The Big Guy Got Crabs

The Big Guy had a birthday a few weeks ago and leading up to it I was racking my brain, wondering just what do you get the guy who has everything?  Well, one of his (and my) all time favorite restaurants is Joe's Stone Crab in Miami, and because we loves us some Stone Crab, I made him up this pretty fabby, artsy-fartsy looking gift certificate.

Because he's a guy, he just looked at the picture and didn't bother to read the fine print to see what it actually said, so he thought we were going to Miami. I know this, not because I'm physic, but because he said, "WE'RE GOING TO MIAMI!?!"  
     "No honey, Miami is coming to us," I told him.

Joe is pretty proud of his Stone Crab and charges about twice as much as the next guy, so I found a company called Incredible Stone Crab and placed an order with them, for ten pounds of delectable jumbo claws.

I then got busy on line and found some of Joe's "secret recipes" for things like their mustard sauce, which is a must have for dipping those claws into. We also love their famous garlic creamed spinach so I found that recipe too, and even Joe's special "Jennie Mashed potatoes." 

(Authors note:  I'll point it out here: Take a look at the picture below; it's from food.com and it's supposedly the recipe for Joe's garlic creamed spinach. Yeah right. There is NO WAY that spinach there came out of a box of "frozen chopped spinach", like the recipe calls for. That is FRESH spinach if I ever saw it! Bet me!)

 

Then I figured out Joe must be a asshole because he is withholding at least ONE MAJOR secret ingredient from his recipes. I know this for a fact because the mustard and the spinach did not taste the same at my house as they did at Joe's. Not one to be out smarted by someone with a degree in assholery, I adapted the mustard sauce and the creamed spinach recipes to make a passable resemblance of the originals. (Take that Joe!)

We then begin to poke Stone Crab down the ole pie holes like we were in a contest or something. I guess because we only had ten pounds of it and a free Key Lime pie to boot, the four of us wanted to make sure we got our fair shares. And boy did we! Mike, Karen and I were also glad that we made the cut on Big's "Three Favorite Peeps List."  Sorry suckers!

I'm not trying to wish you into old age honey, but I can't wait for your next birthday to get here...we might just have to do this every year!
     Whatcha think?
     Looks like a "yes" to me!

♥   Happy Birthday Big Guy!   ♥

By the way, here is a picture of my garlic creamed spinach and you can see it looks NOTHING like the picture of that fraudulent recipe.  I know...I've been to Joe's and in real life his looks much more like THIS, than that photo above. Click on the link above for Joe's recipe, then go ahead and stir in a package (5.2 oz.) of garlic and herb Boursin cheese, the missing secret ingredient...I'm sure of it.