CULINARY CONFESSIONS

"The Night the Lobsters Played Wingman"

It started as a simple dinner plan. Okay, maybe "simple" isn't the right word when you're trying to seduce a yacht captain with lobster thermidor at midnight. But I had it all planned out – the candlelight, the wine, my dress that was just this side of scandalous, and a cooking sequence timed to perfection.

What I hadn't planned on? Four very lively lobsters deciding my carefully choreographed seduction needed a plot twist.

Picture this: There I am, in a dress that cost more than my first car and heels that could double as weapons, when I hear it. That distinctive clicking sound of claws on tile. I open the kitchen door to find my carefully selected crustaceans making a break for it across my Charleston kitchen floor like some kind of seafood prison break. And, dear readers, chasing seafood was NOT what this outfit was designed for.

Have you ever tried to wrangle lobsters in six-inch Louboutins? Let me tell you, it's not covered in culinary school or any dating manual I've ever read.

That's when the doorbell rings. Because of course it does.

James stands there, looking like every sin I've ever wanted to commit, only to find me sprawled on my kitchen floor, dress riding up in ways my mama wouldn't approve of, chasing what he later called "the great lobster rebellion of 2024."

Instead of the elegant dinner I planned, we spent the next hour corralling escapees, his jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, showing off forearms that deserved their own Instagram account. Every time we reached for the same lobster, the temperature in that kitchen rose another ten degrees – and it wasn't from the stove.

The lobster thermidor never happened. We ended up ordering pizza and eating it on my kitchen floor, drinking hundred-dollar wine from paper cups while keeping a wary eye on the lobster pot – now secured with two cutting boards and my heaviest cookbook. His tie had come loose, my hair had come down, and somehow the evening had turned out even steamier than I'd planned.

"Best first date ever," he said, helping me slide another board on top as a particularly determined claw pushed up the corner of "Joy of Cooking." The way he looked at me then, I knew we weren't just talking about the lobsters anymore.

Sometimes the best recipes are the ones that go completely off-script. And sometimes, four escaped lobsters make better wingmen than any carefully planned menu ever could.