Crawdaddy's Kitchen

A boil is mostly patience and salt. The water gets seasoned hard before anything goes in, because crawfish take on what is around them and they only get one chance to do it.

Cayenne, whole lemons, onion and garlic go in the pot. So do corn on the cob, red potatoes and cut links of smoked sausage, and they are half the reason people come.

The crawfish get purged, dropped, and pulled off the fire while they are still bright. Then comes the soak, which is where the seasoning walks through the shell and into the tail. Rush the soak and you get pretty crawfish that taste like nothing.

Heat is a matter of taste. Tell us how you want them and we will cook to that instead of to an average.

Crawfish are seasonal. The rest of the kitchen is not. Catfish fillets get cornmeal and go in hot grease until the edges go rough and gold, and they come out on a paper lined basket so they stay crisp on the way to the table.

Gumbo is the slow one. Dark roux, the trinity, stock, and then time. Some days it is chicken and sausage, some days it leans seafood. It gets served over rice with a spoon that stands up in it.

Etouffee, red beans and rice, boudin and jambalaya fill out the board. Po boys come on soft bread with lettuce, tomato and pickle unless you tell us plain.

Ask what is on today. A kitchen this size cooks what is good that morning, not what a laminated menu says it has to cook.

Pick one up. Twist the tail off the head with a turn, not a pull. Pinch the base of the tail shell until you feel it give, then slide the meat out with your thumb and finger.

The head is not a joke. That is where the fat and the seasoning collect, and the people who skip it are the people who leave the best part in the tray.

Peel a few before you eat any. Eating them one at a time is how the pile beats you. Corn and potatoes are for between rounds.

Bring napkins you do not care about. Nobody has ever gotten out of a boil clean and nobody has ever wanted to.