Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance by Nancy Verde Barr Page B

incredible, spraying water over the seaweed and painting oil onto the lobsters to keep everything glistening. Sally and Jim took their places, the sound technician wired them, and we kitchen people stepped back so they could do a run-through. The run-through shows the director what is going to happen and where it will happen. That wayhe can direct the cameras where to be once they are rolling. Sally and Jim walked through all the steps, never, of course, actually disassembling the lobster. They finished by pretending to pour wine and then for real clinked their glasses in a toast. Perhaps because the glasses were empty and Sally was a little too enthusiastic, one of the glasses broke. Jonathan was on the set in a flash, cleaning broken glass out of the seaweed and off the counter while I went to the kitchen for replacement bowls of butter. I didn’t know if any glass had landed in the butter, but CYA is what my job is all about. I gave the new bowls of butter to a Tony to bring to Jonathan and I checked once again on the tart setup. The lobster would be a piece of cake, but I still felt some angst about the tarts.
    Returning to the studio just as the director asked for “quiet on the set,” I took a place off to the side, next to Jonathan. The floor manager broke the silence when she began her countdown. “In five, four, three . . .” She stopped speaking aloud and held up two fingers, then one, and then made a small circling motion with that finger to indicate “now.” Jim waited his usual three seconds before he began to talk, in order to give the editor some wiggle room, then said, “Sally, why do you think we need a lesson in eating a lobster?”
    “I’ve watched so many people in restaurants struggling with them. Some people even throw away good parts that still have delicious meat in them.”
    “That’s terrible.”
    “It is. But as we say in Georgia, ‘Some people are as lost as a goose in a snowstorm.’”
    Jim laughed. “Okay. So where do we begin?”
    Sally handed him a bib. “You’ll want to put this on to save that tie, which is quite handsome.”
    “Thank you. My wife picked it out.”
    “They always do.” They each tied on their lobster bibs and Sally picked up her lobster and wiggled it at the camera.
    “This is a fine fellow. Probably about a two-pounder.” She turned it over and looked at the underside of the tail. “Well, it’s a she, so we will have the delicious roe to eat.” We had ordered only females according to Sally’s directions.
    “How do you know it’s female?”
    She pointed to the small joints under the tail near the chest. “In the female, these little swimmerets have tiny hairs. The male swimmerets are bald and pointy.” Poor Jim didn’t seem to know where to go with that. “I see.”
    Sally plowed right along. “Start with a claw and grip it firmly.” She took a good hold of hers and waited for Jim to do the same. “Now snap it off. Wump!” They did it together.
    “Is the claw meat tastier than the body meat?” Jim asked.
    “It’s a matter of preference. I’m a body person myself. Now break off the knuckle.” Sally gave a good snap and the knuckle separated from the claw. Jim followed suit. “To get at the claw meat, you’ll need a good set of lobster crackers.” Sally searched on all sides of her lobster. The crackers weren’t there. What the hell! I’d seen them there, but they were gone now. Sally kept going. She had begun her television career in what is known as “live to tape,” so no matter what happened she was not about to stop until someone directed her to do so. She looked totally undaunted as she said, “Or you can just give it a good thump,” and she picked the claw up over her head and gave it a good whack on the counter—or, actually, on the seaweed, since Jonathan had completely covered the counter’s surface. The shell on a two-pound lobster is pretty thick, and the seaweed cushioned the blow, so even the second whack that