Celebration Nova Scotia

Verna, Garth and Alexander (Jim’s cousins) welcomed us to their home on the coast outside Halifax. The water now had a smell of salt and moved with the tide. Sailboats were anchored in the bay. We had finally arrived at the Atlantic.

“Can I have a look at your pound and a quarters,” Garth asked. The young man turned to one of the pool-sized tanks, pulled out a lobster and placed it on the stainless steel counter top.

“Nice and firm,” the man commented as Garth squeezed the lobster over its shoulders.

A few minutes later he walked out of the store carrying a cardboard box with five live lobsters.

“Please don’t put those guys on the back seat with me,” I asked.

I may have grown up on the coast – but it was a wrong coast for lobster. I know nothing about them. Garth does. He set up his single propane burner and his enormous lobster pot (about thirty litres) on the back deck. I couldn’t watch the poor fellas go in – but I could watch them come out. They changed from dark greeny-brown to iridescent red in exactly twelve minutes.

My lack of knowledge of selection and preparation of lobster is matched by my lack of knowledge of how to eat them. Garth made it easier by cracking what needed to be cracked and removing what needed to go. It is a kind of ‘roll up your sleeves’ messy eating.

“Grab your fork and stick it in the fin end of the tail – you should be able to push the whole piece of meat out at once.”

In about thirty minutes the platter of lobster turned into a big bowlful of shell pieces and Nova Scotia turned from a dream into reality.

Now for the work of this holiday. We have to go to Lunenberg and get a home and a job….