Sea urchins, on the face of it, are not likely candidates for the title of Sexiest Seafood. Their spiny shells make them look like porcupines of the sea, and give little hint of the outrageously creamy, briny decadence that they contain. But this saffron-hued roe, whose complex, salty-sweet-sharp flavor profile is beloved by chefs, is now making diners swoon.

David Chang has been using sea urchin roe on his menu at Momofuku Ssam Bar and Ko for a long while, and now Michael White is making them the star of his menu at his new restaurant, Marea. A great article tomorrow in WSJ. magazine provides a peek at both White's droolingly anticipated new restaurant and at sea urchin, which is pictured in all of its spiny, golden glory.

Learn about the delectably slimy urchins after the jump.

Financial times are tough, but lobster is newly affordable!

If you consider lobster out of your financial reach normally, you'll be surprised and delighted to find that the financial crisis has hit shellfish. According to this article in the New York Times, lobster is as much as $4 less expensive than this time last year at markets in New York City.

Apparently, while less-well-funded fish have had problems, lobster fisheries have become quite successful and sustainable over the years, meaning that there's just as much if not more product available. People aren't willing to pay what they used to for lobster right now, and they don't have to.

Perhaps this is your chance to dive into this elite culinary world for the first time! Start here to figure out what to do with lobster (from killing to grilling), and enjoy your luxurious dinner!

Slashfood confession time. I, Annie Scott, am addicted to imitation crab.

It's so colorful and friendly, and you can buy it by the pound! Normally, I'm pretty averse to food that doesn't really look like ... food, but the juicy texture! The way it separates in my mouth! It's just dry enough to eat as a finger food and oh, you bet I do eat it as a finger food.

My worst vice? Dipping it in pesto. Seriously, give me a small vat of pesto and a styro-wrapped pound of imitation crab and you have just bought yourself peace and quiet. For like, an hour.

It has a great balance of protein and carbs, fills me up, and is more fun than (and cheap as) a can of tuna fish. And it's delicious.

I don't recommend it for parties, because everyone knows it's not "real" food, but for the comfort of your own private snacking delight? There is no substitute for imitation crab.

They're slippery. They're slimy. And they're alive.

This coming week, Fine Living Network will be airing episodes of our favorite Iron Chef Japan in which creatures of the deep are battled every night at 11/10 Central. Watch as these chefs attack and cook living sea creatures in a way that makes you wonder if you're a bad person for watching. This is an excellent week for anyone who hasn't had enough Halloween, or likes Animal Planet and wishes Japanese chefs could be involved.

Not for the squeamish, these squirmy seafoods do get slaughtered right in front of your very eyes. Mother nature would be proud watching the food chain established so aggressively, but your mother might think you need therapy. You be the judge!

Oh, and click here for the Iron Chef Drinking Game.

I'm taking a break from my usual wine beat for the next few posts to tell you about some foodie treasures I found on the California coast last week. Abalone has been prized in Asia for centuries. Its iridescent shell is beautiful; the firm-textured fresh meat inside is delicious in everything from a stir fry (baby abalone) to a meaty full-size steak (a six-year-old abalone). Every part of the abalone is used--the shells for jewelry and furniture and guitar inlays, the viscera in pharmaceutical research, and of course the meat for food.

When The Abalone Farm was founded off of California's central coast in 1969, researchers hadn't even studied the abalone's life cycle in enough detail to discover that they would soon have a serious underpopulation problem on their hands. Abalone was once plentiful along the west coast, but harvesters and researchers didn't know it can take up to five years for a single abalone to reach full size. Overharvesting and pollution caused the eventual ban of commercial wild harvest, but there's still high demand for abalone, says Brad Buckley, sales manager at The Abalone Farm, mostly in the U.S. for sushi and steaks. The company raises more than 1 million abalone each year, but because abalone take about four years to reach full size, the Farm has around four million abalone in various stages of production.

