I'm tempted to try substituting tahini.

Another option is to purchase a mortar and pestle, or a coffee grinder. They're both incredibly useful things to have around, even in a bachelor pad, and they can be quite cheaply obtained.

Only thing is, it has to be a reasonably straight-sided jar to work.

For processing almonds I use a coffee grinder/spice mill that's been superseded as the household coffee grinder. It's one of those cylinder-shaped models with the bowl at the top and a control button on the side. A food processor, blender, or plain old-fashioned kitchen grinder will also work. I like to do a larger batch and keep it in the refrigerator to use as needed.

This recipe really needs almonds, but as a general principle other nuts will also work as thickeners.

And I'm with you on the crabs. I was walking on Canal St. once past one of the fish places, and saw a crab leap out of its basket and latch onto a woman's high heel. It got practically to the end of the block before the fish store guy caught up and reclaimed it. I thought that horribly unfair.

Avram, I love New York, and I love the Web. After I'd written this piece, I got to wondering what the chances were that someone had posted a photo of my usual fishmonger on their website. I didn't even have to throw "New York" into the Googlemix; "Chinatown" plus "fish" were enough.

We should find out what one does with those crabs.

Apparently one taken through a fish-eye lens...

Avram, I'd known about pithing lobsters, and had been assuming the same thing works for crabs. I went looking and found a helpful article about pain management issues in re arthropods. It's a consoling thing to read after that article about the guy who's trying to cook crabs:

Most sea biologists worth their salt (sorry) say that lobsters simply cannot feel pain. In fact, the debate seems to irk some researchers.

93If one is worried about the lobster or the mussel, then one should be nicer to the fly and the mosquito as well,94 quipped Dr. Tom Neuhaus, a food science professor at California Poly at San Luis Obispo. 93They have a similar central nervous system and similar awareness. They, too, are arthropods, just smaller, but similarly endowed. ...

Crustaceans simply don92t have the equipment to feel pain, Neuhaus said. They have no way of knowing that you are holding them over a boiling pot, planning to eat them. 93It92s even doubtful that they would feel the plunge of a knife,94 he said. But 93certainly, they feel aversion.94

93It takes only a few neurons to know when to retract your tentacles,94 he said. 93And they know when surroundings are hot or cold, vinegary, salty, etc. But they don92t feel hysteria, they don92t feel impending doom, they don92t feel desperation.94Glad to hear it. I've spent some happy hours in Baltimore-area restaurants.

It turns out, by the way, that crabs are different; they have two nerve centers you have to take out, front and rear, which might account for that harrowed cook only having partial success pithing his.

I think I'd find it easier to go with the article's other suggested method, which is to put them into a tub of salted ice slurry before steaming them. Cold makes them sleepy, and at temperatures that low they'll drop off and never wake up. It moves the whole thing out of Jonathan Edwards' territory and into Dylan Thomas'.

(I recall a Vietnamese restaurant in Vancouver where the menu claimed that the crabs in a certain dish had been gotten drunk on Courvoisier before they were cooked. I was poorer in those days and couldn't afford to check it out, but I've wondered about it ever since.)

Greg, it took me way too long to catch that pun of yours. Like a slurried arthropod, I now slowly register pain. (Also giggle a lot, which arthropods never do.)

Beth, yes, that does seem awfully unfair -- sort of a crab version of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. It's funny; most of us are happy to eat animals, but when one of them manages a heroic escape we're instantly on its side. Earlier this year, I had the same reaction everyone else did when that cow managed to jump the fence at a slaughterhouse and go on the lam for several days: yay rah, go cow go! And yet I'll probably enjoy a steak dinner tonight, and feel no conflict about it.

Dave, not meaning to pry, but is there a short version of why cooked scallops are deadly to you and raw ones aren't?

Oh, and on the utterly tangential level, I was delighted to see, on the wall of a fishmonger on Canal Street, a handwritten ad for an experienced fish-cleaner. The ad was in only one language: español. I guess if you don't speak Spanish, you can't talk to the other staff.

In truth, I don't trust any fishmonger except maybe Garden of Eden, and their prices are piratical. As a general rule, I wash everything I get before I cook it, and I make sure it gets thoroughly cooked. I trust my nose; it's not hard to tell a scrupulously clean fish store from one that's slightly less scrupulous. I also refuse to buy anything from anyone if it doesn't have that slight supernatural glow you only see on exceedingly fresh fish. I've learned by hard experience that no amount of hoping and praying or clever recipes will revive a stale fish.

Which store do I go to? I get off the N, R, Q, or W at Canal and start heading east. I pass three fishmongers on my right -- the first on one block, and the second and third on another block. I go to the second one. It smells cleaner, the fish look better, and there always seem to be more ferocious little old Chinese and Pilipina ladies buying their fish there.

I've discovered that you get treated a bit more cordially in some of the other Chinatown shops if they notice you're schlepping fresh fish bought in their neighborhood. It's one definition of local.

And your description of the eagerly waiting scallops brought back my first glimpse of APA:NESFA (no, I won't say how far back that was), where the late Drew Whyte had a piece involving a masochistic golf ball....