Andrea Froncillo and Jennifer Jeffrey teamed up last year to write stinky prose. (We'll re-use that pun as much as we please.) He is a chef/partner in a bunch of restaurants in the city, including the Stinking Rose and the Crab House, and she's a San Francisco-based freelance writer. We'll link to Andrea's blog too, but he hasn't updated it in a year. Slacker! We're especially frustrated since it's titled "Sex and the Kitchen," and we sincerely hope all the fluids are strictly accounted for in the Stinking Rose kitchen.

They have re-upped for a new tome, Crab which will be released next week. Sex, kitchen, crab; it's almost logical. We have a fondness for crab, seeing as how it's as San Francisco as sourdough and Rice-A-Roni, so we had to shoot some questions at Jennifer and Andrea to know more. Their answers after the jump!

You guys re-upped for another book, the first one was that much fun?

Jennifer: We’re a veritable font of great ideas! For The Stinking Rose Cookbook, we had to stick to recipes that were on the restaurant menu (or had been in the recent past). With this one, we had more leeway to experiment. Since Andrea owns two crab restaurants -- together with his partners -- this was the logical next step.

Yes, The Stinking Rose Restaurant Cookbook has done well! It sells like hotcakes at both of the restaurant locations (San Francisco and Beverly Hills) and does well at events like the Gilroy Garlic Festival. People from all over the world know about The Stinking Rose Restaurant! It’s got amazing brand recognition.

Two books down. Is there going to be another one, to make it a trilogy? I really liked the evolution of the Cioppino character between episode I and II, and I'm wondering in which direction you'll take it in the sequel?

Jennifer: A trilogy! That’s funny. We do have a number of other ideas, but we’ll see what happens.
Andrea: I’m currently obsessed with the idea of a coffee-centric book, with recipes for drinks from affogatto to spiced coffee to fun things to eat while you sip, like biscotti and savory tartlets. I’ve also been working on a collection of Italian-Asian fusion recipes that I really love; perhaps the next cioppino will be spiked with ginger and lemongrass and coconut milk. Stay tuned!

We cooked crab once, made the best crab cakes ever from scratch. Well, almost from scratch, we did not kill the crab. We had to cook crab cakes once, as a San Franciscan. But it's so labor intensive. It's like running a marathon, we did it so we would not have to do it again. We're not the best target audience for your book, are we?

Andrea Crab cakes are labor intensive? Hmm. Maybe if you start with whole crab; if you start with shelled crabmeat, you just have to chop the vegetables. My suggestion is to cook with friends – then it’s fun, and doesn’t seem like a chore.

Jennifer Well, yes and no. I’ve never made a single recipe from most of the cookbooks in my collection, and I’m perfectly okay with that. I buy them because I love the pictures or the subject or the writing, not necessarily because I’m going to make the recipes. I think a lot of people do that, whether they admit it or not. Isn’t that the whole idea behind the term “food porn”?

Actually, to really cook from scratch, you'd have to fish the thing. Did you go fishing crab at Aquatic Park to prepare for the book, writer's studio style?

Jennifer: No, we did not. We worked on many of the recipes at Andrea’s restaurants, where we had access to an unlimited supply of crab. But the photographer who did all the location shots, Joe Budd did go out in a crab boat. He got some great shots… we felt like we were out there on the water as we looked at his photos.

The garlic crab at PPQ or at Thanh Long?

Andrea: Neither! Come on down to the wharf (come on… don’t be afraid!) and try out the garlic-roasted crab at The Crab House on Pier 39 or The Franciscan Crab Restaurant at Pier 43 1/2. I have a secret sauce that I drizzle over the top that makes it truly addictive.

Jennifer: I have to be honest and tell you that I’ve never eaten at either PPQ or Thanh Long. I actually prefer to do the whole crab thing at home – newspapers on the table, lemon wedges, drawn butter and cold white wine. It’s easy and fun, and I don’t have to drive home with greasy fingers.

Former SFist writer Violet Blue managed to plug crabs in her last two columns at SFgate. Did your PR guys get in touch with her?

Jennifer: Great minds think alike. That’s all we have to say on that subject.

What question should we have asked you guys?

Jennifer We think you should have said: Given the dwindling resources of our over-fished oceans, should we really be eating crab?

To which we would have replied: Yes! Dungeness crab, the most plentiful crab on the West Coast, is carefully managed to ensure that the population remains steady; only male crabs can be harvested, and only when they are fully mature. Dungeness crab is harvested almost year-around on the Pacific coast, between Santa Barbara all the way to Alaska. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program has given Dungeness crab it’s BEST rating. [Ed: our take on sustainable seafood here] So please: buy our book, and then indulge!