Good Wednesday morning.
i wrote not long ago about things that I don’t cook at home and only order at restaurants – complicated and/or special things that should be consumed sparingly or are perhaps just too fiddly for a decidedly kitchen amateur to attempt.
Lobster definitely makes the list.
What was once so prevalent that it was fed to prisoners or used as fertilizer and earned the nicknames “poor man’s chicken” and “cockroach of the sea” is now so overfished that it is considered a delicacy. Maine lobster was selling for between $12 and $15 a pound in 2025, and as high as $29 a pound for tails alone.
Assuming you have the stomach to kill a fresh lobster (the knife-in-the-head method and the pre-freezing method or some combination of the two is generally considered the most humane approach – far more so than simply boiling them alive), cooking them can be a fairly straightforward project.
Boiling, steaming, or baking them whole and then serving them up with ample tools for meat extraction and some melted butter for dipping will likely please most lobster lovers. Grilling is another good and fairly fuss-free option.
You do have to be mindful about not overcooking them – the shell should be bright red and the internal temperature should be no higher than 140 degrees to ensure tender and flavorful meat. Removing them from the heat and plunging them into cold water to stop the cooking process when they reach the appropriate level of doneness is a best practice.
For someone who enjoys lobster but orders it almost never (my other half is a big fan of the Hooked Market & Kitchen warm lobster roll and generously offers me some claw meat on our weekly dinner date night there), I have difficulty understanding why you would want to gild the lily when it comes to crustacean preparation – especially if it’s freshly caught.
But there are plenty of highly involved lobster recipes out there, including a truly old school dish known as Lobster Newburg, which is enjoying its own special day today.
The dish, which may or may not have been created in the 1800s at Delmonico’s in New York City, calls for drenching the lobster meat in an egg yolk-thickened cream and butter sauce that is spiked with sherry or cognac and seasoned with cayenne and nutmeg. The resulting concoction is traditionally served on some sort of carb bed – either toast points or a puff pastry shell.
The origin story of Lobster Newburg includes name change. It was reportedly created in 1876 by a wealthy sea captain named Ben Wenberg, who named his creation for himself, calling it (what else?) Lobster a la Wenberg. But Wenberg and restauranteur Charles Delmonico subsequently had a falling out, which led to the captain’s
Lobster Newburg is similar to another dish called Lobster Thermidore, but the two are not, in fact, interchangeable. The former is an American creation, while the latter is decidedly French. Thermidore has a heavier, flour-thickened sauce, which ix mixed with cheese and mushrooms and then replaced back into the lobster shell and baked until browned.
Good news first on the weather front: It will be warmer, with highs flirting with 50 degrees. Bad news: Skies will be cloudy, though it will be dry (as of the current forecast), so the glass is half full.
In the headlines…
The Pentagon has ordered about 2,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to the Middle East, according to two officials briefed on the diplomacy, even as the United States has sent Iran a 15-point plan for ending the war in the region.
Trump cryptically claimed that he got a gift from Iran “worth a tremendous amount of money,” telling reporters it revealed to him that “we’re talking to the right people.”
Multiple Iranian officials denounced negotiations with the Trump administration amid a push for a ceasefire in the region, despite the president’s characterization of the talks as “productive.”
Each day since the start of the war in Iran, U.S. military officials compile a two-minute video update for Trump that shows video of the biggest, most successful strikes on targets over the last 48 hours, raising concerns he’s not getting a full picture of the conflict.
Less than 24 hours after Trump threw cold water on their efforts to cut a deal to reopen the DHS, Senate Republicans intensified their bid to find an offramp to the impasse amid staggeringly long lines at airports across the country.
Senate Democrats said that they will continue to push for reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of any deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, complicating GOP efforts to find an off-ramp to the funding impasse.
House Republicans are pushing back stiffly against the idea of splitting up legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), despite the White House and Senate Republicans saying President Trump is open to doing just that.
Democrats yesterday flipped a Florida legislative district that includes President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, pulling off another upset in a state house election but this time one with obvious symbolic power.
Democrat Emily Gregory, a health fitness small business owner, defeated Trump-backed Republican Jon Maples, a financial adviser, in a race for the open Florida District 87 state House seat, which includes part of Palm Beach County and the president’s resort.
Trump has picked Nick Adams, a right-wing influencer known for his machismo and professed love for steaks and the restaurant chain Hooters, to be a new diplomatic envoy for American tourism.
Federal prosecutors examined whether Trump showed a classified map to people on his plane after his first term, including to his now White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, according to justice department materials produced to the House judiciary committee.
Republican-led states facing major budget shortfalls in 2026 are facing an awkward reality: Trump’s signature tax and spending bill is making their problems worse.
Trump and the RNC are strongly considering Dallas as the site of an unusual midterm convention later this year, as Republicans are working to finalize the plan as they seek to rally their voters in the face of political headwinds.
NTSB investigators said the Port Authority fire truck that got into a fatal crash with an Air Canada jet landing at LaGuardia Airport didn’t have transponders installed that could have helped air traffic controllers better track its movements.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said it’s unclear if the fire truck driver could even hear the air tower’s desperate pleas to stop, and agency still doesn’t know which air-traffic controller was in charge of ground activity at the New York City airport at the time.
