Crawfish

I am a lover of most creatures that are found in the water.

Some, like sharks and gators, I prefer to love only from afar (ideally when sitting on my couch watching the Discovery Channel, thanks).

Others, like many of the beautiful fish species that swim in the sea, I'd love to see up close.

And, honestly, a whole lot of them I like to eat. Especially shrimp. And crab. And lobster. And tilapia. And salmon. OK, and most other kinds of fish too.

I'll even be adventurous and eat squid. Or octopus. Or oysters. Although when any of them are raw, they do make me cringe a bit.

One thing I've managed to skip trying (despite a few opportunities to do so in recent years) is crawfish.

There's just something about them, about their little bodies and their claws and their antennas, that have always creeped me out. I don't mind cracking open a crab claw or a lobster tail, but the though of extracting the meat from those little red creatures hasn't ever appealed to me.

Yet after the Cubs game, when we headed to McGees for the crawfish boil, I decided I was going to try them.


So I learned how to get the meat from their tails—and discovered it's pretty darn good. (Fun too, albeit messy.) So along with my red beans and rice and jambalaya (all you can eat for $10!), I had my fair share of crawfish.

And they were delish (spicy spicy). Particularly when accompanied by live music and cold beer.

(Though I have to admit, I didn't suck the crawfish heads like the rest of my dining companions did. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.)