Photo: Yuichi Sakuraba/Flickr

[UPDATE 12/4: The dinner has been cancelled.]

It's officially winter, and that means—you guessed it—SantaCon is just around the corner. But don't despair yet: you can gird your loins and insulate your soul beforehand with that other December calendar highlight: Saturday night's family-style Dungeness crab feeding frenzy.

Now in its sixth year, the Slow Crab dinner heralds the start of Dungeness crab season with a feast of local crab from Monterey Fish Market. Crab and its accompanying salad come prepared by students of the SF Culinary School and CCA, while pasta fixins are courtesy of HIllside Supper Club. Also included in the $80 ticket price are two beer tickets for brews from Magnolia and Speakeasy, plus dessert by Thorough Bread Bakery and bread from Acme.

The event is hosted by Slow Food San Francisco, whose mission is the connect the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment. No word yet on just how slow these particular Slow Crabs are, but you know what they say: you just have to be faster than the crab next to you.

Saturday, December 7th - 6:00-9:00pm
Woman’s Building, 3543 18th St. (between Valencia and Guerrero)
Tickets: $80, $10 off with promo code slowfood2013.

The fine folks at SoMa StrEat Food Park have a decent offer today for free (well, almost free) beer. If you buy one pitcher of beer or sangria, and you get the other for free Yay, you! Snap up the offer here.

Also, since it’s crab season, The Fish Tank Food Truck is doing a pop-up crab dinner at SoMa StrEat Food Park on Friday night. The dinner will feature fresh, local dungeness crabs. "Tickets for the event are $30 and include tons of fresh, whole crabs, along with pasta marinara, garden salad, and one free beer or wine from SoMa StrEat Food Park’s bar." Go here for more details.

SoMa StrEat Food Park is located at the nexus of the Mission and SOMA at 428 - 11th Street (at Harrison). They feature different vendors each day. Check them out if you haven't already, okay? Okay.

Brief updates from Fisherman's Wharf today, where the ongoing pricing dispute between crab fisherman and the seafood processors threatens to damage crustacean-based Thanksgiving dishes. One local fish market owner told SFoodie today that an agreement could still be a few days away, meaning the first shipments won't come pouring in to area seafood emporiums until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

If you need a place to direct your crabbiness, apparently you can't blame the local distributors who agreed to the $2.50 per pound price awhile back. It's the big processors that are holding out for a $2 rate and holding up the whole deal. On the bright side, the crabs will just be bigger and fatter when the crabbers start hauling them in.

Previously: Dungeness Season Report: Local Fisherman Crabby, But Not Sunken
[SFoodie]
[GrubSF]

Dungeness crab season started last week. Eager crustacean aficionados might have noticed it came a day late though, which is practically a lifetime when you're jonesin' to dip a largely tasteless meat into melted butter or get your mallet on one of those salt-and-pepper numbers from R&G Lounge in Chinatown. Even despite promising early predictions of a strong season, the first week of crab fishing in the area hasn't exactly been smooth sailing.

CBS Local first noted the season was off to a strong start, despite an early accident in which a crab fisherman lost the tips from two of his fingers while fishing off the coast of Bodega Bay.

Also from Bodega Bay comes a tragic report of an accident this morning on a sport fishing boat out for a crab fishing trip. The boat capsized in rough waters after a fishing line got caught in the propeller. One man died in the accident and two others were suffering from hypothermia. None of the five people on board had been wearing life vests.

More delicious crab, please. Thanks.

This past weekend crab season kicked off, and local fishers headed out to sea to roundup laods of Dungeness crab. This year, however, expectations of a huge crab catch are low. According to buzz-kill state biologists, "the Dungeness population generally fluctuates in a five- to seven-year cycle. After several banner seasons, last year's numbers were down." And this year? The catch is expected to be even smaller. So, anticipate paying a bit more for a hit of some intoxicating crab. But still, we have some crab coming to us from Washington's Puget Sound -- whose crab meant has been available for over three weeks -- so start clarifying your butter, gastronomes. (CBS 5)

Poring over Entertaining the other night, because our pulverized sleeping aid refused to kick in, we got so excited after reading "Bouillabaisse for Twelve to Sixteen". But now any plans of having said bouillabaisse party must be put on hold. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suspended all fishing and crab hunting until the first of December.

You hear that? Dungeness crab season won't happen this month. There's nothing you can do about it expect curl up in the fetal position and mumble gibberish until December. Sad. But understandable. It goes without saying that this is due to the oil spill.

Until then, enjoy all of the root vegetables and apples currently in season. Pft.