Pickin' Crabs: Summertime is Finally Here

Last weekend was sunny and breezy, so Mr. Luz and I packed some friends into the car and drove out to Annapolis, Maryland to "pick some crabs."

Now, I'm from Missouri, and we just fry our seafood there, since it's probably taken at least 3 weeks to get to us and seen the inside of way too many freezers along the way.

So until I came to D.C., I'd never picked apart some poor, unsuspecting Maryland crab and snarfed it down with an extra helping of spicy, thymey Old Bay seasoning. Once you add in a bucket of coronas, and a dude with a guitar covering Jimmy Buffet, I've officially hit Zen.

These photos are from Mike's Crabhouse, which has been outside Annapolis, MD for 45 years. It's off a little inlet of the Chesapeake Bay, and when you sit on their huge deck overlooking the water, the rest of the world just melts away.
Something about Mike's brings me back to the vacations I spent with my family at the lake. We'd spend all day hanging out in our cutoff shorts in the sunshine or jumping off the deck of our rented pontoon boat to paddle around the lake. Everything was laid back, but it still felt like we were celebrating something special. In a way, we were just celebrating Summer.

If you're in the D.C. area, you should really head out to Annapolis and grab a picnic table and a dozen large crabs. (At Mike's, the waitresses will just sit down next to you and give you the speediest crab-shredding tutorial you'll ever see, so don't be sheepish if you've never done it before. Crab pickin' is work, and it's worth it.)

If you're somewhere else, take an evening this weekend to eat on an outdoor patio, or fill your cooler with some cold beer and grill. Do something, anything, to celebrate the return of the Summer months, and forget about everything else for a bit as you enjoy some sweet, easy flip-flop livin.'

Before, a dozen large Maryland CrabsAfter, pure carnage