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Despite being born and raised in Maryland, I've never eaten crab. What can I say? I was a bit of a picky kid, and then I became a vegetarian fairly early in life. And you know, when I hear people gushing about crab season, I think I'm probably better off not knowing what I'm missing. As a way to cope, I've convinced myself that what everyone's actually excited about is just using the crabs as a vessel to consume hypertension-inducing quantities of Old Bay.
Like any Marylander, I'll pour Old Bay over my french fries and popcorn. I'll put it on anything involving eggs. I'll dump it in a bloody mary, and I even used it to infuse vodka for holiday gifts last year. I brought a can with me when I studied abroad in college because I couldn't bear the thought of five months without it.
And yet, non-Marylanders just don't seem to have the same fervor for my spice blend of choice. My main squeeze Andrew, who is from Ohio, claims that his mother has had the same dusty can in her kitchen cabinet for "probably like twenty years." How does that happen?
Old Bay and sharp cheddar is one of my favorite combinations, so it only made sense to add it to a zippy cheese cracker. I like to use the 30% less sodium version, but the regular will work -- you just will want to start at 1/2 a teaspoon and give your dough a taste test before adding more, because the cheese is very salty as well. This recipe is adapted from smitten kitchen's cheese straws.
