Something's Fishy...

Sometimes you don't even know when the call comes that you are about to do something so fun! We had talked about it once before. In passing. It was one of those thing we thought would be fun to try--sometime. At least that's how the conversation played out in my head. I guess the guys took it a little more seriously when they said, "We should go catch crawdads and have a boil". And apparently, they discussed it. In detail. On more than one occasion. Sure, when they mentioned it to me, it sounded like fun. I said I was game to tag along when they went. If I'm being honest, I'm not sure I really thought we would go. But go we did. And it was SO MUCH FUN! You seriously have to try it.

Eric called yesterday afternoon and said he and John were on their way to pick me up. I had about ten minutes. I mentioned to my mom that we were going and she told me about how she and her brothers used to catch crawdads when she was a kid, then she set me up with the ideal crawdad catching kit from her childhood. A piece of string, a safety pin and a few slices of bacon. John already had fancy traps he had bought for us to use, but I took my mom's kit anyway, just to see how it worked. It was magic!  I pulled one crawdad after another out of the creek. It was great. My mom really is a genius!

When we caught our fill of crawdads, we headed for home. The hard part of the night was ahead of me. We were now going to boil and eat our crawdads. I know what you're thinking. Eating dinner is not the hard part of the night, but for a girl who doesn't like fish (at all!), this was a terrifying prospect. But I helped catch them, so I was determined to at least try them. We headed back to Eric's house and fired up the propane cooker. Next we loaded the pot with Zatarains crab boil seasoning, some onions, red potatoes and corn. Then we tossed our catch into the pot and let them cook.

The moment of truth had arrived. It was time to crack those puppies open and give them a try. You know what?? They were surprisingly good (of course this could have had something to do with the copious amout of garlic butter I dipped that little tail in, but who's counting??) I probably don't need to eat them on a regular basis and I certainly wont be looking to order them off a menu any time in the future, but at least I was able to eat them without gagging. I view this as a small victory for me!

So, next time you are needing some entertainment, grab a string, a saftey pin and some bacon. Drive to a local creek and toss it in. It's hours of entertainment. Even if you don't want to eat them, you can let them go when you are done. It's definitely worth trying...