Crab dip recipe easy and crowd-friendly

When Bill Rice shows up for concerts at In Your Ear Music & Recording, he arrives with a ticket for the show and a dish to share.

Potluck suppers have become a tradition at the JAMinc concert series. At a recent show, Rice, a regular at the concerts and in general a supporter of the arts around town, brought crab dip.

"Pretty dead simple," he said of the recipe, which he found on the Internet and then, as all home cooks do, started tweaking.

"I sometimes vary the cheese and usually use basic crabmeat from a seafood processor," said Rice, a longtime state employee who is a media services supervisor for the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. "If it is a special event, I'll buy fresh crabmeat from someone like the Crab Lady in the East End (http://www.thecrablady.com). I usually make it for parties, family gatherings or anywhere there will be a crowd as it is pretty crowd-friendly. Baked Wheat Thins are a good cracker choice, but again that's an area to add some individuality.

"The best thing about it for me is how easy it is to make and that it is relatively forgiving, considering I'm hardly a chef. It also isn't that expensive to make and freezes pretty well so you can make bigger batches during the holidays, divide into containers and bring out as needed."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or .