There's a lot of talk about sustainable seafood versus farm-raised, but with abalone, you don't have to choose the lesser of two evils. The Abalone Farm is a part of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium's Sustainable Seafood Watch program, where it's rated a "Best Choice." I had a breaded and fried version while there, but some say the ultimate expression of abalone is in sushi, raw, crunchy, and tasting of the sea.

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. The boxes can range from austere lacquered trays to multi-tiered Hello Kitty confections of neon pink plastic. The meals themselves are anything from rice and leftovers to elaborate themed affairs of Pikachu-shaped dumplings with sesame seed eyes and carved radish trees. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Today's bento take food art to potentially dangerous heights of cuteness while appearing to retain its essential edibility. The rice kitty reclines contentedly on a bed of seafood and veggies, her whiskers tiger stripes rendered in nori (seaweed), her paws and ears in what appears to be lunch meat. Dig into this with a fork, and PETA will be be at your door faster than you can say "mink coat."

Last week I wrote my first post about The Next Food Network Star, having never seen it before. Thanks to those of you who gave me a heads up about show details and juice from past seasons. My plan is to just enjoy the show for what it is, and to try not to harp on the contestants too much. I'll admit that I'm easily entertained (I do sometimes watch old Sesame Street videos on YouTube), but I find the show pretty funny, and it's not like I have better things to do than watch TV and write about it. So join me in celebrating the absurdity of it all -- it could be fun.

• Do plants have rights? Yes, if Switzerland has anything to say about it
• A sweet BioBag discovery
• Some organic food options for your furry friends
• Brits throw about about 1/3 of all their food
• Want to volunteer on an organic farm? Here's how
• Vegan bodybuilding: yes, it exists
• More reasons to be wary of seafood (or to go vegetarian)
• Bizarre food news: China grows huge food in outer space; ready-to-eat bugs
• Is your twice-a-day cheeseburger habit contributing to climate change?
• Good news for eco-friendly coffee growers
• Apples getting a little soft? Here's how to use them up
• What's your favorite ketchup company doing to stay green?
• Grow your food in a box

It's my final semester of college, and I'm taking Literature of the Great Depression to finish my English major. I think that my professor often feels badly, though, about assigning texts that are just so darn depressing, so she often opens class with a cheerful question like, "What's your favorite type of pie?" or "What's your favorite breakfast?" Recently, she asked us what our favorite thing about Spring is, and I knew instantly that mine is the delicious new food and produce that Spring brings. Clearly, there's no better way to celebrate these bright new ingredients than with entire festivals dedicated to them! This weekend, we have homages to asparagus, seafood, beer, more seafood, seafood and (my favorite) maple.

Read on after the jump to see where to go for the party, and meanwhile check out these lovely photos from last week's Great American Pie Festival.

The Boston International Seafood Show is being held starting tomorrow, Sunday Feb. 24 and going through Tues. 26, 2008. The event is located at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center from 10am-5pm on the 24 & 25th, 10am-3pm on the 26th. This is the largest seafood show in North America. If you love seafood and are within a few hours drive of Boston then this is where you should be over the next few days. You will see every type of fish and shellfish there is on display. Experience all the new seafood based products, try samples of value added goods like smoked fish, chowders, pate's, dips, gourmet items, you name it.

I have heard about the show for several years and just haven't been able to schedule it in. This year I gave it top priority and I am going to be joining one of Maine's top, multiple award winning chefs, Carl Johnson, owner of what is one of the best smokehouses on the East Coast, Grindstone Neck of Maine and The Fishermans Inn & Restaurant, both located in Winter Harbor, ME. Carl has been written up in several magazines and newspapers. Last year his incredible smoked crab claws were near the top of the list of Saveur Magazines Top 100 2007. Over the past few months I have been chatting with him as he develops new products. Late last fall he told me about his foray into cold smoked uni. he had made a batch and thought it was really good, but didn't see much of a local market. For New Years I asked him to make me a batch and he graciously did. I coordinated a special event at a local Sushi restaurant where we served this paired with a sweet potato shochu, an elegant Japanese spirit, to huge success. Now I will be delivering some of this incredible product to several restaurants in NYC so they can try it, as well as the test kitchen of one of the best food magazines in the country. Expect to hear more about Grindstone Neck of Maine's cold smoked uni.

