I’ve been back in New York City for a while visiting my mother. She’s nearing 89-years-old, slowing down and not quite up to whipping up a big dinner like she used to, so we’ve been going out to eat quite a bit. Having run the gamut of neighborhood joints during the week, coming up with someplace exciting was getting tough, but then it hit me: City Island for lobster.
I haven’t been to City Island for nearly 50 years, but my memories of going there are none-the-less vivid. I recall a view of Long Island Sound, and a sort of saltiness to the air that’s common to water-side villages. What I recall best, however, is eating lobster. When I was young, every few years our family of five would trundle off in our Buick station wagon and head to City Island for a great adventure. It all seemed very exotic to me, a suburban kid for whom dinner out usually meant spaghetti and meatballs or a burger. Although I learned to love lobster, by the age of fourteen eating at the Lobster Box had become a scene of humiliation, and the cause of my great distress was The Bib.
Eating lobster is a messy affair, replete with juice and lobster meat flying haphazardly while in the vice-grip of a metal nut cracker held tenuously by hands greased with melted butter. Wrestling a lobster claw requires a two-handed grip and copious twisting; the experienced turns away and keeps his eyes closed at the appropriate moment. So it is that using a bib is not only entirely sensible, but wise.
To a 14-year-old, however, wearing a bib is about as embarrassing as life gets. Bibs are for babies, not adolescents obsessed with their public image, and the prospect of being seen by a cute someone while wearing a bib is nothing short of horrifying. This is how I felt at fourteen, and it was I promised myself, the very last time I would be caught wearing a bib.
My mother’s friend Carol happened to call as we thought about dinner, and having a car, offered to drive us to City Island and join us for lobster. She picked us up at 6:45 and by 7:30 we crossed the small drawbridge to City Island. Founded in 1635 (yes, it’s true!) City Island looks a bit like Nantucket on Cape Cod; little clapboard houses line the main avenue, and boats are lined up in the harbor. It really is an Island, even though it’s part of “da’ Bronx.”
The Lobster Box is located at the end of the avenue, overlooking Long Island Sound, just as I remember. We chose a booth by the window, placed our order for lobsters, and then our waiter arrived with The Bibs. The paper bibs of old have been replaced with plastic, but otherwise are much the same. My mother and Carol put theirs on, and then my turn arrived. The waiter tied mine at back of my neck.
The Maine lobster was glorious, sweet and succulent, and when we were done, piles of lobster shells heaped before us, a large bowl of piping hot water and a plate of lemon wedges were placed in the center of the table to clean our buttery hands.
Life had come full circle and I must confess, I loved wearing that bib.
