Beauty in the Byproducts

Lobster for family meal. Again. 

Back in the days before soaring food costs, sous-vide technology, and zero-waste tolerance, I was a line cook at a fancy-ish Washington, D.C., restaurant. One of my duties was to assemble the prep for our lobster in beurre rouge. I reduced bottles of red wine with thyme and shallots down to a syrup to be finished with butter during service. Then I proceeded with the dreaded task of live crustacean...