I look forward to exploring what is happening in the world of seafood with Carl. I couldn't ask for a more knowledgeable guide. Half chef / half molecular gastronomist, he is sure to have valuable insight into the show. See you there!

Though I am personally not a big fan of seafood in general and shrimp in particular, I know that I am in the minority on this one. Most of the world's population loves shrimp. This fact plays out in a bad way in Jamaica.

For years, people in the mountains of Jamaica were able to catch giant shrimp in the rivers there. They would catch them in the old fashioned way, which was, of course, slow and difficult. And, just like throwing dynamite into the ocean to catch fish in Asia, someone came up with a quick new way to catch a lot of shrimp quickly for some fast cash. They dump some kind of poison into the river, instantly killing the shrimp (and everything else), which then float to the top. They're easy to catch that way.

The good news is that a lot of local people have joined a movement to stop this crime. They're taking steps to catch perpetrators, educate local judges (so offenders won't be simply released), and stop the poachers from selling their ill gotten gains at the market. Hopefully they'll be able to put a stop to this before the shrimp is gone for good or the environment is permanently damaged or both.

When Slashfood alum Nick Vagnoni wrote about fish in Florida restaurants being served under misleading guises a year-and-a-half ago, we thought that officials would take care of the problem.

Apparently, a year-and-a-half later, the problem is still around. The Statesman Journal is reporting that restaurants in many parts of Florida are still passing off Asian catfish, tilapia or other cheaper species like emperor fish, hake, sutchi, bream and green weakfish as grouper. It's not the other fish are unhealthy or taste bad. In fact, it probably tastes just fine. It's that real grouper costs something like $20 a pound and the other fish are much cheaper.

Why don't restaurants just serve whatever fake grouper they're serving as what they really are?

"
Safer and better" than what? you may be asking yourself.

After a year of food (and toy) safety problems on their record including tainted seafood, the Chinese government is instituting programs and regulations to restore confidence in the safety of their seafood exports. Among the measures are a crackdown on the use of illegal antibiotics that have been shown to cause cancer and a focus on pollution and water-quality problems.

Let's hope they get it together, since much of the world has to turn to China's land-based fish farms as ocean waters become increasingly depleted by overfishing.

This might be just because I'm not a big seafood fan in the first place (except for some fish, clams, and scallops), but I find oysters a rather odd food to even think about eating. The way it must feel when it's going down your throat...gah. I wouldn't eat one for a million dollars.*

But I know that a lot of you out there love them, and Esquire has everything you need to know about buying and eating them: what they are, the difference between East Coast and West Coast oysters, how to shuck them (including the equipment you'll need), and a few companies where you can buy the best oysters in the country.

Oyster lovers, rejoice!

* This is a lie. I actually would eat one for a million dollars.

Fish is a meat that is really popular in restaurants, but somewhat less so at home. Those who love to fish and those who really dedicate a lot of time to cooking probably cook it frequently and might even use a moderately wide variety of fish, but most home cooks that I know tend to stick with a couple of dishes or a couple of preparations that they really like. For a fish-lover, this is a shame because there is a huge variety of fish available and an almost unlimited number of preparations for them. Go Fish: Fresh Ideas for American Seafood aims to expand the repertoire of seafood fans, introducing new flavors, techniques and possibly even a few new fish.

The dishes sound wonderful and use flavors from all over the world. They include Ricotta Tortellini with Grilled Sardines, Sea Bass Ceviche, Mussel Soup with Red Curry and Coconut and Bacon-Wrapped Hake with Chilled Artichoke Broth, to name just a handful. The only thing to watch out for with this book is that, though the recipes seem quite straightforward with their instructions, they can be more complicated than a novice cook might be used to, so this book seems to be best suited for experienced cooks looking for new ideas or those who like spending time in the kitchen on the weekends when they can devote time (without a week-night rush) to cooking a great meal.