Photos

mouse over the thumbnails to view larger picture

Ah, Spring! You know what spring means to me (other than the fear a late frost will kill the tomatoes I planted)? It means it’s time for our third annual crawfish boil! Proving that you can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the girl, I got out my festive crawfish kerchief. Because you can’t eat crawfish without proper adornment.

For the uninitiated, a crawfish boil takes place in the garage, and involves vast quantities Cajun spice and crawfish, boiled together in an outdoor cooker with small ears of corn, red potatoes, and andouille sausage, then flung on plywood tables covered with paper. It takes a few minutes to learn how to eat a crawfish, but once you do — man, they’re wonderful! And the best part, IMO? They’re so small you can eat for hours.

It seems that word about crawfish has got around in our little corner of Western Washington. The crowd was huge. As fast as we could boil up the crawfish, they ate it. It was like watching a shark feeding frenzy on the Discovery Channel.  

Of course, crawfish boils in Texas usually involve a lot of sweat. Spring is hot in Texas. Not so in Washington. As the sun set and the temperatures dipped, everyone alternated between rushing to the tables when the hot crawfish landed and warming their hands by shelling crawfish, and huddling around the propane heater, warming their frontsides and then their backsides.

Crawfish heads and empty corn cobs flying into the giant trash cans strategically placed throughout the garage.

Guests trying to horde hot crawfish.

And good friends lining up around the esteemed chef to grab spicy mushrooms from the fresh batches before they even hit the tables.

I really love Spring!