Lobster With the Guru of Good Life

The cooking water should be salted (like lobsters' natural habitat) and should be boiling hard when the lobsters are put in. If you don't have a pot big enough to cook all your lobsters together, use several separate pots at once.

If you really want to get serious about big pots of boiling water, there are two ways to do so: You can build a fire pit in your backyard and hang a giant kettle over the fire, or you can buy what's called a single-burner candy stove, which is fueled by propane.

This type of stove is portable and can be found at your local restaurant equipment supplier (or often in any Chinatown, if you happen to live near one). Use a large, inexpensive enameled pot with a 20- to 34-quart capacity -- nothing fancy needed here.

Another benefit of smaller lobsters is that they take less time to cook. Usually 8-10 minutes is plenty of time, after the water returns to a boil. Cook the lobsters, covered, in plenty of water, and keep the pot covered until they're ready to be served.

Let's Eat

Serve your cooked lobsters whole, and give everyone crackers and those tiny little forks for coaxing the little bits of meat from the lobster knuckles (arguably the best part).

And always have your lobsters with melted butter. Buy the highest-quality salted butter you can find, and to prepare "drawn" butter, leave about a stick per lobster out at room temperature for a few hours.

This will allow the butter to soften, so you won't have to boil it excessively -- this would end up clarifying it (which separates out the solids). And we don't want clarified butter, because it doesn't taste as good.

Butter consists of butterfat and milk solids, which when combined, have a superb flavor. If any of those are missing, it just doesn't taste the same. What you want is a suspension of fat and milk solids, so that when you dip, you can season the lobster with all those fantastic flavors.

I like to add a layer of flavor to my drawn butter by adding some browned milk solids. All you have to do for this is boil down a little heavy cream till it browns and caramelizes, and then pour that into the freshly melted butter -- a pint of cream for every pound of butter is just about right. This is one little extra that will take your lobster boil over the top.

The best part of a lobster boil is the eating because it's delicious, of course, but also because you get a chance to be involved with your food. If you are eating with your summer love, feed the lobster to him or to her and see what happens -- and just hope he or she isn't one of the squeamish ones!

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For more info on Rocco DiSpirito, please visit roccodispirito.com or click here to find his cookbooks.

Note: Rocco is shooting his new TV show, and he's looking for people with a dramatic situation in their lives involving food. Worried about that engagement dinner with your picky mother-in-law? Trying to win back that ex-girlfriend who's still mad at you for cheating on her? Trying to bury the hatchet with that outcast uncle at your family reunion cookout? Rocco wants to help you! Please email with your problem and we will contact you!

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