This Photo Friday is more like a photo purge (for use of a polite term).  Have a great Friday everyone!

I’ve commented for several days I’m going to do a post on this past weekend’s crawfish boil at my parent’s house.  It’s taken me too long to get it done.  You’ll see as you scroll through this post and see the amount of pictures in this one post.  Get ready for one really long, really heavy picture post.

Okay, this is a long post talking about my family.  It’s time I introduce them.  Sorry, no pictures.  Some are camera shy and I respect that (pretty much).  LOL!

My mom is Sal, Dad is Andy, Bro is Jas, and Bro’s S.O. is Cree.  Got that?  Okay, time to get started.

Jas and Cree’s birthdays both fall in May.  For birthdays, my parents always give us a nice meal out or at their house.  (I’ve mentioned before I have great parents!)  This year, Mom asked Jas and Cree how they felt about a crawfish boil.   They were like, “OH YEAH,” and the plan was set.

I arrived an hour after the crawfish were supposed to arrive.  However due to a problem with the market, well, we got started later than expected.  This gave me an opportunity to document the process (or at least part of it).

For any crawfish boil, you need a great seasoning in order to get just that right flavoring.  Dad prefers Louisiana brand, and that’s the one we use.  Also, copious amounts of salt go into this meal.  The crawfish aren’t too salty, it’s just that you use that much darn water.  In the end, 70 pounds of crawfish were boiled, and oh what a good time we had.

Dad got the burner going, and we were set to start the process.  If you grew up in Louisiana, odds are high you have attended any number of crawfish boils over the years.  Each family has their own ways of doing a boil.  By this, I don’t mean how you boil them as much as what you put in to be boiled.  A crawfish boil isn’t just the crawfish.  No, it’s all the stuff that goes into it: potatos, onions, garlic…even eggs!

My family likes the basics.  Potatos are a given.  I can hardly describe how good a potato tastes after being part of a crawfish boil.  It is here that I have to make a comment to the vegetarians that I know grace my blog.  You can get all the flavor of a crawfish boil (the seasonings) without eating the crawfish.  Just boil the potatos in crawfish boil ontop the stove in a large pot with a bit of onion and garlic in the water.  I’ve done this before.  So good!

This is something that I love in a crawfish boil, but I have a hard time handling: Manda’s sausage.  The thing is that the sausage, more than anything else for me, soaks up the crawfish boil and melds with the already spicy taste of the sausage.  Sometimes it is almost too much for my lips to bear.

Onions are another big favorite in a crawfish boil.  You don’t really taste the onion flavor in the crawfish.  At least, I don’t.  What you get are wonderfully cooked onions with all that great boiled flavor.  For the onions, we just peel off the outer layer, cut off one end, and throw them in the water when it is time.

Garlic cloves are a favorite addition of Jas.  You don’t need to peel them.  You can break apart the cloves and throw them in with the onions, or you can just throw in the whole bunch of cloves (don’t know the technical term) unpeeled.  Have I impressed on you yet how yummy this all is?  No, well, trust me.  YUMMY!  YUMMY!  YUMMY!

Dad filled his crawfish boiling pot about 3/4 of the way with water straight from the garden hose.  He added to the water the salt and crawfish boil seasoning.

The lid goes on the pot, and it is time to wait for the water to begin boiling.  While the water boils, Dad and Jas prepare the crawfish by rinsing them several times.  I, on the other hand, had other plans.

Cree recently purchased a used SLR camera from a friend of hers.  She’s been having a ripping good time, as have I.  She’s been my camera buddy, going with me to different places in our area to shoot pictures and learn our hobby.  We had a good camera afternoon.

For Cree’s birthday, Mom and I got together and purchased Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography books, vols. 1 and 2, as a gift.  Cree had alot of fun going through the books and then asking me questions.  I think I was being quizzed. 

Dad is quite the gardener and has a most amazing backyard.  In fact, it is a delight for Gabby and Toby as well.  Whenever they visit my parents’ home, they like to explore every nook and cranny.  It is so much more interesting than my empty backyard (but I’m working on that!)

And as always, I can’t resist a picture of bright leaves against a blue sky.  I should mention that all these pictures are basically SOOC, straight out of camera.  Except for a few exposure tweaks, I haven’t done any other types of post processing.  I could have done things to make the blues or greens strong.  I decided to keep it all natural instead.

Then, my father’s blackberry bushes drew my attention as they always do.  I haven’t been a fan over the years, but I’m warming up to it.  In fact, these flowers gave me the perfect opportunity to answer Cree’s questions on aperture and depth of field.  Many, many pictures were taken of these bushes.

Then, it was time to turn our attention to the blackberry bushes that are blooming.  Aren’t they beautiful?

I could not resist pulling one off the bush and trying it.  Tasty.  I found it to be fairly tasty, and I am learning to appreciate the tartness of the berry.

Before I knew it, I was called away from the blackberry bushes because our dinner was served.

Members of my extended family had arrived, and it was time to eat.  Dad poured the contents of the first boil out onto the table.  No words can describe what a good time we had and how good it all was.  Instead, I’ll just end with my final photo.