dinner in - a lobster boil

When I imagined having guests stay with us on the East Coast, I imagined a beautiful guest room to put them up in, serving a large breakfast on the island, buffet style as people awoke, and at some point in their holiday, a trip out to the harbour just on the other side of the mountain. We'd show them the Bay, and how low the tides sink, and then we'd pop into the fish market before heading home with our prized lobsters. Later, as the sun was sinking, we'd open a bottle of wine and enjoy the adventure that is a lobster boil.

A lobster boil, for us at least, is such a fun experience to share. They're such interesting creatures and it's such an anticipation! Watching them turn bright red when boiling, then the mess of learning how to crack into them and all the laughs, it's really a lot of fun. And also delicious... So delicious! Having my sister and brother-in-law, and our four nephews, here for spring break was the perfect opportunity for all these things. A highlight was on one of our last evenings when we had a lobster boil. It was all I hoped it would be!

We might as well have taken the boys to the aquarium! It's so much fun watching them admire the lobsters and be able see them up close.

Of course, something as special as a lobster boil deserves it's own special table! And really, it just adds to the whole experience.

For the place settings this time I used some oval ironstone plates as they fit the lobster perfectly. Then a napkin, which is very much needed when one enjoys lobster! A nautical bread plate just felt like an obvious addition and a couple other interesting pieces, like little saucers my sister gave me and tiny bamboo cocktail forks which worked well for dipping pieces of lobster in the clarified butter.

The runner was from Target, on clearance last fall, and I snagged it for under $5.

I also used some copper pieces as they work well with the aged clay pots. This little saucepan was for warming the clarified butter and the medium pot worked perfectly for an wine bucket.

We also opened a bottle of a new favourite wine - Nova 7 from a local winery, Benjamin Bridge.

And obviously, with things as they are, I wasn't able to grab any cut flowers anywhere, but the grocery shop did have one potted pink Hyacinth (that wasn't completely blown open), and a mini white Begonia. They've been sitting on my island, but they livened up the table enough.

These aren't our usual chairs - they're actually our patio chairs - but we've been using them inside this week as there were twelve of us for meals!

My sister found a stack of these sweet little scalloped saucers with a tiny blue print at a thrift store. They work perfectly with Jenny's blue block print napkins. She also found these shallow blue and white bowls at the same time as the others and there are also matching saucers. These worked perfectly for the chowder she made to enjoy while the lobsters steamed. It was beyond! (It may have had something to do with it essentially being seafood poached in whipping cream and butter.)

And this sweet shell was from my nephew. He found it at the harbour and gave it to me especially because it was all white. He was thrilled when I showed him my collection of special shells from all of our favourite beach trips, and then tucked it amongst the others. Here it worked perfectly as a little salt dish.

All the dishes set out ahead of time - a lovely mix of blue and white.

Two large, two pound lobsters were perfect for the four of us.

The novelty of this is so not lost on us! We're always just as excited as anyone else we're sharing it with. The fact that we can drive 15 minutes to the Bay of Fundy to pick out freshly caught lobsters is still so surreal.