My kids love looking at the lobsters in the tanks whenever we’re at the supermarket.  They make me stop at the tank every time and my middle son always asks me to buy some.  Our local family-owned supermarket was having a special on lobsters ($3.99/lb) and I just had to add two of them to my PEI mussel purchase.  They’re usually double that price.   I bought a pound of the mussels (an appetizer) which were on sale too for just $2/pound! 

New England Clambake often consists of steamed lobster and clams (and maybe mussels), corn on the cob, potatoes and coleslaw.  The best I’ve had was on tiny Clam Island off Branford, CT where the lobsters were cooked in a huge aluminum garbage can over an open flame with the traditional seawater and seaweed.   Yum!

I had corn and potatoes from our CSA, but didn’t get around to making my coleslaw even though I had the ingredients.  And I make a pretty good coleslaw. I just couldn’t get it together.  It’s the end of summer and the kids are definitely acting like they’ve been around each other a bit too long.  So I heated up the micro bok choy I’d steamed the night before instead.  With Asian ingredients, hardly New England. So I might as well make my mussels ala Belgian or French style- white wine, chives, parsley, shallots, chopped tomatoes and a touch of butter.  Plus, I took the corn off the cob (we only had 3 for 4 of us) and warmed it up with butter, salt and pepper.   And I didn’t buy any clams, so I could hardly call it a “clambake” now. 

Well, whatever we call it.  It was great!  And it seemed like the perfect dinner for an end-of-summer night.  Considering the temperature dropped the following day and it feels like autumn I’m glad I seized the sale.

The kids were a little cautious with the lobsters.  They can be a bit daunting. I think next time I’ll shell it for them and serve it with butter, garlic and lemon.  My three year old gladly had the mussels but didn’t want to try the lobster right out of the shell.  At least they all ate their bok choy and corn. And my husband got to have the left over lobster for lunch.