Ed starts each day listening to news while I avoid it. At least, until I'm awake and alert and ready to face things that might ruin my new day. Coffee must be ready. And, I still take my first news of the day in the form of a Boston Globe. If there is breaking news that has any relevance to my life, I know Ed will tell me. This morning he told me that we had lost James Hook Lobster to a fire overnight.
We talked about the day we went in for rock crabs and asked what those larger crabs were. "Dungeness," said the person assisting us, "You should try one." We tried two and switched our crab allegiance that day.
We remembered picking up our lobster orders early on Christmas eves with lines of people ahead of us.
Thank you James Hook for the years of Dungeness and for the best Christmas Eve lobsters and for preserving an old Boston landmark until that decision was taken out of your hands.
We hope you'll come back in some form so we can visit and ask you questions and get answers that come from generations of experience
Naturally, I turned to a special Boston community to share the loss. Those who appreciate high quality food were sharing their thoughts on Chowhound.com. My message there read,
"Don't postpone what you really want to do. I have been meaning to get over to J. Hook to do a full photo shoot to write a feature on them for BostonZest.com. It didn't reach the top of my list.
I was just thinking about the day they introduced me to Dungeness Crab. It is a good business, and I hope they do return. They were always ready to answer questions with sage advice and years of experience. And, they always delivered first quality goods.
Of course, it will no longer be one of the places of "character" in Boston but maybe they will find a way to make us happy with the new version.
If anyone has photos of the original building, I would love to feature them with full photo credit and a link to your site. You can reach me through my site."
The photo above was borrowed from James Hook's site before it was replaced by a message about the fire. Chowhound member, Bostonbob3, pointed me to this one as his favorite. I hope they won't mind.
Here is another link to photos that was a response to my photo request on. It is from Greg MacKay's Flicker site. Nice work Greg.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=hook&w=39656217%40N00
Details:
For the time when you can use it and for the news link until then.
http://www.jameshooklobster.com/seafood/frozen-seafood/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/05/fire_destroys_l.html
Chowhound.com memories and good wishes
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/523973
