Sheepshead Bay Gourmet Market: Lobster Candy – The Bite

Welcome back to The Bite, Sheepshead Bites’ weekly column where we explore the foodstuffs of Sheepshead Bay. Each week we check out a different offering from one of the many restaurants, delis, food carts, bakeries, butchers, fish mongers, or grocers in our neighborhood. If it’s edible, we’ll take a bite.

Lobster – love it. Candy – love it. The wall of bulk candy with all the exotic packaging and foreign script – I love that too. But Lobster candy? After our little excursion two weeks ago where we explored canned eel, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to try this. I immediately tried to put it out of my mind by heading over to the pickle jars. But…  Like a siren from the deep it called to me. Lobster. Candy. It teased. It cajoled. It begged. It cried. And it worked. Like a dog that’s been kicked by it’s owner once too often I haltingly headed back to the bulk candy aisle, scooped up a handful and put it in a bag.   My head was pounding as I drove home. I felt like I just lost this week’s paycheck in a game of three-card monty.  Lobster. Candy. I was lost in the siren call.  When I got home, I didn’t want anyone to see what was in the bag. I curtly greeted the family and quickly stashed the candy in a kitchen cabinet, buried deeply behind the cans of stewed tomatoes and that jar of pickled herring that’s from the last century. I felt like I had just secreted my first Playboy into the house (Actually it was Hustler, but that’s another story).  I waited until I was alone.

The family was going out that night and like a horny tween, I could explore my shame alone. No one needed to know about this. This was private. I watched as they pulled out of the driveway, locked the doors and shut the curtains.

My hands shook as I opened up the cabinet and took out the candy.  There it was. Decked out in white with a nude lobster boldly painted across its chest, it teased as my left hand wrapped around its body. I couldn’t take it anymore, I ripped off the wrapping, not caring who was hurt as long as my animal desires were fulfilled.

Glistening in the light, the now naked beige and brown striped candy teased me one last time with the allure of the unknown and the promise of satisfaction. In one swift movement, I placed the candy on my tongue. Its sweet almost caramel-like flavor coated my mouth as my teeth broke its outer shell, releasing its peanut like toffee confection inside.

I stepped back in disappointment. It was good, but not exactly orgasmic. This relationship needs time to grow, much like my tween years and Hustler.  Lobster Candy -$5.49 lb.

Sheepshead Bay Gourmet Market,  1717 Avenue Z, (718) 891-8449.