jmcquown wrote:
> What would you recommend? Dungeness is excellent, albeit nearly
> impossible to find for sale where I live now and definitely not fresh. I
> wouldn't have ordered online express delivery, either. It could well
> have been a disappointment.

Depending on where you live, crabs can be fresh if local or they come
frozen from other areas. Not a thing wrong with fresh killed and
immediately frozen crabs.

>
> I occasionally see Dungeness pre-cooked (from frozen) in the grocery
> store seafood case. I glanced at them once. About $32 per pound for an
> already cooked crab. No thanks.

I've never seen Dungeness for that price, only Alaskan king crab.
If you buy from a grocery store they always come frozen then they open
some and put into the showcase on ice. Don't buy those. Ask them for a
bag of frozen to thaw at your own leisure.

> I'll just remember how nice they were
> when I had some Dungeness at a restaurant.

Even restaurants serve previously frozen for some. Alaskan King crab and
the Opelia crabs (aka snow crabs) and often even Dungeness.

>
> It's hard to find any west coast crab on this side of the country. Ditto
> when I lived in land-locked west TN. No Dungeness, King, or the smaller
> generic called "Alaskan" crab (legs, claws). They were shipped in.
> Cold water crab from way up on the west coast are definitely better
> tasting than any east coast crab. Bigger, too. YMMV.

Bigger, yes, but not necessarily better tasting.

> I'm thinking
> drawn butter and cracking crab legs and claws and dipping. Not picking
> little bits out of blue crab.

The blue crab is nothing to shun. Very tasty but you're just too lazy to
pick them. And that's the one crab that you could catch, kill and eat
fresh often. You buy canned crabs