left-handed hook shots off the drive. I invented dribbling and passing drills for myself, and I played imaginary games from start to finish in my head. Those imaginary games, populated by a whole nation of made-up players, were my first attempts at writing short stories, and all the games ended the same way, with me in a heroic, winner-take-all, last-second shot on a drive down the lane with my invisible enemies closing the lane down around me. Hard labor, great food, basketball—I had everything—the best summer of my life.
CRAB CAKES Somewhere, lost in the high alps of
Beach Music
, the narrator, Jack McCall, evidently gives out his recipe for crab cakes to someone. So when I sign books in faraway cities, people often ask me about that recipe for crab cakes, and I write it out for them. I think I make the best crab cakes and shrimp salad in the world, and I will take on all comers.
I became so connected to the crab cake during the
Beach Music
tour that I was invited on the
Good Morning America
show to cook crab cakes for Charlie Gibson. I love everything about Charlie Gibson except the time I have to get up for the show. It is usually five in the morning, and my habits are such that years go by when I never see the planet at five in the morning. But, for the crab cake session, they forced me to rise at 4 a.m. so I could prove to a staff member that I could actually cook a crab cake. I learned this only when I got to the studio and was met by the staffer herself, a pretty, self-confident woman dressed in a chef’s apron.
“Do you really know how to cook a crab cake?” she asked. “If you can’t, I’ll show you how to do it.”
“I’m from the coast of South Carolina,” I said. “In the summer I set a crab pot every day.”
“But can you cook a crab cake?” She pointed to three containers of picked blue crabmeat.
I washed my hands thoroughly and began to pick over the crab, removing all shell fragments and ligaments.
“Why are you doing that?” the young woman asked me. “No one’s going to eat them.”
“Then I will eat them,” I said. “This is beautiful crabmeat.”
“Ah!” she said. “Why don’t you use any breading, like sodacrackers?”
“If I wanted soda crackers, I would eat a soda cracker. I like crab, just crab.”
If memory serves me right, I used a scallion that day instead of the snipped chives in the recipe below, and I tossed in some capers and chopped red pepper for effect.
I gave the young woman one to taste; she said, “This is delicious!”
So I went live on TV across the nation, where my only surprise was that Charlie Gibson peppered me with so many questions I discovered I could not cook and talk at the same time. Charlie is animated and cheerful in the early-morning hours, and he asked questions about every phase of the assemblage of the proper, well-schooled crab cake. When the ordeal was over, I was exhausted, but edified when a charge of cameramen who descended like vultures for the carcass of a possum devoured those crab cakes in the time it took to do one commercial.
One of them said, “No one is hungrier than cameramen who work the morning shows. No one.”
And the pretty young woman who made me prove that I knew my way around crabmeat? I did not get her name at five in the morning. I was channel-grazing years later when I saw her on the Food Network, and I recognized her immediately. Whenever I see Sara Moulton on her wonderful cooking show, I always think of crab. • MAKES 8
1 pound lump crabmeat, picked over and cleaned, with all shell fragments removed
1 egg white, lightly beaten (until just foamy, not stiff)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons finely snipped fresh chives
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons coarse or kosher salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons peanut oil
Lemon wedges
1. Place the cleaned crabmeat in a medium mixing bowl. Pour the egg white over crabmeat
CRAB CAKES Somewhere, lost in the high alps of
Beach Music
, the narrator, Jack McCall, evidently gives out his recipe for crab cakes to someone. So when I sign books in faraway cities, people often ask me about that recipe for crab cakes, and I write it out for them. I think I make the best crab cakes and shrimp salad in the world, and I will take on all comers.
I became so connected to the crab cake during the
Beach Music
tour that I was invited on the
Good Morning America
show to cook crab cakes for Charlie Gibson. I love everything about Charlie Gibson except the time I have to get up for the show. It is usually five in the morning, and my habits are such that years go by when I never see the planet at five in the morning. But, for the crab cake session, they forced me to rise at 4 a.m. so I could prove to a staff member that I could actually cook a crab cake. I learned this only when I got to the studio and was met by the staffer herself, a pretty, self-confident woman dressed in a chef’s apron.
“Do you really know how to cook a crab cake?” she asked. “If you can’t, I’ll show you how to do it.”
“I’m from the coast of South Carolina,” I said. “In the summer I set a crab pot every day.”
“But can you cook a crab cake?” She pointed to three containers of picked blue crabmeat.
I washed my hands thoroughly and began to pick over the crab, removing all shell fragments and ligaments.
“Why are you doing that?” the young woman asked me. “No one’s going to eat them.”
“Then I will eat them,” I said. “This is beautiful crabmeat.”
“Ah!” she said. “Why don’t you use any breading, like sodacrackers?”
“If I wanted soda crackers, I would eat a soda cracker. I like crab, just crab.”
If memory serves me right, I used a scallion that day instead of the snipped chives in the recipe below, and I tossed in some capers and chopped red pepper for effect.
I gave the young woman one to taste; she said, “This is delicious!”
So I went live on TV across the nation, where my only surprise was that Charlie Gibson peppered me with so many questions I discovered I could not cook and talk at the same time. Charlie is animated and cheerful in the early-morning hours, and he asked questions about every phase of the assemblage of the proper, well-schooled crab cake. When the ordeal was over, I was exhausted, but edified when a charge of cameramen who descended like vultures for the carcass of a possum devoured those crab cakes in the time it took to do one commercial.
One of them said, “No one is hungrier than cameramen who work the morning shows. No one.”
And the pretty young woman who made me prove that I knew my way around crabmeat? I did not get her name at five in the morning. I was channel-grazing years later when I saw her on the Food Network, and I recognized her immediately. Whenever I see Sara Moulton on her wonderful cooking show, I always think of crab. • MAKES 8
1 pound lump crabmeat, picked over and cleaned, with all shell fragments removed
1 egg white, lightly beaten (until just foamy, not stiff)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons finely snipped fresh chives
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons coarse or kosher salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons peanut oil
Lemon wedges
1. Place the cleaned crabmeat in a medium mixing bowl. Pour the egg white over crabmeat
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