who's your crawdaddy?

My grandmother, aka "The Don", owns and operates a little campground in the country.  There's a creek, which we pronounce "crick" here where we live, and lots of fresh air.

We received her permission to go down with some friends and their kids & have a little campfire.  She does not allow day use, but for her favorite granddaughter  me, she makes the exception.  .

My friend whittled wood into the world's best marshmallow roaster.  I watched.  I'm not much of a whittler.  She carries a little knife on her keychain.  I bet she'd cut you if she had to.  Just kidding.  She's probably one of the quietest people I know.  But sometimes you have to watch the quiet ones.  Just sayin.  Anyway, she did make a great marshmallow stick.

We went down to the creek (say crick) and caught some crayfish.  Or crawfish.  Or crawdads.  Whatever you prefer is fine with me.  As long as you say crick.

 This is a crayfish.  I know, it kind of looks like a turd.  But it's not.

They tried to make a crayfish "jail" out of rocks.  Here they are guarding their prisoner, shown below.

We caught several.  And by "we", I mean Superfrydad & the kids.  I wasn't touching them.  They make your hands stink.  The kids decided they wanted to roast one and eat it.

Here's how you roast a crayfish.

1.  Put the crayfish onto a stick while it is still alive.  That's gross, but it's not like you can twist their necks and kill them first.  Not that twisting their necks is better and I don't even think they have necks.  Superfrydad did the honors.  Please ignore the fact that it looks like he is wearing jean underwear.  He is the only man I know who still wears jean shorts.  I love him anyway.

2.  Roast the crayfish over an open fire until they turn red and crispy.  They will wiggle a little at first, but then they will stop and they will turn bright red like a lobster.  Roasting marshmallows and crayfish at the same time seems like something only contestants on Food Network's "Chopped" would have to do.

3.  Peel the crayfish and pull the meat out of the tail.  Doesn't Superfrydad have nice legs under those jean shorts?  Side note:  If you are a Pioneer Woman fan, note the disparity between Marlboro Man and Superfrydad.  Marlboro Man wears chaps.  Superfrydad wears jean shorts.  That pretty much sums up the difference between our lives.  Anyway.......

4.  Now it's time for tasting.

All of the kids were brave and ate them except for one.  That's right.  Superfrykid refused.  Look at her expression in the background of the picture above.  She is holding on to the arm of her chair for support while watching.  Maybe she's a chicken.  Maybe she just doesn't want to have diarrhea tonight.  Who's to say?

So that's how you roast crayfish.  I feel like after my post about making Strawberry Jam and now this Crayfish Tutorial, that maybe I should turn KWTF into a cooking blog.  Or not.