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When lobsters fly ... they head to Newport’s Lobsterfest

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More than 1,000 lobsters are taking flight this weekend.

The live crustaceans, packed in seaweed-lined cartons, are expected to touch down at 6:30 a.m. Sunday after a plane ride from Maine to Los Angeles International Airport. Employees from Anaheim-based Anderson Seafoods will meet them at an airport hangar and transfer them to a refrigerated truck.

Then off the ocean dwellers will go, headed to Newport Beach to feed an anticipated crowd of 600 at Lobsterfest, a charity fundraiser later Sunday at Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort.

There will be tri-tip, corn on the cob, rolls, salad, red potatoes and a spread of desserts. But the sea creatures will be the main attraction.

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As Lobsterfest chairman Tim Brown put it: “If you’re a lobster lover, you won’t want to miss this.”

1,300-pound order

About four shipments of lobster a week – trapped by lobstermen in Maine and sorted by size – arrive to tanks at Anderson Seafoods, said Joshua Anderson, a self-described fish monger whose grandparents own the business.

The company supplies the crustaceans to local restaurants and retail outlets. But for an event as big as Lobsterfest, a special order is needed.

Lobster can range from $8 to $13 per pound, depending on the demand and the amount available, Anderson said. He declined to provide the current price because of a business confidentiality agreement.

Lobsterfest placed its order this week for 1,300 pounds. Each animal weighs about 1.25 pounds.

For Lobsterfest board member Joe Stapleton, there’s always a slight fear of bad weather interrupting the lobsters’ 3,000-mile trip.

“There’s so many variables to this thing,” he said.

Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce President Steve Rosansky also hopes the lobsters make it in time.

“Otherwise it’s going to be a corn-on-the-cob fest,” he said.

If all goes as scheduled, the creatures will be cooked by Toribio Martin and his family, who also take charge at Redondo Beach’s Lobster Festival.

“You just put in the lobster and basically let them go down in boiling water,” Martin said. “Which is very sad, but we have to do it.”

Cooking for causes

Volunteers used to be in charge of the boiling, but it was tough to get the cooking method just right, said Brown, who helped found the event with the Costa Mesa and Newport Beach Sunrise Rotary Clubs in 2009.

“We were trying to think of a way to host a fundraiser that was less dependent on our members and more dependent on the public to make it more sustainable,” he said. But when it came to the cooking, “We needed people who knew what they were doing,” Brown said.

The event proved to be a lot of work, and responsibility for it passed to the Newport Beach Sunrise Rotary Club alone in 2010, then to Bacchus International in 2011 and Leadership Tomorrow in 2012, according to the event’s website. Brown serves on the board and was previously chairman of Leadership Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization that provides programs for the public to learn about various aspects of their community.

Last year, Lobsterfest became a nonprofit corporation with its own board of directors.

The event has raised funds for various causes. This year’s beneficiaries are Make-A-Wish of Orange County and the Inland Empire, which grants wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions; Leadership Tomorrow; and New Directions for Women, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.

Leadership Tomorrow will receive funds for scholarships to help defray the program’s $1,400 cost for participants. Make-A-Wish beneficiaries include an 8-year-old named Ireland, who was granted a trip to Hawaii, and an 8-year-old named Luc, who met Winter, the dolphin that inspired the movie “Dolphin Tale.”

Localizing ‘East Coast tradition’

The lobsters aren’t local, but for a community that easily adopted New England’s yachting culture, organizers want Lobsterfest to be a showcase event.

“It’s a West Coast take on an East Coast tradition,” said Newport Beach Mayor Rush Hill.

The final touches on the seafood will fall to Martin, who learned to cook lobsters in the late 1980s as a line cook at the Rusty Pelican in Newport Beach.

Now a chef at Lazy Dog in Temecula, he will be joined Sunday by his two brothers, one an executive chef for BJ’s in Cerritos and the other a chef for Lazy Dog in Brea. Their wives and one of their daughters also will help.

This will be Martin’s third year cooking for the event. He said he tends to put the lobsters in the pots, place the lids on top and walk away. If the lobsters are small enough, 20 at a time can be boiled in a container. They stay in for about nine or 10 minutes, he said.

“The key to lobsters is how long you cook them,” Brown said. “If you cook them too long, they’re not very good. If you don’t cook them long enough, they’re not very good.”

The practiced cooks will have timers on hand, knowing that even 10 seconds can mean the difference between a tender tail and a chewy one.

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If you go

Time: 3-8 p.m.

Date: Sunday

Place: Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort, 1131 Back Bay Drive, Newport Beach

General admission (one lobster per ticket): $55 in advance, $75 at the door (as available)

Extra lobster: $20 each

VIP tickets (all-you-can-eat lobster): $150 in advance

Event website: https://www.lobsterfestatnewportbeach.com

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