Crawfish Boil

This past Sat the Graduate Student Council of our department held the one and only social for the semester: The Crawfish Boil. The event was strategically dated in the weekend of the final exams, so everybody could get a little study break.

Crawfish aka Crayfish aka Procambarus clarkii, is a spring harvest, fresh water , crustacean like "delicacy". Louisianna peeps were the first ones infusing their Cajun style cooking to serve this lobster wanna be. For simplicity, we chose just plain boiling the crawfish with some Cajun spice and lemons. The catered menu also included sweet corn on the cob, sausages, coleslaw, and the yummiest ever veggie lasagna for the vegetarians. {If all vegetarian foods tasted like that veggie lasagna, I would definitely be a vegetarian}.

My task, as usual, was to buy beverages. My partner in crime for beverage shopping, James, delegated the whole business to me, and I ended up taking Feng to Albertson's. Since the occasion would be held at Dr. Hall's backyard, our alcohol license were automatically re-lived. So, it was up to me and Feng to pick the winning R-OHs for the day. The list went like this:
-Local: Miller, Bud, Shiner and Rolling Rock (the later was the cheapest good beer--totally Feng's suggestion for the sake of budget tightening)
-Imports: Becks, Heineken, Michelob, and Red Killian
-Ladies': Sky

I hesitated a lot for totally we only bought a total of 72 bottles, 30% less than the usual shopping. Of course we also bought the sodas and H₂O, plus Buppy will also serve a lot of those special sweetened iced tea. Anyway, with the thoughtful concern at the current Texas economic situation, the hiring freeze and all, I decided the beverages quantity would be enough.

So, we picked up some trash bags and couple of bottle openers, and then went ahead to the cashier. As usual, the cashier was like, "Uhh..ahh...you could buy alcohol with A&M's money? Cool."

Arrived at Dr. Hall's, Brad, Kiran, Renee, Jonathan, and these 2 dudes I know nothing about already finished arranging the chairs and tables in the yard. Dr. Hall has a well-built deck with tables and chairs, so for sure we would have enough place for everybody to sit to devour those red steamy creatures.

A lot of Profs & their families came. The Holtzapple brats, John, Matthew and Mike, were there. Too bad that cutee Matthew got bitten by those nasty fire ants. And where is Mom and Dad when you need them, right, Matthew? (He is only 5). Dr. Shantz's Hayden was also v. cute and v. energetic. He has this cute lisp.

So the food was great, the chat was enjoyable, the babies were cute. If there was one thing I hate about the party was that the crowd had this "hesitation" to mix and mingle. So you know, Americans w/ American, Chinese w/ Chinese, Indian w/ Indian, Korean w/Korean. Our table was the only one with people from different countries: India, Russia, China, Korea, Indonesia, Jordan, West Africa. Sigh...

Btw, it turned out I should have bought like 2 dozens more of the R-OH. Good lesson learnt, I'll be ready for the next boil.

Pics will be posted as soon as I could develop, scan, and upload them to the GSC web.