Finally saw Julie & Julia last night. T’was a bit bland. How many times can an American mispronounce the French word for beef (boeuf) in a movie about two Americans “mastering the Art of French Cooking”? Many times, apparently. More times that it should take to chew an entire ox. When Amy Adams (who was stellar in Junebug) says “booff” (which actually means something in French—”grub”) instead of “boeff” (the oe combination should be pronounced almost like the i in “bird”) for the fifth time, I don’t even want to finish my ice cream. But the movie did remind me of my first adventure in boiling live crabs. I was living in Bordeaux, and it must have been 1996 or 1997. The crabs for sale in the markets in Bordeaux are not anything like Louisiana blue crabs. They’re more like Dungeness crabs, plain enormous. One single crab can feed a (French) family of four. So I bought one, and carried it home. It stared at me coming out of the bag. The claws were tied up (so this was going to be easy, right?) and the body seemed to fit just fine into my biggest soup pot, which was about 12 inches across. Boiled water. Quickly grabbed crab; positioned crab over water surface; let go. Ta-duh! Next thing I know the crab is on the floor, making a run for the bathroom. When that sucker felt the heat, he opened his crustacean wings WIDE and basically pole vaulted himself out of the pot. Note to self: When boiling live crabs, measure pot and measure crabs (but not just the body). Measure from wingtip to wingtip, or you could find your dinner in the bathroom.