Crabby Soup

• 1 pound of crabmeat (I like chunk and claw, both, but NO SHELL)
  
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped onion
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped green pepper
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons dry sherry (or 1/4 cup white wine if you have no sherry)
  

In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the flour and stir until smooth and bubbly. Do not make into a roux -- just cook until "smooth". While stirring with a whisk, pour in the milk and cream slowly and cook over high heat until the sauce comes to a boil and is smooth and slightly thickened.

Stir in the crabmeat and seasonings. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes or until heated through and through. Stir in the sherry or wine, taste for seasoning (especially salt), and ladle the soup into bowls. Serve with crusty french bread.

In Florida this year I did vary the recipe slightly, making it into more of a "Gulf Chowder" by adding a hand full of fresh corn cut off the cob and then cooked in the soup base, a boiled potato chopped into cubes, cubed white fish (cooked, it was grouper), a couple of chopped boiled shrimp and topped the soup with split grape tomatoes. Yum.

The leftovers thickened in the refrigerator and so I tossed some hot cooked pasta with butter and ladled the warmed up soup over the buttered pasta. Yum again.