If it walks sideways...

It took me quite a long time to develop a taste for seafood. I was never a big fish fan, which is surprising considering how many my brother and uncles probably had to clean after I caught them off the dock at ours or my grandmothers cottage. Sun fish, those poor devils; they were no match to the eyes and determination of a 7 year old.

When I was younger we used to go to Florida every February and Myrtle Beach, SC every April. We drove most of the time and stopped at the best seafood places on the east coast. Me, I ordered steak.

My first introduction to real seafood was at the hotel we stayed at in Myrtle Beach a few years called The Patricia. This was a REAL southern place; the cooking, the class of it and right down to only black women and men serving the food and cleaning the rooms. You didn't get a choice of what to order at dinner really; what they cooked is what you ate. One of the choices was what you wanted as an appetizer. I didn't like shrimp at the time so I passed on that but somehow became hooked on crabmeat cocktails. I still don't know what was in them but if I think hard enough I can almost taste it.
Then when I was on the road working as a sales manager for a sports telemarketing company I was sent on an assignment in Sarasota, Florida. My apartment was 3 blocks from the beach and about 10 from a really nice island. My Dad and his wife came to visit me while I was there and although they did take me out for a traditional birthday steak dinner we also had smoked fish at some roadside stand and oysters on the half shell. RAW ones. And I tried them. Goopy but good.

I also discovered crab legs when I was traveling; that's alot of work to get at the meat but wow,..you go to the right place to eat that stuff and there's nothing better. When I was running and account in Massachusetts my Mom and my Aunt came to visit me on my birthday. We went out to dinner to this really nice place and when I ordered lobster tail I thought my Mom was going to fall out of her chair.
I've also introduced people to their first full lobsters and have had in-restaurant tutoring sessions with other people (total strangers even) on the art of cracking crab legs.
So as I said to a waiter at Red Lobster one night "If it has claws and walks sideways...BRING IT!"