from a defunct fridge, and a stash of firewood. We would all then climb into a little dinghy and row to the motorboat moored about fifty yards out. Settled into the boat, we’d head to a nearby marina where there was a lobsterman Brad knew who sold the perfect-size lobsters for a very fair price. Their quick, vicious claws rendered useless by taut rubber bands, the crustaceans were tossed into an empty cooler and whisked onto our boat.
Making our way through the cold blue water toward a small island that had a less rocky beach than most of the other nearby islands, we would pass harems of seals swimming and sunning themselves on the jagged charcoal-colored rocks. The whole scene was a New England idyll worthy of any Wyeth family member’s bristles. We would moor the boat off the island, hop into the dinghy, and row to shore.
I make it all sound simple, but inevitably there was lots of swearing and cursing about mooring lines tied improperly, weight being distributed unevenly, how many trips it would take to get us all ashore, who would go first, and the designated rower’s insufferable inability to row in a straight line. However, once we were on the island, tensions were eased by the sound of tabs being hastily pulled on cans of cold beer. Brad and the kids and I would gather stones and pile them in a circle that would contain the fire while Kate and her mom laid out the hors d’oeuvres. With the logs Brad had brought and some dried pine branches scavenged from the island, we lit a fire, balanced the old fridge grate on the stones above the flames, and waited for it to begin to burn evenly. After a few minutes we filled the aluminum pot with seawater and placed it on the grate over the now-roaring blaze. When the water came to a rolling boil, the lobsters were gently dropped in and covered with seaweed. The sweet corn, just shucked by the kids, was placed on top of the seaweed and then covered with more seaweed. Butter was melted in a little pot placed next to the fire while we ate cheese and crackers and waited impatiently for our Maine course. （Pun intended and achieved.）
How Brad knew when the lobsters were ready is beyond me, because he never timed them. It seemed he just knew. And he was never wrong. The meat we pried from the shells was always cooked to perfection. We dipped it greedily into the melted butter and lathered cold butter on the hot corn, followed by a sprinkle of salt.
Salt and butter.
Butter and salt.
Those two condiments elevated the flavors of an ancient plant and a prehistoric aquatic decapod to create a staggeringly delicious experience for us all. As I said, this was the only meal Brad ever cooked besides a burger or a steak on the barbecue, but we were all glad that he had directed his energies into perfecting it, because it was extraordinary.