The winner: How to kill and cook a crab

This recipe won Tundra Telegraph's Great Alaskan Recipes contest.

One day my friend Carla calls my friend Bree and asks if she can borrow a big stock pot. Bree said that she could so we headed over to drop it off. I waited in the car and read catalogs while she ran in to give the pot to Carla. Just as I was beginning to think it was taking her a long time, Bree came out of the house holding a box. The look on her face was a sight to behold.

"She gave me some crabs," Bree said, her face all wrinkled up.
"Crabs? Like as in LIVE crabs?" I asked.
"Yeah," Bree replied, a hint of pleading within her voice. I sighed my most long suffering sigh and said,
"I suppose you want ME to take care of the little buggers, right?"
Yep, that was the plan.
Bree said "I can't kill them."
I told her "They have tiny little brains smaller than a pea. They just live to eat. You can step on a spider can't you? Just think of them as big crunchy spiders." She wasn't convinced.

So we took the crabs back to work. I went in the kitchen and started putting gloves on.

"What are you doing?" asked Jordan, one of our employees.
"Bree has crabs. I'm going to help her," I said as I snapped a rubber glove on my hand.
"What?" Jordan said, confused.
"She has crabs... I have to help her take care of them." I said again.
Looking concerned, Jordan said "Don't you think she would want to keep that private?"
I glanced back at Jordan, shrugged my shoulders and said "Naaaah."

As I walked out of the house I had a procession of people following me out. Seems they were not so concerned with Bree's privacy after all.

Now when most people buy crabs they get them at a grocery store where they have already been legged out, cooked, and flash frozen. All you have to do is defrost them, warm 'em up and eat. Not these guys. These were the freshest of the fresh, just off the jet from Nome.
I told Bree that if I was going to take care of the crabs she at least had to hold one. She was not happy but finally agreed.

Just when she was thinking it wasn't so bad...

...the thing moved.

Everybody has their own preference for cooking crab. Some people use the biggest pot they have and stick the buggers whole in boiling water. I've never used that method for two reasons. First, while I don't really mind killing them, the thought of dispatching them in a pot of boiling water is too gruesome for me. Second, when they are whole they take up too much damn room in the pot. I use a different method.

First you flip them over on their back. You place the toe of your boot firmly on their butt.

Then you reach down and grab them by the front legs and pull up on their front legs. This causes the crab to come away from your foot leaving it's butt and guts behind and allows all the inner blue liquid to drain out. It's generally nasty but it's quick.

Next you flip the crab back right side up and let everything keep draining out and you're done. All that's left now is to remove the legs from the body and wash them. As far as I know crab needs to be kept alive until you're ready to cook them. If you don't want to eat them right away you need to cook them before you freeze them.