Cajun Cookin'
By this time I have pretty much got a system down for all this.

I bring my burners and propane over the week before. Smart and Final is my dealer in peanut oil (not to mention the amount of gear I buy whenever I go in that place). I'm got my set-up ready and the cast iron cauldron is pretty much seasoned.

It still took me a full day to prep for this thing. The turkey's needed to be marinaded and I had to cook a new roux. The tables didn't come in so I couldn't place my equipment and we spent a lot of time fighting the weather.

As usual. it was all worth it in the end.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Macbeth - Act IV, Scene I

The first rule -- always set up a cooking area you will be comfortable working in.

Little creatures die at my whim!

 The highlight for me each year is the opportunity to eat crawfish. You don't get them often out here and I love to eat these little buggers.

While there are a few folks who have picked up my taste for crawfish (Dave being the most notable) I notice they tend to get wasted. Californians just can't seem to get past the "bug" imagry or something.

Lynden went to pick them up at the airport Friday but found out their flight had been delayed and they were stuck in Phoenix.

Given what he paid, Lynden said he hoped they got free drinks from the airline while they waited.
As usual, the big demand was for the fried turkey (which was eaten as fast as I could carve it), the biscuits (which never stayed long enough to cold) and the gumbo (which I couldn't finish cooking fast enough for the starving masses).

For the first time we offered Boudin. It went over pretty well, but most people passed it over for a fried biscuit and honey.

And my volunteers were out in force.

Tim O'Leary ran any errand needed and Tom Buckley was a dervish cooking backup. Finishing the gumbo is my farewell to the kitchen for the night (bring on the Jagermeister!) and Tom (as shown here) kindly educates the populace on how it should be eaten.

My main goal in all of this is ruining these people from ever ordering anything "cajun" from a restaurant within an hours flight of the Pacific Ocean.