Doomed Air Canada flight 8646’s cockpit recorder has revealed how the flight turned from routine to tragedy within 3 minutes on Sunday.
Dozens of flights in and out of LaGuardia Airport were canceled or delayed as the Big Apple travel hub rebounded from the deadly Air Canada plane crash that shut down the airport the day before.
Just six weeks into her job running the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Kathryn Garcia is confronting multiple challenges after a jet slammed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport.
Delta Air Lines said that it would suspend special services for members of Congress, citing the partial government shutdown that has hobbled travel across the country.
Gov. Kathy Hochul continues to push for regulating 3D printers in the state as part of an ongoing crackdown on ghost guns, though her administration acknowledged there is some difficulties with implementation.
Hochul yesterday joined local and state law enforcement officials at the State Police Forensic Investigation Center in Albany to highlight the gun safety proposals included as part of her proposed fiscal budget.
New Yorkers are overwhelmingly concerned about rising electricity costs and place significant blame on utility companies that have a monopoly on the energy system, according to a new poll of registered voters commissioned by the IPPNY.
Hochul and state legislative leaders prepare to debate potential tax increases in this year’s state budget, Democrats in the New York City Council are sending a message to the governor: the Big Apple needs a higher corporate tax rate.
New York state had just 22,366 homes for sale in February, the lowest number since the New York State Association of Realtors® began tracking the data in 1997
Mayor Zohran Mamdani yesterday appealed a court ruling that requires the city to expand the hugely popular — but massively expensive — city-funded housing voucher program called CityFHEPS, which he promised as a candidate to implement.
The appeal, filed in the Court of Appeals, prolongs a nearly three-year-long legal battle between the City Council and the mayor’s office over the program, which is considered a lifeline for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.
Five weeks after he proposed increasing property taxes by 9.5 percent, the mayor seems to have all but given up on the idea, even as Hochul shows no interest in raising income taxes on the rich — a priority for Mamdani’s democratic socialist base.
Mamdani’s newly formed “mass engagement” arm will shell out cushy, six-figure salaries — totaling nearly $2 million in taxpayer cash — to more than a dozen activist-minded hires.
A Senate panel is deepening its probe into Mamdani’s administration over the creation of a health department “Global Oppression Working Group” that accused Israel of genocide and downplayed Hamas’ role in initiating the Gaza war.
Mamdani did a “mukbang”-style video — munching on Taco Bell and Dunkin’ — to announce an $1.8 million settlement against franchises of the fast food giants.
The New York City Housing Authority, which administers some of the federally funded Emergency Housing Voucher, sent emails warning that funding for the vouchers for thousands of households will run out before the end of the year.
The Mamdani administration is trying to “responsibly” shrink New York City’s jail population as decrepit Rikers Island fills up and the Department of Correction faces a dire staffing crunch, officials said.
Wall Street is betting on a veteran of both the Marines and bare-knuckle New Jersey politics, former Jersey City, N.J., Mayor Steven Fulop, to fight Mamdani’s push to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
The long-stalled plan to build a platform and new apartment buildings above the train tracks at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards may soon get a major cash infusion not from a developer or private investor, but from New York state taxpayers.
New York City officials are shutting down the old entry point for homeless women entering the shelter system and opening a new, state-of-the-art site in East New York.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be forced to defend its detention practices inside holding cells at 26 Federal Plaza in a trial slated for the end of May.
The city education department released its long-awaited guidance on AI, rolling out a “traffic-light approach” for New York City’s 78,000 teachers that allows the technology in some cases, prohibits it in others and urges caution in areas that fall in between.
A vintage subway train is gearing up to take Mets fanatics out to the ball game for their beloved team’s home opener this week as one of many treats for the long-suffering fanbase.
The former top money manager at the NYPD’s sergeants union got zero jail time at his sentencing after admitting to committing tax fraud to help his crooked former boss with legal bills.
New York City officials still have not fully explained how payroll cards from a summer jobs program were used to withdraw large amounts of cash from A.T.M.s last year.
A heart-shaped balloon appeared on the ceiling of the main concourse at Grand Central around Valentine’s Day, giving rise to delight and theories about its origins.
Despite public fears that a proposed QuickChek will cause health and traffic hazards for surrounding homes and businesses near Crescent Road, the Clifton Park Zoning Board approved the gas station and convenience store.
An Albany pastor, Bienvenido Lopez, 75, was arrested by city police and charged with multiple counts of rape.
Green Tech Charter School in Albany has fired a teacher for violating student-teacher boundaries, the school announced in a letter to parents.
The Underground Railroad Education Center is suing the National Endowment for the Humanities and several federal officials, after the museum had a $250,000 grant canceled as part of Trump’s crusade against DEI programs and initiatives.
A third round of “No Kings” protests is coming Saturday, with organizers saying they are planning their largest demonstrations yet across the United States to oppose what they describe as authoritarianism under Trump.
A section of Interstate 787 was closed yesterday afternoon after a vehicle fleeing troopers crashed, State Police said.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
