Crab is expensive. But it tastes so so SO good.

It’s fiddly to crack and cull the sweet meat out of the shells, but if you don’t mind paying someone the equivalent of your entire babysitting savings for the summer of ’87 to do it for you, then I heartily suggest you do so. If I had to work the great chunk of time it would take to get all the crab I needed to feed the seven people I did for this dish, I’d be too exhausted to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

So I happily paid someone else and blew them a kiss on my way out the store.

I don’t serve this dish often.

I don’t usually make a habit of blowing kisses at fishmongers.

But you may want to after you taste it.

Succulent chunks of lump crab meat, plump, sweet corn, freshly shucked from the cob, creamy, rich avocado, juicy red tomatoes, and the crisp bite of fragrant cucumbers are all nestled beneath a dollop of spicy, tangy cocktail sauce. This is fresh, this is summer, this is pig heaven.

Ingredients

1 large English cucumber, peeled & diced

12 oz. cherry tomatoes, diced

3 ears of freshly shucked, boiled corn sliced from the cob

1 ripe, peeled & diced avocado

8 oz tub of jumbo lump crab meat, gently picked over for shells

salt & pepper

fresh cocktail sauce

1 ½ limes

Directions

Layer 8 glasses first with cukes, then follow with tomatoes and the chunks of corn. Lightly salt and pepper the ingredients in the glass.

Next, add the diced avocado and top with the crab, mounding the glass above the rim.

Lightly salt and pepper again.

Give each glass a generous squirt of lime juice over the ingredients.

Lastly, add a liberal spoonful of the cocktail sauce to the top of the mound.

Now dig in, close your eyes and pretend you’re at the seashore. Hear the ocean roar. No wait, that’s the sound of applause from everyone at the table.

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Don’t forget to check out what I’m blethering on about this week on the main Peak Perspective page (here) and what everyone is talking about down at the pub (here)!