Crab legs draw out dining fun

Crab legs. They're a mess to eat.

When it comes to crab legs, you can't be a delicate eater. And our daughter, Bailey, isn't one.

She loves nothing better than to eat a mountain of crab legs at a Chinese restaurant buffet.

We did just that on Sunday.

Joni, Bailey and I were starving after taking part in a Girl Scout walk on the LaCroix Trail. Becca, our 14-year-old, preferred to go home rather than risk eating some Chinese vegetables.

It was supposed to be a late lunch. But joined by an out-of-town friend, Peggy, and her two daughters, we spent hours in conversation.

We stayed so long that our lunch ran into the restaurant's dinner time. Once the crab legs appeared on the buffet line, all three children at our table couldn't stay away.

They had to have some crab legs. Bailey particularly seemed starved for crab legs.

She filled her plate several times.

Not only that, she learned that she could pull on the cooked tendon to open and close the crab's pincers. At one point, she grabbed my finger. She even grabbed up the tip until we told her to put it down.

It's amazing what you can learn at a buffet restaurant.

I usually steer away from crab legs. I like the meat. I just don't like all the work involved to crack open the crab legs to get to the delicate white meat.

When I go out to eat, I don't want to have to work to clean my plate.

Besides, it's impossible to clean your plate when you're eating crab legs. Even after you've eaten the meat, you're stuck with a pile of cracked crab legs that do little to decorate the table.

But Bailey doesn't see it as work. She sees it as fun.

She doesn't mind getting her hands dirty.

She also doesn't feel guilty about eating crab legs even though she has a pet hermit crab at home.

Bailey says her pet crab, Speedy, doesn't need to worry. He's too small to eat, she says with a grin.

Thankfully, we didn't have giant spider crabs on the buffet tray. The giant crabs measure as much as 12 feet between outstretched claws.

We would have had to reserve several tables for such a meal. Its claws could be considered weapons and create mayhem in the hands of 10-year-olds.

Perhaps the best thing about crab legs is that you can't rush through a meal. It takes time to pull out all that meat. You can't hurry through mealtime.

As a result, there's time for more friendly conversation.

We laughed a lot at our table.

Eventually the waitress stopped coming by our table. I think we were having too much fun.

But then that's what happens when you dine with crab-leg lovers.

I didn't have a single piece of crab meat and I still found it enjoyable just watching Bailey eat.

It's hard not to smile when someone has as much fun with her food as Bailey does. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she's practicing to be a cook in a school play.

Bailey would have stayed several more hours if we had let her. But by this time we were approaching evening and we figured it was time to leave before we got charged for a half dozen more meals and used up all the napkins in the napkin dispenser.

I'm sure it wasn't fun for the crustaceans. But no one in our party went home crabby.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.