I love food. I love to cook it, I love to learn about it, I love to eat it. But most of all, I love the community that it brings. Food is a bridge between languages, cultures, opinions, misunderstandings– the list goes on. I love to cook and eat with my friends, and my favorite memory of this is having a seafood boil with a best friend’s family in the summer of 2023.

The ageless, crystalline waters of Lake George have a way of lapping at the hull of a boat that sounds more like they’re singing to you. I’m here! I’m here! Come on in, the water’s fine. See why I am The Queen of American Lakes. The waters sang to me as I mogged through Friend’s Point Bay in my little yellow fishing boat, passing the houses of friends and family, watching little fish dart away from the hull, the sunlight through the water catching their scales like a disco ball. I was on my way to my friend Laura’s grandparent’s house for their seafood boil. 

As I neared the end of my drive, I double checked I had everything with me, that nothing had fallen out on my short, slow journey across the bay. A cooler with sodas and Cool Whip. Check. A bag of napkins and plastic utensils. Check. Bugspray- just in case. Check, check, check.

And so I docked, throwing an extra half hitch on the cleat for my bow line in case the wind picked up. I could already hear laughing and faint music from uphill of the dock. The grass was soft against my bare feet as I trekked up the lawn, following the sound of laughing voices and the smell of a campfire. Soon enough, I saw my friend.

“Laura!” I called out, watching in fear as every single person there turned to me. Oops. 

“Lucy! Come over here, we’re gonna start soon.” Laura jogged over to me, giving me a quick hug before bringing me towards her family.

Handshakes upon handshakes and introductions upon introductions later, I was freed from the litany of questions and conversations about me, how I know Laura, how long I’m in New York- you can imagine how it continues. 

So, finally, we reached the boil part of the seafood boil. A mesh bag full of lobsters, crab legs, corn, potatoes, Andouille sausage, clams, and scallops was thrown into the cast iron soup pot full of water, spices, bouquets garnis and sachets d’epices. Laura and I were assigned table duty, so we dutifully set the table, poured glasses of water, neatly folded napkins and tucked them under the silverware. We were just coming out from the house with a tray of bows of melted butter when the first batch was done.

Steam erupted from the industrial size serving pan at the end of the table as pounds of hot food were dumped into it. Whole lobsters piled on top of spindly King crab legs, an errant potato here or there bounced off of something and rolled to the ground. 

To say we ate our fill would be the understatement of the century. Between the two of us, Laura and I ate seven whole lobsters, the crack and crunch of the shells only momentarily interrupted by requests for another napkin, a potato, some pieces of sausage. Food and friendship flowed steadily, like the ancient springs that supplied our dear Lake George.