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In our bubbly is our beginning
New Year's rituals reveal what different cultures revere.
By Burt Wolf
[12/24/99]

Travel Advisor
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[12/23/99]

Out of the Blue
'Tis the season to be pissed off
Too many bags and too few bins make frequent flyers cry foul.
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[12/22/99]

It's a bird, it's a plane -- it's SkyMall!
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[12/21/99]

The empire winds down
China's assumption of control over Macau on Sunday writes the final verse in the epic of European colonization in Asia.
By Morris Dye
[12/18/99]

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As I wrestled each protesting lobster from its package, and as it became clear that I was ill-equipped to maintain discipline among this unruly brood, I started to panic. Sure, ordering the monsters had been easy: Just click on the little Java-script animated crustacean, enter a credit card number and go back to playing Minesweeper. But what was I actually going to do with the wriggling lobsters that now covered my entire kitchen table -- which in Manhattan is a euphemism for "the one table in the middle of my apartment that serves as kitchen, dining room, office and lobster-execution table."

These days, few animals are slaughtered in the home (my home, at least). We buy most of our meat dead and butchered, wrapped in plastic on little Styrofoam trays that leave no evidence that this was ever an animal.

But a lobster must be alive at the time of cooking because shellfish meat decomposes rapidly once dead and therefore must be killed by the cook. It brings us face-to-face with what we 're doing; there is no middleman to insulate us.

Happily enough for us lobster-lovers, it is now possible, on less than 24 hours notice, to have live lobsters shipped from the fishing villages of New England to anywhere in America. There are already more than 30 purveyors of online lobsters, ranging from the tony Dean & Deluca food emporium in New York to The Lobster Guy in Port Judith, R.I. Even with FedEx shipping factored in, mail-order lobster prices are surprisingly low (by lobster standards, that is), thanks to the intense competition. Prices change daily, but today you can expect to get four 1.5-pound lobsters delivered for as little as $70. (Prices are even lower in summer when lobsters are more plentiful.)

What better way to celebrate New Year's than with lobster? I hate turkey -- to the extent that it's possible to hate something that has no taste -- and I hate crowds. So forget Times Square, I'll kill a crustacean instead.

All of the purveyors reviewed here can deliver lobsters before New Year's Eve if orders are placed on or before Dec. 29 (for delivery on the 30th). FedEx doesn't deliver on the 31st, so you'll have to baby-sit the lobster for an extra day if you want it to join you at your New Year's party.

As I trolled cyberspace for the perfect lobster, I could barely keep the names of the companies straight: Lobster Stuff, Lobsters Online, Lobster Net, Lobster Gram, Lobster Direct, Lobster Express, Lively Lobsters. I was concerned primarily with freshness and flavor, but I also considered customer service and packing-and-shipping procedures.

To narrow the field, I spoke to trusted sources in the fish business, solicited customer recommendations and eliminated any company that was merely a reseller of someone else's lobsters (all the major gourmet online food shops offer beautiful lobsters -- but you'll pay double what a New England supplier charges for the same item without the fancy packaging).

There are limits to how much lobster even The Fat Guy can eat, so I called for backup. Matt Seeber, the only professional chef who regularly returns my calls, was over within the hour armed with a 10-inch chef's knife and a goofy smile. "Boil some water, and lots of it," he commanded.

While the water was boiling, Matt and I tried to generate a list of objective criteria for judging and comparing the lobsters. My wife joked, "How about a lobster race?" Then, quickly realizing that nothing was sacred to us, she tried to retract the suggestion.

For a little professional background, I called Robert Steneck of the University of Maine and learned that there is much to love about my lobsters, from their highly stylized mating rituals (yes, lobsters engage in courtship and actual belly-to-belly intercourse) to their bizarre habit of "throwing a claw" when attacked.

Then it was time to kill them.

Next page | The lobster cried for help