Let the good times roll!

Have you ever been to a crawfish boil? 

I'm not sure these really exist outside of Louisiana or Texas. We actually had to get forty pounds of crawfish shipped to our house from Louisiana.  They, amazingly, were still alive after the harrowing journey. 

If you are wondering what 40 pounds of crawfish looks like, it's this: 

Very much alive.  They are supposed to arrive "sleepy", but I did not find that to be the case. I picked one up to examine it and it was trying to pinch the crap out of me. 

I generally am not a fan of foods that require a lot of work for minimal reward.  Examples of this include: 

• Picking crabs 
• Shucking oysters
• Crawfish 

After a meal of any of these things, my arms are really tired from all the the work and I'm ready to order Chinese food because I'm still hungry. Just me? Besides, clearly theses animals do not want to be eaten.  Exoskeleton = suit of armor.  They're obviously saying, "Back off, humans!" 

 

 

Anyway, the good thing about crawfish boils, is that while the little buggers themselves are a pain, you can throw a lot of other crap in the pot to keep curmudgeons like me quiet. I'm talking potatoes, corn, andouille, and artichokes (which are a clear exception to the above mentioned "high work, little reward" rule. Duh).  

 

 

It looks like some creepy crustacean graveyard, no? Gives me the willies.  It's all very spicy. Praise the heavens for domestic light beers. I actually got in a fight with my significant other because I bought Tecate, a Mexican beer, for our "glorious event designed to celebrate America". I know now never to make this mistake again. Or at least to hide my deliciously refreshing Tecate in a beer coozie to avoid getting heckled. 

 

A word of advice: if you ever plan a crawfish boil, make sure you have it the day before your garbage man comes. We had a trash can full of crawfish in our backyard for six days and it smelled like we were hiding dead bodies.  Which I guess, technically, we were. 

 

So leftover crawfish are good for many things, most notably crawfish etoufee, which is also a big pain to make. For obvious reasons, we did NOT feast on that dish, but made a nice pasta with veggies and cream sauce. And now I'm pretty much over crawfish. At least until next year's boil.