The KingofHearts and I are both Westerners by birth and breeding. But one way in which we've become true denizens of The Bay is in our erudite love for blue crab. Blue crab isn't like any other kind of crab and until I moved to this area, I'd never even seen it on a menu nor heard of it. Blue crab is to Washingtonians as lobster is to Mainers. If you live here you have eat it and if you eat it you have to love it. Fortunately, we do.

Last week we had a visit from The KoH's cousin and his lovely new wife. They were in town for a wedding and made some time to meet us for dinner. Since they aren't from the Mid-Atlantic area, we offered to take them to the most merry land of traditions - all you can eat blue crab.

Originally, our intention was to go to a restaurant that serves crab and we drove there. We don't own a car that's big enough to transport more than the members of our family (We're just not minivan people. Deal with it: that's how we roll.) so we caravaned and once we all got there, it was readily apparent that the restaurant had closed... and had been closed for a long time at that. Apparently we don't get out all that often.

Instead The KoH stopped by a take out crab place (yes, believe it, here we have take-out crab) and brought home some to eat in that fanciest of French restaurants, Chez Underground. Despite buying a bushel of crab for four adults (Hint: "bushel" = "that's a whole lotta crab") and not even going through half of it, our evening at Chez Underground was a success and I didn't even have to slip the maitre d a twenty to seat us near the litter box.