Spiney fun

Well, I couldn't resist the spider crab, even though he was pretty pricey. I asked the fishmonger to excavate the dead men's fingers - but he was French and looked at me as if I was mad. Left the crab with him for half an hour to return to a beautifully cleaned body and lots of fingers for me to deal with.

Remnants with weapons of mass shell destruction

It took me a gentle half hour of cracking with pestle and scooping with teaspoon handle to amass a great bowlful of white meat. Very tasty and sweet. And there's bits of shell all over the kitchen...

Crab meat and breadcrumbs

I'd chosen the Edible Seashore recipe for devilled crabcakes - I had most of the ingredients to hand, but pepped up the cream with some lemon juice (original recipe calls for sour cream), and substituted cayenne (which I haven't got at the mo) with paprika. Snipped some chives from the garden and voila, I have my cakes.

They're now resting in the fridge, along with the wild garlic mayonaisse I made when I got home. I'll eat them with some peppery mustards from the garden and some chunks of avacado, and some vingerette made with blackberry vinegar from last year's Paddock harvest.

Thank you, my spiney friend!

Sea food

Hooray! My copy of the latest River Cottage Handbook has just arrived - Edible Seashore by the very wonderful John Wright. (See my picks, right, if you'd like to go to Amazon to get your own.) John's mushroom handbook was brilliant - packed with information and written with such humour that I sat and read it just for the sheer pleasure. Big Bro and I took the mushroom book out for a forage in Sussex last year.

This book looks just as good. It's hard to go for a seafood forage in London W1, but a quick glance in my local Fishworks reveals the presence of spider crabs! Very tempting...

Hmmm - crab cakes with wild garlic mayonaisse for supper tonight?