A Late Summer Crab Boil, Gathered Around the Table

There's a particular kind of late summer evening that only happens a few times a year. The air finally loosens up after a hot day, the light goes long and gold, and everyone you love happens to be free at the same time. That's the night we pulled out the big enamelware stockpot, this one with Lucy, our octopus, grinning up from the side of it and made a crab boil.

I'm not sure there's a better way to feed a crowd outside. No plates to speak of, no real place settings, just newspaper down the length of the table and a stack of our own kitchen towels doing double duty as napkins and bibs. It's the most unfussy kind of feast, and somehow that's exactly what makes it feel like an occasion. Of course you could do a lobster boil instead of crab, but we wanted to try something a bit different (for us, anyway), and the king crab legs were in at Captain Marden’s. Not going to lie- they were amazing!

We started the pot late in the afternoon, which is really half the fun — the smell of Old Bay working its way through the yard, friends arriving with an extra six-pack, a bottle of wine, or a loaf of bread. About an hour before dinner as the sun was starting to get lower in the sky, the potatoes went in and by the time the corn went in (halved crosswise so every piece is easy to grab) the whole crew knew what was coming.

For this we used Red Bliss and Yukon gold baby potatoes, these went in first, since they take the longest, then the corn, then the cherrystone clams and shrimp, and finally the king crab legs right at the end, just long enough to heat through without overcooking that sweet, delicate meat. When it was all ready, we didn't bother plating anything, we just hauled the pot straight to the table and dumped it out in one glorious, steaming pile down the center, right on the newspaper.

Butter went around in little bowls, lemon wedges got passed hand to hand, and for the next hour nobody said much of anything that wasn't a compliment to the crab or a request to pass the butter again. That's the real magic of a boil like this. It turns dinner into something closer to a shared project. Everyone's cracking shells, everyone's got butter on their fingers, and there's no chance of anyone worrying about how to be polite. By the end, the newspaper was a very happy mess, and the kitchen towels had earned their keep as bibs for the evening.

Butter and lemon will always be the classic here, but if you want something with a little more kick to pass around alongside it, this one disappears just as fast.

• 1 stick butter
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp chili crisp
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Pinch of salt

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook just until fragrant, about a minute — don't let it brown. Stir in the chili crisp, smoked paprika, lemon juice, and salt, and keep warm until ready to serve. Set it out in a bowl alongside the plain melted butter and let people choose their own adventure — most will end up dipping in both.