That title was a tongue twister!

For a couple years now we've primarily buying our crabs from Jubilee Seafood Company out of Knotts Island, NC. They have a booth setup at the Old Beach Farmers Market in Virginia Beach on Saturdays and I'm always at the market on the weekend because Jasper would kill me if we didn't go. That's his social time and he even makes me go to Back Bay Brewing and buy him a beer sometimes. He never drinks it, he doesn't even like beer, so I end up having to drink it for him.

Jasper thinks it makes him look cool when he has a beer.

Anyways, back to the crabs. Jubilee has a beautiful crabs, they're usually selling jimmies, but they can do females sometimes too. The prices aren't bad either, on average you can get a bushel of #1s for $130. That's a great deal.

In addition to crabs they sell oysters, shrimp and clams...here let me just cut and paste they weekly letter with the prices:

Hard crab **Please pre-order by Thursday

Jumbo size - $40 dozen or a bushel for $180
# 1 size hard crabs for $25 a dozen or a bushel for $130
# 2 size hard crabs are $20 dozen or a bushel for$70
# 3 female hard crabs $15 dozen or bushel for $65

Littleneck clams - from the Eastern Shore
**Please pre-order by Thursday - we recycle clam/oyster bags.

$35 for a bag of 100 clams
$18 for bag of 50 clams
$10 for bag of 25 clams

Seaside Oysters - from the Eastern Shore **Pre-order by Thursday- we recycle clam/oyster bags

$50 for a bag of 100 oysters
$30 for bag of 50 oysters
$18 for bag of 25 oysters

Live Soft shell crabs** size & costs will vary- haven't seen many in the last few weeks

East Coast Shrimp $14.00 lb

The prices are comparable to what you'd find at the grocery or cheaper but you're also buying from fine folks that locally put the work into bringing a fresh product to the table. Jubilee has their own boats and have been doing this work for over 30 years.

I like to cook them shell down, keeps the juices in, I like to sip it out when I pick. — I like to cook them shell down, keeps the juices in, I like to sip it out when I pick.

Next time you're in the area and want some crabs (while in season of course) check out Jubilee Seafood Company. You'll be happy you did. Here are more photos from our recent Blue Crab dinner with delicious Jubilee jimmies.

Feisty action shot! I've been pinched a few times by these things when catch them. It feels how you imagine it might - not good lol. This kinda reminds me of the Barrel of Monkeys game.

Shelby likes butter when she picks crabs, I love the mud and stuff in the head :)

I've been craving Blue Crabs ever since our anniversary dinner in May when I had some soft shells at Terrapin. Afterwards, I couldn't wait to cook some at home. Problem was, we had to wait till they were in season. They are now! I finally made it out to a couple of shops to grab a few dozen to steam.

Unfortunately, though this year's haul looks like it'll be a bad one again. At least that's what I heard from the area's watermen. It's a shame, I remember being a kid and easily filling up a bucket near the house and taking them home for dinner. The day I was looking, I found a couple of spots that had them in stock.

I first checked G Mart in Virginia Beach, VA. G Mart is one of our groceries that carries hard to find Asian and Latino items. I love these places and I remembered that when Blue Crabs are in season they'll carry them for a decent price. When I walked in headed to the back where they keep the seafood I found what I was looking for--apparently so did everyone else. There was a line to pick live crabs out of a large metal bin. They were priced at $3.99 a pound which was great, but they were all female crabs. I always feel bad eating the females because I figured they should be out in the water making baby crabs. I noticed none of them had egg sacs and they were a decent size. While I was checking them out a man from the back dumped more in the bin. I left to check out another place.

Bonney & Sons Seafood in Sandbridge has been around for a while and probably not a place I would have visited when I was younger because it was far from where I lived. Walking into the shop I noticed a couple of old dogs hanging out, obviously comfortable, knowing they belonged there. The staff was running around filling orders, steaming crabs, and checking the trucks behind the shop that delivered fresh seafood. It was very busy with people coming and going picking up orders of shrimp, fish and crabs.

They have a tank with crabs skittering around running water. There was a huge crab in there that had to be 10 inches from point to point--the biggest I've ever seen. Along the back wall were bushels you could choose from: #1 Jimmies Jumbo and regular and #2s too. The #1 Jimmies (jumbo) were going for $120 a half bushel! I thought about getting them, but that would have been a ton of money to fill a craving. The lowest they had were #2s for about $74 a half bushel. I decided to grab some of them but when they checked the back they were all out of bushels and halfs. Really? They didn't have any available in the large either. By the dozen the crabs were going for $30+ and I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I want to state that I believe they are worth every penny you pay, but I was feeling how light my wallet would feel walking out of there I decided against it.

I ended up going back to G Mart and picking up about 6 dozen crabs at a pretty good price. I took them home and started cooking them. I usually use come cheap beer and Old Bay seasoning, cooking them about 24 minutes in a large, covered pan. While they were cooking I got a pot ready for a shrimp boil and cooked about 1 1/2 lbs of shrimp we could peel. As a bonus, my mother brought over some egg rolls she made! We just about ate everything and the ones we had left over, Shelby and I ate for dinner the next day.

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