What a lovely way to spend Mother’s Day! It looks like you had a feast. Which dumplings were your favourite?
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I’ve always bought mine live, but frozen seems like a good option.
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Mine too, thanks. I have sorrel growing on the balcony.
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My local Costco sells live crabs however I live downtown and the Costco I go to is in the west end. I don’t drive so I take the bus to Costco and back. I always wondered what kind of looks I would get bringing live crabs home on the bus 
I should investigate to find out if they sell frozen crab.
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I have taken live crabs home from the Union Square Greenmarket (in Manhattan) on the bus. I can tell you that the crabs do not like the bus and will try to slash their way out of the paper bag you’re carrying them in. That was a stressful ride!
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My favorites were the soup dumplings from Shanghai 21, the pork and corn from Sanmiwago and the chicken and mushroom from Shu Jiao Fu Zhou but they were all really good.
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I have a Playmate, but it doesn’t fit in my wheelie cart. The crabs were also a spur-of-the-moment purchase. Dunno about you, but I can’t pass up $1 crabs!
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Unfortunately, we don’t have any options to buy live Dungeness crabs in NJ. We do buy live soft shell and blue crabs. The Dungeness crabs from Costco were huge, sweet, and meaty. They were very reasonably priced, at around $60 for four 2 pound crabs. That’s around $7.50 a pound.
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Yes I got that.
More inspo for your sorrel: Berlin Eatz Summer 2022 [Berlin, Germany] - #44 by linguafood
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the idea of Legos in your afternoon!
Some Ontario-centric grocery comments
I’ve used some frozen crab that I’ve purchased at Metro, Sobeys and Farm Boy. The frozen crab legs are okay, not great. The vacuum packed frozen shelled crab tends to have a lot of salt or preservatives, and it doesn’t have a sweet flavour in my experience. I tried rinsing it, in several washes, then draining it, and it just doesn’t taste sweet like fresh crab. Sobeys had some Canadian -sourced, frozen shelled crab a few years ago, in a vacuum pack, which was a better tasting product than the Asian-sourced frozen crab at Metro and Sobeys right now. The current product at Metro is not worth buying.
I’ve also recently tried the Phillip’s refrigerated crab, rinsed it a few times to get rid of the preservatives, to make crab cakes, and again, it doesn’t taste quite right.
I am at the point where I rather cook with surimi/Krab than frozen, shelled or refrigerated crab.
I found the Vietnamese restaurant near me also is using frozen or canned crab in some dishes.
I haven’t cooked fresh live crab myself, yet.
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Another beautiful summer day in the city – we’ve really had incredible luck with the weather here so far, especially compared to the cold & rain back home.
My PIC met up with a work colleague in the afternoon while I went to a park nearby and caught up on old NYer issues, as I am forever & eternally playing catchup.
We stopped in at a small Italian grocer close to our pad to pick up a few sundry items to add to tonight’s snacky Abendbrot: a few slices of finocchiona, a small chonk of young pecorino, marinated zuke & eggplant. Got burrata & baby plum tomatoes at the stupidmarket, lovely rolls from a local chain, and we still have a bit of that wonderful sourdough left. Arugula salad with lemon dressing, parm & small shrimp, a summer favorite that is so much more than the sum of its parts.
Boxed Grillo with. We bougie 
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The soup looks so silky and smooth!
And you could always do what a food stylist would do - put a small circle or square of styrofoam in the bottom, cover it with soup, and THEN garnish. And then fish it out when you wanted to eat.
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Our Braun hand blender did a shockingly good job.
Don’t give me ideas! I already spend a lot of time fussin’.
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I was about to say we had one evening of not great food, but then I realized I didn’t take any pics of that meal. It was fancy eclectic takeout my friend ordered home, and it probably suffered from travel (eg steak was well-done instead of medium-rare).
Like all bad things that come back to haunt you, we had to finish it for lunch the next day so her hubby didn’t give her a hard time about over-ordering — again!
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Ah-ha!
I was just thinking that our New York crawls seem wimpy in food quantity by comparison! But taking stuff home is very sensible.
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I made a batch of Rancho Gordo cicerchia beans, which look like a giant, mutant lentil in the bag, but cook up with a sweetish field pea flavor. We had them tonight with medium shells, Parmesan, and parsley. A least one more meal for tomorrow or later in the week! Yay for planned leftovers!
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