consumed on 8/26/05

An acquaintance of mine recently built a new house in Oysterville, on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, and invited a few friends over for a weekend visit. It was a long drive out to the coast (in miserable traffic) but it was worth it.

C’s house was actually built as a retreat for the Willard R. Espy Literary Foundation‘s Writers Residency Program and it’s gorgeous. The main house is meant to be a gathering place for the writers/artists-in-residence and is very open and welcoming. My favorite part, of course, was the spacious communal kitchen with shelves full of top of the line cookware and a pantry stocked to the hilt.

As we arrived rather late that evening, dinner was ready and waiting: Dungeness crab with an Asian dipping sauce and a beautiful corn salad. Now, I’ve never really thought about dipping fresh crab into anything but butter, so the sauce threw me at first. Could a flavorful, Asian-style sauce be better than drawn butter? It was. In fact, it was so much better that I doubt I will serve crab with plain butter ever again.

Our friend R had recently found work as a wine distributor for l’Esprit du Vin, so he had brought along several great bottles of white wine. Dessert was a peach and berry crumble with fruits from the coast. It was one of the best fruit crumbles I’ve ever had, so I just had to get the recipe.