Cooking steamed crabs is not like most other kinds of cooking. There is no “low and slow” like a crockpot or smoked BBQ. There is also no “get the pan screaming hot” so you can sear the outside. There is no put it in the oven and forget it for hours. There is no, heavens forbid, actually boiling them submerged in any liquid (a grievous capital offense, punishable by 5 years of watching people eat steamed crabs without any to eat for themselves!)
And you can’t keep opening the top to check to see if the crabs are done. Once opened, you’ve lost all the steam and you’ve got to just about start from scratch again.
My mom and dad had a very precise method and timing when it came to steaming crabs. Based on years and years of trial and error, old wife’s tales, and testing, it took exactly 27 minutes from the time that the crabs started “kicking” inside the pot.
And you never, never, never left the pot while it was cooking. Crabs were too precious to walk away from. Someone was always there, always alert, always on watch. You never knew if the flame would go out, or if the top was not tight enough to hold the steam in. And if something happened, you jumped right in and made it right.
Hope also requires safeguarding, watching over, being sure that it’s nurtured, fed, and cared for. You also want to be on the watch out for anyone or anything that might spoil, reduce, or hurt your hope.
Hope is a priceless commodity. It’s so valuable that we should watch over it, keeping it safe, feed it, cultivate it, encourage it.
Safeguarding hope is the right thing to do, it’s too precious to just leave it alone, let it go to chance.
How are you safeguarding hope today?