How to have a Louisiana Crawfish Boil

The first and probably the most important thing is to be prepared to feed all of the children Mac and Cheese! (This is to ensure that the adults get the Crawfish, and not because the children won't like it!!!)
Seriously... first you start with 70 lbs of fresh Louisiana Crawfish. (pictured here is a 35 lb sack)
Then you ensure that they are all alive!!!
Next you dump them into a cooler and sort and wash them.

After the first rinse you add salt. Here Nelson is dumping the last of the salt on them. When they ingest the salt in causes them to purge (what? the kids ask... oh, you mean throw up!) This helps them to be cleaner inside as you eat them!!

Once they are cleaner you dump them into an already boiling pot of water filled with Cajun spices, sausage, potatoes, onions, garlic, and oranges! At the end you also add mushrooms and corn on the cob.

20 minuets later you pull the enormous basket out of the water....
...and dump it onto a table. (careful not to spill!)
Then you put it all on platters and enjoy. Enjoying includes snapping the tails off and pulling the meat out and discarding the rest, unless you want to squeeze the head (gross in my opinion). During this time you pull apart potatoes and add butter, enjoy garlic and sausages, and enjoy each others conversation and company. (Unless you are Deric's brother Clark in which case you eat as many craw fish as you can possibly shuck in an hour and a half!!!

We had such a wonderful time! We are grateful to Brad (and Deric) who drove the Crawfish all the way from Louisiana for us to enjoy. There were 32 people that came to eat, which included many kids!! We were celebrating Brad's upcoming birthday and celebrating the fact that he joined the Army National Guard to be a helicopter pilot.