The party for Crabs

Featured in

  • Published 20221101
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-74-0
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

CLAIRE DRAGS A finger down the booking sheet. Her boss has circled the name in blue biro, which she knows means very important. Besides it, she has scribbled ‘Okay to bring dog’, which is strange because her boss doesn’t like pets this close to the marine reserve. The restaurant, Crabs, brushes up against it, and on humid nights like this one the mangroves felt like they were creeping closer. Claire scratches her arm; a familiar rash has started to crawl towards her elbow.

Benson. The party’s name sounds familiar but her memory feels murky after an afternoon spent studying for her marine biology exams. Before that was her internship at the Department of Fisheries, navigating the cells of an endless Excel spreadsheet. And, of course, she’d been awake since dawn to snag the best mud crabs at the seafood market.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Taylor Mitchell

Taylor Mitchell writes essays and fiction. Her work has been published in Overland and Kill Your Darlings, among others.

More from this edition

Old stars

FictionI found Archie by the shallow end wearing a short terry-towelling robe open to the waist. Time and tide had left him shipwrecked and bloated, but you could still recognise him from the pictures on his album covers: same dark pouf and ducktail and duotone tan, only now he got his colour from a bottle and his hair from a can. He’d been drinking gin and tonic since happy hour started, brought out by an over-attentive waitress. 

Recipe for success

EssayFans used to approach my grandmother, Margaret, at events or book signings, professing their adoration and proudly presenting their 1969 yellow-bound original of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. They’d tell stories about the book’s place in their hearts – it had been given to them when they moved out of home, or when they’d married, or it had been passed through two generations. Margaret would smile sweetly and flick through the pages as though looking for something. Then, often, she would close the book firmly and look mock-crossly up at them (I say ‘up’ because she was usually seated, but was also only just over five-foot-tall). ‘You’ve never cooked from this book. Where are the splatters, the markings of the kitchen, the stuck-together pages?’

Tastemakers

IntroductionI’m still pleasantly mystified by our obsession with food – our need to talk about it, remember it, photograph it and analyse it, to eat our feelings and compare our lives to buffets and boxes of chocolates. 

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.