Spider crabs

I’m in the kitchen in immaculate make up and a tight cashmere jumper. I’m whipping up a passion fruit sorbet for the kids, and dusting my chocolate brownies with a little gold leaf, expensive but worth the effort...
Oh, no, that's not me. That's Nigella Lawson, beaming down from the television on the cookbook shelf in the corner, somewhere between the Beautiful Mexican Cookbook and North Dakota Roadkill recipes. She’s telling me “How to be a Domestic Goddess”.
But I’m more of a domestic antichrist tonight. I’m barefoot and covered in paint. I’m searching desperately through the freezer for some supper, but all I can find is a bag of lava bread we picked off the rocks last summer and half a bag of McCains oven chips.
“What exactly is wrong with seaweed and chips?’ I ask the children irritably, “Can’t you be a little bit more ..... adventurous?”
Now she’s telling me its really quite easy to make ice cream while cooking your children breakfast and getting them off to school, and I’m willing to bet this woman has never microwaved a bowl of chocolate ready brek in the morning.
At that moment there’s a knock on the door. Its Mickey Jo, my next door neighbour, one of the Ballydavid salmon fisherman.
“We found these in the nets, and we thought you might eat them.” He hands me two plastic carrier bags full of spider crabs.
We have a reputation for eating strange stuff. Since Nick started scuba diving he gets summoned to clear propellers or search for anchors at five in the morning, and weird and wonderful creatures arrive on the doorstep later in the day. A sunfish, a salmon with a seal bite out of it, crabs with no claws, a lobster with a broken back ....
Suddenly all my feelings of inadequacy dissolve. I too can be a domestic goddess. Not a cosy household goddess like Nigella maybe. I’m more like Kali the goddess of destruction tonight. I'm boiling a cauldron of salty water and telling the kids that no, they really wouldn’t make good pets. Meanwhile the crabs have broken out of their Supervalue-shopping-as-it-should-be bags and are crawling around the kitchen floor. A few have wandered out into the garden and are crawling around in the rose beds making a surreal bid for freedom.
The waters boiling, “No, they absolutely don’t mind. They don’t sit there at the bottom of the see discussing art and philosophy, you know”
Ten minutes later they’re piled up on the seafood platter, with a little lemon. I’ve opened a bottle of wine and put on a Hawaiian shirt.
“Hey mum, this is amazing ,” says Daisy, picking up the hammer and smashing a claw. ”You should have your own TV show.”
I pour myself another glass of wine.Yes, I can see it....
“And for really special occasions I put a little gold leaf in the mayo.

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