It’s lobster season again here on Nova Scotia’s North Shore and we’ve been feasting every weekend on those tasty crustaceans. I often wonder just how desperately hungry the first people to crack open these ugly creatures must have been.

Lots of tourists drive home from Nova Scotia with an old-fashioned wooden lobster pot, purchased directly from the fishermen, on roof of their car. But fishermen are using new square metal traps more & more and in a few years those nostalgia-inducing types may not be available except as reproductions.

But there’s always ways to take home parts of the sea trade. The rope that ties the traps together is sometimes fashioned into door mats – think how durable those are! (And until the end of June, The New England Trading Company is listing some of those mats at up to 20% off)

On our first visit east 20 years ago, we paid a dollar for a souvenir mimeographed booklet that explained how to eat lobster. Of course, back home in the middle of the country we never had a chance to test out the method. But here, at least for May and June every year, we perfect our lobster cracking!