CrawFest 2011

I am clearly new to the south, hence the awesome blog about the south. However, I can now say Ive eaten crawfish and sucked the juice out of the heads. Whats up now, South Louisiana?
I went with some friends to a place called Crawfish Time, when we pulled in you could see through the window the cooks in the back and steam, lots of steam. Apparently they boil, like, a zillion pounds a day in huge pots. We get in and I'm expecting to be able to order a pound or something, you know, because they are little and a pound is pretty hefty, even for a girl my size. On the menu you have two options, three or five pounds...and then you order a side. I flinched for a second; I had already told the waitress this was my first time and that I was going to take pictures.

I needed to buck up and stop acting like a tourist.

"Give me 3 pounds and a side of Boudin please, oh and a Strawberry Abita." 

Oh yeah, I am awesome.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't expecting my food to come out on a garbage can lid and I certainly wasn't expecting there to be a huge hole in the table with a garbage can under it. Oh and by the way the hole with the garbage can under it, is for crawfish shells, not cell phones. My table mate dropped hers in there and the waitress was nice enough to fish it out for her, no pun intended. 

 I was right away instructed not to touch my eyes or even get anywhere close to my eyes, pretty much just not to touch my face. I didn't really understand why, but was soon to find out, lucky for me. I received detailed instructions on how to pull apart the crawfish; rip off the head, suck out the juice, throw the head into the hole in the middle of the table, and rip apart the body, leaving a little tail of meat. Wow, explaining that makes me sound like a crazy person.

Anyway, all this work and all the detailed instructions and all the warnings, paid off, for sure. Crawfish is glorious, like, angels singing Hallelujah, glorious. They were so tasty that I barely touched my Boudin which is another huge Southern favorite of mine.They do have a bit of a kick to them so I now understood why you should keep your hands out of your eyes.

I was about 1/4 of the way into my three pounds and two Abitas down when I was having an incredibly animated discussion about something, maybe snowboarding, when it hit me. Craw juice all over me, face, arm, hair, everywhere. Thanks friend, for throwing your arms around with Craw juice all over them. I got a little in my eye but, it wasn't bad, probably because I was drinking, and that always makes things less painful.

Crawfish and a night out was one of the best birthday presents ever, I think 25 will be a good year.

Thanks new friends, your the bombest of the bomb.

Cheers.