Rock Lobster

I consider it a basic human right to have lobster at least once when I come home for a visit. Company is the perfect excuse. Lobsters are absurdly easy to cook, absurdly involved to eat (if doing it at home; restaurants don't make you work for it). Much cheaper to do it at home, especially if you just want straight up boiled lobster.

Boil salted water in a large pot, stick your lobsters in head first, cook 15ish minutes depending on their size. Melt some butter for dipping. While waiting for the giant pot of water to come to a boil this past January, I remembered hearing tell that you could hypnotize a lobster, so my friend and I turned to youtube for guidance. If you stroke it's back at the beginning of the tail repeatedly, the lobster will go into a trance state, and you can make it do fun headstands, as seen below. We were pretty lucky as these guys were already pretty lethargic from the flight (you can pick up lobsters to take as your carry-on at the Halifax airport) and so were fairly cooperative. Once your lobster is ready you're going to need some implements, and most importantly, some napkins as it will get messy. A vise grip or crackers of some sort and seafood picks are probably the most essential. Here's a handy diagram of how to dig in.