I love lobster. I'm not unusual in this and many others do as well, but not everyone. I think that it is a love/hate food and you immediately know which side of the fence you are on. Last month I was in mid-coast Maine on vacation. I love the area, visit there several times a year, and am planning on moving there in the next few years. Maine is known for lobster, so of course that's what we had to have for dinner.

I went to my favorite lobster purveyor, Jeff of the Oyster River Lobster Company, to pick up a half dozen or so for dinner for me and my guest. As I was grubbing around in the tank helping myself to the big bugs I saw a flash of brilliant blue. Jeff's son, Josh, ran over to help me out and brought out a living jewel, Mr. Blu Genes (see pic). It was an unusual and very rare blue lobster that they were keeping as a mascot. Blue lobsters are found only once in a blue moon, actually the odds are even greater than that. Only one in 3-4 million lobsters are blue, they are even more rare than calico lobsters, but not as rare as a live red/orange lobster, the albino, yellow or the elusive two-tone lobster. My buddy and I played around with the cute little guy for awhile, posing and taking pics, before returning him to his tank.

Then we headed back home with his cousins for a feast of steamed, grilled, caked and chowdered crustaceans to carry us over for a day or two. If you would like to check out some more cool lobster pics you can always go to the U of Maine lobster of the month page for more tasty looking, interesting and weird, deep sea creepy crawlies.

The lobsterman, Alan Robinson, donated the lobster to the Mount Desert Oceanarium in Maine, which has only had 3 two-tone lobsters in its 35 year existence.

A family of cousins went under the knife to have their stomachs removed. The procedure wasn't done to cause them to lose weight, as it is in gastric bypass surgery, but to prevent them from developing what would most likely have been fatal stomach cancer. The particular cancer that runs in their family is very rare and, due to a genetic mutation that they all inherited from a common grandmother, there was a 70% chance that they would develop it. After seeing parents, aunts and uncles die at young ages from the cancer, the decision was one that all the cousins wanted to make.

The surgery involved the removal of not only the stomach, but the surrounding lymph nodes. The esophagus was attached to the intestine directly. Because digestion and nutrient absorption occurs in the intestine, the cousins can still eat and live healthy lives, but they must eat very small amounts, very frequently and often have difficulty putting weight on. There are some foods that no longer agree with them, like ice cream, while other foods are easier to digest, such as small pieces of meat. Even with eating challenges to face, they have all been much happier since their surgeries at the end of 2004, which gave them piece of mind even as it took their stomachs.

As one of the family members, Bill Bradfield, put it: "We're all going to die of something, but I know I won't die of stomach cancer."

I, like so many other people, always assumed that In-N-Out burgers only came one way: well done. The vast majority of fast food burgers are served this way and, while I don't mind the odd crisp edge that appears on well-cooked burgers, many fast food fans lament the lack of juiciness in their meat. Lament no more, In-N-Out fans. According to a post on A Hamburger Today, you can get your burgers cooked medium-rare or rare at In-N-Out restaurants. Someone who identified himself as an In-N-Out associate told them that all you have to do is let the person taking your order know that you want it cooked to a certain doneness.

A fresh, delicious and extra juicy fast food burger? Quick - someone stop by In-N-Out for lunch and try this out. We want to know if it's true!

It is difficult to tell when a steak is done simply by looking at it unless you like your meat very, very rare or very, very well-done. The cooking times given in recipes, if given at all, tend to be vague because the temperatures that our grills and stoves work at can vary so widely. For example, a dial set to "medium heat"  on one stove might actually produce as large a flame as "high heat" in another kitchen. Cutting meat open once at the end of cooking isn't a big deal, but if you need to keep checking the interior of the meat, you can lose a lot of the cooking juices. The best way to check if the meat is done is by using a meat thermometer (125F for rare, 135F for medium, and 155F for well-done, according to Real Simple), but you can also use your hand as a reference and determine the doneness from the firmness of the meat.

I labeled a diagram of a hand, above, to identify the reference points. Simply press the labeled spots on your hand. They correspond with the following levels of doneness:

1. Rare meat should feel soft and offer little resistance to pressure.
2. Medium meat should feel firm, but with a little bit of give to it. The less give, the more well-done the piece will be.
3. Well done meat should also feel firm, but will have only minimal give to it.

Chef Kazuki "Kaz" Yamamoto is on the cutting edge of cuisine. And by "cutting edge," what I mean is that he cooks rare, occasionally immoral, and sometimes outright illegal, foods for those who are willing to pay for them. Based out of Arizona, he travels to homes of rich and/or famous clients and plies them with previously untasted delicacies from his traveling "restaurant, known as "Le Menu". Because his client list includes government officials and gastronomes alike, Yamamoto says he has had few problems in the past obtaining locations, including restaurants, to hold his dinners. When Stephen Lemons, the Phoenix New Times food critic joined in a dinner, he sampled foods such as Saguaro cactus salad, made from the legally protected succulent; tenderloin of Bichon Frise, endangered pygmy owl, roasted and eaten whole, with entrails and bones intact; and nigiri-style seal sushi.

Other items that Yamamoto is famed for include chimpanzee stew (protected), grilled intestines of brown bear (poached from Yosemite), rhino genitals, gila monster, giraffe tongue, monkey tartare and a dozen variations on penguin meat.

Menus already chock-full of details about the soil quality in the area the salad spinach was grown and the precise variety of vanilla in the crème brule are soon going to have another detail: the sire of the steak. Always looking to be on the cutting edge of dining trends, some chefs are getting involved in animal husbandry to custom breed specific, and often rare, varieties of meat for their restaurants. They feel that this gives them an edge over companies that contract with well-known high-end producers. Whether or not there is any truth to the belief that things which are rarer are necessarily better or higher quality, chefs like David Burke are beginning to do things like buy bulls and find farmers to raise what will be a future meal, according to an article (subscription required to read it online) in the Wall Street Journal.