It feels like forever ago that we went to San Francisco (and in some ways it was), but life sped up and the truth is, it’s not going to slow down, so it’s time to blog about the trip! Apologies for the delay.
We were going to San Francisco for a wedding. Well, a wedding reception—Erin’s friend Julia was getting married at City Hall on Friday and a reception would be on Saturday night. It was a perfect excuse for a long weekend in SF, a city Erin has always loved but Jason had never been to. Labor Day weekend was typical for SF, with temps in the 50s, and Jason could not have been happier. It made our walking tour of the city (and we do mean walking tour—we covered 25 miles in two and a half days) completely lovely. Highlights include tacos in the Mission, North Beach, Chinatown, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Golden Gate, a boat tour, friends, classic San Francisco meals, and, of course, more tacos.
Seaside Heights is known for its boardwalk. Watched Jersey Shore? Yeah, that’s our boardwalk. Ever caught footage of MTV beach house debauchery, and you’ve seen the far north side of our boardwalk. Yes, it’s a little trashy. Okay, a lot trashy. But where else can you get the best sausage sandwiches, lobster rolls, birch beer, frozen custard, and rickety roller coasters?
Midway is the place for a sausage, peppers, and onion. Four years ago Jason ate three (3!) in one day, but he’s done proving his mettle to the family so this year he only had one. I even tried to do a split for another half each but he wouldn’t go for it. The sweetest lemonade in all the land washes it down. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
Frog Bog and the water-shooting race are our only games, actually. We’ll dominate the frog bog, get a prize, and give it to the next kid who passes us by. Family-only water-shooting means we take over a booth but we don’t normally take a prize. This year after a malfunction with the water-shooting race I went up against an aunt in a re-do and won, and I kept my little Om Nom.
Turned out the one night we chose to go to the boards was the night a derecho descended on the East Coast, and boy did it come upon us fast! Games started closing and people fled the boardwalk—we got into the cars just in time, in fact. Of course, Jason just went straight back out, stormchaser he is. The shots were clearly worth it!
We will never be vegetarians. If you are squeamish, you may want to look away. Because crabbing, one of the most important parts of beach week, is the subject of this post.
Pop-Pop, Erin’s grandfather, was a longtime crabber. He taught us all how to crab, and in some not-insignificant way, waking up early to head to the pier on the bay is our way of honoring his memory. It just occurred to me that Pop-Pop died 13 years ago, but we still use so many tools that were his. Cages, the net, and of course The Stick, a small piece of wood that he marked with a 4.5-inch line (minimum acceptable width point to point). Even the bucket was Pop-Pop’s—though it just sprung a leak, so I put in a request for a white bucket (it will photograph better). We do a mix of cages and drop lines, about 4 or 5 each. Cages are an easier catch; drop lines take skill and patience—there’s something for everyone.
Most of the time spent crabbing is about waiting. Pull the the lines too frequently and you scare everything away! So a lot of what we do is chitchat. It’s some of the best time we have to catch up on all that’s happened in the last year. Everyone will make an appearance at crabbing at some point during the week.
I call the four of us in the picture above (me, two cousins, and their father) the “core crabbers”—we’re the ones who will always be there bright and early, no matter how late we were up the night before. One year, when the crabbing was bad, we tried to increase our luck by going out at 6:30 in the morning. (It didn’t pay off.) Sunday’s crabbing was pathetic this year. We caught one borderline crab and barely had any bites. Wednesday we went back and had a huge day! You can see how hopeful we were in the picture, before we’d even pulled a cage. Jason actually had some of the best luck that day, catching a 6.5-inch CRABZILLA with our most unlucky cage (the cursed green cage). In all, we got 13 that day. Lucky indeed.
We sat on the porch to devour Crabzilla just minutes after he came out of the pot. The sweetest meat comes from a crab you just caught, let me tell you! Because my uncle is allergic to Old Bay, we can’t use it on our crabs, but our boil in beer and water lets the flavor of the crabs shine. I’ve been cleaning my own crabs since I was little, and it’s easier than you think. Just follow the steps below. You’ll note that I scrape off the gills and the innards using the claw—you could just use your fingers but, um, I won’t do that. But I do like some of the “mustard,” called tomalley in a lobster, so I don’t scrape that off too carefully. And note the big lump of meat on the leg when it twisted out! Don’t miss out on a single morsel.
Bring a big pot of water to a boil, add a can of beer (family tradition dictates everyone takes a sip before it’s poured in, often necessitating another can be cracked open, so maybe it’s a can and a half of beer), and then drop the live crabs in. Everyone takes a turn dropping them in the water. Set the timer for 10–12 minutes, then drain and cool. You can eat them warm or straight out of the fridge up to a few days later. Yum!
Here’s something you should know about my (Erin’s) family: we are completely awesome. And for longer than any of my generation has been around, our family has been going down the shore to Seaside Park, NJ, for a week of sun, surf, good food, and great family bonding. At this point, the youngest in attendance is in his early twenties and the oldest, the matriarch of our family, is in her eighties! We all look forward to this week more than any other. Last summer we weren’t in Jersey at all—my cousin’s wedding in Georgia moved our vacation to Tybee Island instead—so we were thrilled to be rekindling our traditions back “home.”
The first thing we do when we arrive on Saturday (after chili dogs at Stewart’s) is take a walk to the ocean to “make sure it’s still there.” The house we’ve rented the last few years is the second one from the beach, the best location we’ve ever had. After that first night, each day follows the same general schedule: wake up as you will, enjoying crumb cake from Park Bakery for breakfast, and either make your way to the bay for crabbing or one by one go up to the beach itself. You wander back to the house for lunch when the time seems right, and you get in the water when the waves are begging to be ridden, but everyone knows to be up at the beach after the lifeguards leave, because that’s when our family happy hour starts. Back to the house for dinner or a trip to the boardwalk, and then we do it all again the next day.
Jason lost no time introducing a new tradition to our beach week, baking fresh cookies for all of us in his first year and every year since. This year, chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip, and oatmeal cranberry. Mmmmm.
On the last night, as we ate pizza and drank wine on the beach in the light of the setting sun, my cousin’s boyfriend went up to Jason and said, “we are so lucky to have found two women with such an awesome family.” How lucky we all are to have each other!
