Her grandparents bought a driftwood-tinted beach house on the sugar-white beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama, in 1978, shares HANNAH TURNER LAVEY (Nashville, Tennessee). Her ninety-four-year-old grandmother, GWYNDOLYN COLLINS TURNER, affectionately known as Grey, still travels down to the coast each season to feel the gulf breezes, listen to the seagulls, and make her favorite seafood dish: this salad. Her husband, David (whom the grandchildren called GrandDavid), did not like most of the catch from the Gulf, but he adored this dish, as did her six grandchildren. Grey would serve it in bowls, with saltine crackers on the side. “My grandmother is not only an amazing cook but one of the most beautiful, intelligent, and sophisticated ladies I know. At the beach, she would read books to us aloud with her Southern lilt, batting her deep-hooded eyes with dramatic effect. Whether at the beach house, at her home in Demopolis, or over the phone, Grey never ceases to make her grandchildren and six great-grandchildren feel as if they are simply the most marvelous people in the world,” Hannah says.
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 pound fresh lump crabmeat
Salt and black pepper to taste
4 ounces vegetable oil
3 ounces cider vinegar
4 ounces ice water
1 Spread half of the onion over the bottom of a large bowl. Cover with separated crab lumps and then the remaining onion. Add the salt and pepper to taste.
2 Pour the oil, vinegar, and ice water over all. Cover and marinate for 2 to 12 hours. Toss lightly before serving. Serve cold.
MAKES 4 TO 5 SERVINGS.