I murdered a lobster. This sandwich better be good.

Lobsters were absolutely harmed in the making of this sandwich.

As a humble “I can follow a recipe” home cook, I have always felt that I’ve used my knife for good. To slice, dice, and julienne. To trim unwanted fat, useless skins, or inedible rinds.

I have never wielded my knife with the intent to kill anything. Until this week. This week, I killed a lobster. Then I ate him.

This week Sandwich Sundays took us to Connecticut, a state that I still mentally pronounce as “Connect I Cut” because I just can’t shake that hard-earned spelling hack from the third grade. According to the list, Connecticut's sandwich is a hot lobster roll, which is described as, “A quarter pound of lobster meat drenched in melted creamery [sic] butter and heaped onto a bun.”

This is the only sandwich on the list that has a specified amount. I can only assume it’s because lobster is expensive and the author of the list wants to curb expectations. If you order this somewhere, you are only getting a quarter of a pound. Stop being greedy.

But when you buy your own damn lobsters, you can put as much lobster on that hot dog bun as you want.

But also, when you buy your own damn lobsters, there’s not a chef hidden away in a kitchen somewhere who is going to dispatch of the lobster for you. You’ve got to kill those things yourselves. So that’s what we did.

I’d imagine that if you were a fish and knew you were going to be eaten, you’d aspire to be sold someplace like the Santa Monica Seafood Market. Aim high, you know?

We took a morning jaunt down to the Santa Monica Seafood Market to get our lobsters. It feels very strange buying a live lobster. You know you’re going to kill it. The people selling it to you know you’re going to kill it. But they sell it to you anyway and just let you go on your merry way as if they don’t know that you’ll be stabbing something through their brain in just a few minutes.

We decided to do the deed right when we got home. Partially because we have a toddler who can get into anything and we felt that pinchy, sea-cockroaches weren’t the best thing to have just idling around the apartment. And partially because, what is one supposed to do with a box of live lobsters? Put it on the counter and pretend you’re not going to be killing its contents later? That wasn’t going to happen.

So, we did it. We watched a whole two minute YouTube tutorial, so were immediate experts on how to dispatch (read: kill) and cook a lobster.

Not yet dead.

Shockingly, the YouTube video did not include the disclaimer that your lobster is still going to wriggle around after you kill it. So, that was terrifying.

But, we managed to get them steamed and shelled fairly easily after that. We even got out some nice big bits of claw meat, which helped reinstate the false sense of lobster-expertise we had in ourselves.

Once we had removed all the meat from the shells, the sandwiches came together very quickly. We melted some butter in a pan, tossed in the lobster to warm it up, and squeezed some fresh lemon over the top. We heaped the meat into toasted brioche-style hamburger buns and served them with tangy coleslaw and a freshly made watermelon, mint, and feta salad.

It.

Was.

AMAZING.

Totally dead.

Last week I was beginning to think that this experiment was having diminishing returns. Our first sandwich — Alabama’s pulled chicken with white sauce — was proving to be my continued favorite week after week. But then Connecticut stepped up to the plate and was like, “hold. My. Beer.”

I’m assuming it’s a light, crisp beer that pairs well with seafood.

But this just reiterates my point from last week that sandwiches are best when they’re simple and made with really good ingredients. This sandwich is the epitome of that argument.

There’s a new number one sandwich in town. Good luck, every other sandwich. You’ve got your work cut out for you.