For want of lobster sauce

He plans to carry out the operation with a smoothbladed gralloching knife It may be a case of too many cooks, but Fiona Armstrong puts her recent kitchen calamities down to the lows of lockdown life

It was all going so well. Until the lobster incident, that is. I know, I know. It sounds terrible. Spoilt woman buys luxury food during lockdown. But please read on, and you might understand.

More than a hundred days with my beloved – and counting – and all is fine on the domestic front. We have not fallen out. Well, not much, although there has been a bit of tongue biting. And people don’t like it when you bite their tongues…

No, seriously, I know it has been terrible for some. But the chief and I have muddled along rather well in lockdown. He stays mostly in his office, while I have managed to commandeer the kitchen table for my laptop.

We meet up at mealtimes and we have a drink together at seven thirty. Other times we are lucky in that we have a large garden in which to get lost.

But back to the lobster. I am in the supermarket, mask on, and doing the weekly shop when I pass the freezer section. And there it is. Half price – and shouting ‘buy me’...

I never buy lobster. Like salmon and oysters, it was once considered a poor man’s food, but not any more: for the price of a steak we can now pretend we are in the south of France. We can open a bottle of pale pink wine and play at seaside summers. We can cheer ourselves up.

I pop two cartons into the trolley and make for the frozen chips. Whoever heard

of lobster without chips?! On arriving home, I notice the thing is already cooked, which is good.

Many moons ago when I was young, I bought two live lobsters at a market and took them back to the Spanish holiday villa we were staying in. One escaped and began crawling round the kitchen. The other accepted its fate, but there must be a kinder way to cook the poor things.

Anyhow, the wine is in the fridge and the MacGregor is sharpening his knife. But which knife? You see, to get at the meat the shell needs to be sliced in half, and he has produced something that would normally be used to gut an animal.

He plans to carry out the operation with a smooth-bladed gralloching knife. Which no selfrespecting Scottish clan chief should be without, of course. Yet I think it is the wrong implement because I have been on the internet and the chef in the video is using a serrated blade.

I mention this in passing (alright, I may have raised the subject rather bluntly) because there I am, waving a large bread knife at one end of the kitchen counter, and there he is, brandishing a small scalpel at the other. Who ever said lobster is an aphrodisiac?!

Sharp words are exchanged but then that is what months of enforced closeness does to you. Because you do not interfere with a Highlander’s blade, especially one who is ex-army. I remind him that a girlfriend of mine has been hiding the kitchen knives during her lockdown. We calm down and laugh, because the chips are done and the wine is calling.

But the thing about a lobster is, it is deceptive. The chief has done a decent job of freeing the flesh from the shell. He has prised the precious bits from the claws. And yes, it tastes of the sea and sunshine. But, three mouthfuls and it has gone. Which is a longwinded way of saying, that even if they are half price, I do not think I will be buying lobster again.

And if you are still shielding, I am sorry – and suggest you stick to the chips. I know we will…

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