Florida stone crab claws, despite their extravagant prices, are my favorite seafoodie reason to explore South Florida in person. This saves $60 in overnight Wyoming FedEx bills to get such $30- to $60-a-pound treats. That was perhaps a reckless but wise decision during obstreperous winters.
Dressed warmly and apron covered, I loved showing off my cracking skills on these aptly named ceramic crab claws to all passing our porch. I’m precise with a weighty table knife handle skillfully aimed at hand-held claws (frequent bleeding results). Our reliable, lever-driven aluminum claw cracker (less bleeding) is fine if time is short and it’s snowing or raining outside.
Nothing revved my sagging Jackson winter attitude like stone crab cracking and dining. Bathed in melted butter or swiped in mustard sauce, this mild, sweet claw meat from stone crabs (released alive after at least one 2.85-inch legal point-to-knuckle claw is removed) is God’s version of seafood heaven. Stone crabbing scores top renewable resource grades.
Spotlighting and nabbing stone crabs at night along Biscayne Bay seawalls built early South Florida memories. Ironically some additional Jackson experiences further galvanized my stone crab appreciation.
After several stone crab trapping and dining articles appeared in my then new 1970s-’80s Jackson Hole Guide outdoor columns, surprising mail from readers around the country contained stone crab ads, local and national story clippings and personal reflections about visits to Joe’s, stone crab serving and world headquarters on Biscayne Street in Miami Beach.
Such response encouraged crab updates such as the new claw smasher (bloodless model) I’d scored from the Liederman’s & Vernon’s, friends and owners of Captain Harry’s Fishing Supply in Miami. With sadness I had to reveal health reasons and retired my favorite crab peddler in Grassy Key that shipped superb custom orders.
I’ve learned how to tolerate the uninitiated, those compelled to brag about other salty crustacean table additions such as Dungeness, Alaskan king, blue and snow crab. In reality, chewing on anything other than the robust meaty goodness contained in a chilled platter of Florida stone crabs is an egregious waste of money and effort.
A crab war actually preceded a pending Jackson newspaper merger some time ago. It was enjoyable to watch the dinner table magic develop between the Guide’s boss, San Francisco-reared, lifetime Dungeness champion Elizabeth McCabe, and Jackson Hole News publisher and suitor Michael Sellett.
A Northwestern grad from the Chicago area with a strictly Big 10 palate, Sellett learned early crabbing from Pat Mahin’s once perennial piles of Mangy Moose king crab legs. During the negotiating process for Liz’s Guide interests to amalgamate with Sellett’s News publications, the latter’s honest Midwest tendencies were surprisingly tempted by several astonishing Dungeness feeds at the McCabe Circle EW Ranch.
Suddenly, however, the scenario switched oceans and servers when Sellett’s longtime best friend from Illinois childhood, Carl Liederman (the very same Miami purveyor of my Captain Harry’s crab claw smasher), began FedExing weapons- grade stone crab-a-rama feasts for Sellett to serve to Elizabeth.
I dared not ask how the newspaper/crab-serving endeavors were going.
But knowing that Liz always appreciated an excellent crustacean, I wasn’t completely surprised when Mike Sellett phoned to announce: “Liz has finally agreed. She likes stone crabs better!”
The two newspapers joined forces soon afterward.
Stone crabs range from the north Atlantic coast all the way around to Texas on the Gulf side. They are fond of rocky outcroppings and structures where oysters, smaller crustaceans, seaworms and occasional grasses and carrion provide their diet. In turn they are a feast for octopus, horse conch, Goliath and smaller grouper, turtles and nurse sharks. Frequently when maneuvering through shallow Florida Bay flats patrolled by sharks and stingrays, the comical sight of a six-foot nurse shark’s tail end appears waving actively above the surface. Nurse sharks regularly bore head first into stone crab hideout holes when seeking a tasty meal.
There was no greater fun as a youngster than shining a powerful flashlight beside Biscayne Bay seawalls and docks to spot Florida lobster (crawfish) and stone crabs. Quickly harvested with a metal-pronged gig on a wooden pole, the marine delicacies went into a metal bait bucket. The crabs made clanking sounds as they marched around in the bucket. Endless warnings to pals not to mess with those brutal orange and black claws still resulted in a painful scream from the inevitable loser in the kid-versus-crab game!
As much as I relished stone crabs as a youngster growing up in Miami Beach and invading Joe’s at least twice a month during the annual Oct. 15 to Mother’s Day crab season, seeing the antics between my dad, Big Paul, and Jesse Weiss, Joe’s owner, was even more fun.
Joe’s was always jammed. But dad, newspaper-columnist-later-turned-publisher, was well recognized so we’d wait perhaps five minutes for a table during Jesse’s amazing regime from the ’50s through the early ’70s. This annoyed the daylights out of the who’s who-lineup of VIPs who’d been waiting for a table for ages. Jesse was a playful, dramatic actor with the best hosting gifts ever bestowed on a human. He buzzed throughout the always expanding Joe’s ground floor like a curious butterfly, stopping at tables, backslapping and telling great jokes.
Sometimes he’d avoid our table for a half-hour. Dad would chuckle to Josephine (mom), “He’s angry about something I wrote.” Suddenly, Jesse would swoop in, greet and kiss Josephine, smoothly elaborating about her latest Sun-Reporter feature article and ignoring dad. He’d greet me as “Young Paul,” and share treasured insight about the menu I held.
“Always order medium-size stone crabs, they’re the sweetest.” Skip the hash-browns everybody orders. Get the fried-sweets — much better,” he commanded, adding the creamed spinach was their best vegetable ever. He laughed that the best dessert at Joe’s, named for his father’s 1913 fried fish sandwich shop and first restaurant in Miami Beach, was hot apple pie topped with a slice of cheddar cheese.
“People brag about our key lime pie but we’ve never served it. So I put Jo Ann [his daughter] in charge of finding ‘the right’ key lime pie recipe. She finally has and it’s sensational. I still like the apple pie better!” he said.
Then Jesse would disappear. Finally, as if by accident, he’d return to needle dad while quickly identifying some guests: “That’s Thomas Murphy over there [head of General Motors], J. Edgar Hoover [FBI director, a regular and Jesse pal], NFL czar Pete Rozelle and Fisher Island neighbor Gar Wood [international speedboat builder/racer and dump truck inventor].”
Jesse would dive into storytelling and drawing and writing in ink on the white tablecloth, diagraming and spelling names for dad. As the restaurant emptied, Jesse’s patient and delightful wife, Grace, would leave her bookkeeping desk high chair where she billed every dinner from the kitchen, to visit with Josephine. I marveled how Grace remained so calm despite Joe’s swirling chaos. A vigilant tuxedoed waiter was nearby in case Jesse or the Bruuns needed anything. Joe’s was now completely empty but the drawing, storytelling and taunting continued. I loved their great stories about Carl Fisher’s publicist Steve Hannigan, Richard Nixon, governors, senators, N.Y. columnists Winchell, Ed Sullivan and Leonard Lyons and characters like Doc Kearns and Swifty Morgan.
Instantly I knew how Miami got several early Super Bowls. Miami’s group seeking the NFL’s blessing realized they’d better let Jesse make their presentation because he knew every NFL owner personally!
Dad, Jesse, Grace and Josephine are gone but theirs and Joe’s memories are mine forever.
March 10, 2021 at 06:30PM
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Outdoors: Stone crabs are the Gulf's gift to seafoodies - Jackson Hole News&Guide
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