I cooked a lobster last week. The fishmonger at Ranch 99 plucked him from the tank, and held him up so I could watch him kick. I took him home, put it in the freezer for 15 minutes to put him to sleep while I boiled some water. I took the lobster out of the freezer; he was very much awake, despite my efforts. I snapped a few photos for posterity as he slid around the countertop, rubber bands rendering his main defensive mechanism inoperative. I put him headfirst in the pot and put the lid on. He’s the biggest thing I’ve ever killed myself.

To be totally honest, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. I’m not ready to return to former vegetarian ways, but the whole process really did make me begin to value the meat and seafood counters we so often take for granted. After the 15 minutes of cooking, I got out the fork and hammer and dug out everything edible from inside the tough orange exterior. I strained the cooking water, then returned the still-flavorful shell to the pot and covered it with water to begin a second round of stock.

The lobster claw turned into a salad with fennel, oranges, parmesan crutons, and meyer lemon vinaigrette. The tail meat became a sandwich filling, mixed with red onion and cornichons and bound with homemade mayo. This week, the stock became the base for a saffron risotto. I’ve gotten three meals and counting out of my lobster friend, and I started asking myself: do I do the same with a lamb shoulder? With a pork chop?

Soul-searching aside, here’s what I learned about lobster: boiling is messy because water spills out everywhere when you try and open the cooked animal. I’d actually have preferred to steam but my pot wasn’t big enough to steam my 3-pounder. Boiling does get you a beautiful light-flavored cooking liquid; strain it and use it. However you cook your lobster, the only real ways to mess it up are to not have your water boiling from the start (this stresses the lobster, and it’s also inhumane) or to overcook the beast. With respect to the latter, the Maine Lobster Council has published a nice lobster timing table. While serving lobster in the shell might make your diners work a bit more than they would like, it is also a nice way to keep the meat piping hot.

Also, if you do it right, butter is superfluous. Lobster is a treat on its own.

I made a New Year’s Resolution to cook dinner for my girlfriend U— at least once a week. We chose our current apartment in no small part because of its kitchen; I aim to get more value from our investment. I also ordered a bi-weekly CSA box – the kind filled with fruits and veggies that gets delivered to your porch. The first delivery was filled with kale, squash, apples and my absolute favorite kind of citrus: meyer lemons.

To make the first dinner a little more special, I opened a bottle of wine we’ve been holding onto ever since a trip to Napa last year. On that trip, we visited a small winery called Duckhorn, where we sat on the nice sunny porch and enjoyed a tasting of about five wines. Neither of us are wine experts by any means (although I hold that U— has an unusually accurate palate, though she’s not convinced), but we both remember the Cab and the Sauvignon Blanc from that day. We were almost ready to leave, when U— decided she couldn’t go back without a bottle of the white.

Before I started cooking, I held up the squash and asked U— what we should name it. Her exact words: “The only word I can think of is ‘Gubernatorial.’” After his christening, Gubernatorial was quartered and baked as the first step in prepping the ingredients.

The spicy pork sausages were next – pan-fried and deglazed with water (normally you’d want to use wine, but this night’s wine wouldn’t have been appropriate for cooking). The garlic was sautéed with red pepper flakes in the leftover sausage drippings and a little olive oil. Then came kale, salt, and a splash of water. While working, I zested one of the meyer lemons from the box and saved the zest for the squash, then halved the lemon, squeezing one half over the finished kale.

On the other burner, I got some butter sizzling and then added some chopped thick bacon, plus chopped onion after the bacon had cooked for awhile. When the onions softened, I added chopped apples, caraway seeds, salt, and the lemon zest, finishing the fry-up with the butternut squash (baked, peeled and chunked) and a squeeze from the other half of the lemon.