Crazy Crawfish in My Crazy Beautiful Hometown!

Call them what you will: "crawdad, crawfish, ecrevisse, crayfish, crawdaddy, rock lobster, spiny lobster, langouste, sea crawfish "~  

I am NOW CRAZY IN LOVE WITH CRAWFISH!

I won tickets to the Pensacola Crawfish Festival, and being the social butterfly I am, I was thrilled at the prospect of mingling with the crowds, enjoying the festival atmosphere and trying this new "Crawfish Cuisine".  My Louisiana, Crawfish, Cajun Lovin' Son, was thrilled about the Crawfish, my husband was a little skeptical and leery.  He enjoys the tried and true, you know~ he is a meat and potatoes kinda guy!  And while he may not look thrilled, he really did have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in his heart, because he is a trooper! = )

We arrived at the festival, and were greeted with absolutely perfect weather, the aroma of cajun cookin' at its finest, the sound of Cajun music, and throngs of happy Pensacola Festival Attendees!  I immediately began snapping pictures to capture the memories I knew this day would surely bring!  

We saw signs announcing every type of 'fried fab foods' known to man! "OY"

BUT, I quickly found the sign announcing the very thing I had come for... CRAWFISH!

As we approached the Crawfish booth, there was some serious conversation going on between father and son as to whether or not the 'skeptical' father was going to eat 'bugs', as he so fondly refers to them.  He decided he would sample from what the son and I ordered!

So, with no hesitation, I ordered the small crawfish plate...

And even before tasting the first bite~ 

I was excited!

And the son ordered the 'Mother of ALL Crawfish Platters"!

We sat under the festival tent, which heralded the five flags of Pensacola.  We were serenaded with true Cajun Music... loved it!  My strapping 21 year old gave his momma a lesson in the finer points of crawfish eatin'!  And believe me, there is an art to eating the crawfish!

I will give the hubby kudos as he did 'try' the crawfish.  And when he said, 'well that was interesting', I ran off to buy him some shrimp and fries.  As for my son and I, there simpy just were not enough Crawfish.  I FELL IN LOVE with these Crazy, Crawfish, Crustaceans, as they so reminded me of my tremendous love of all things 'seafood', born from my Chesapeake bay upbringing!

After we were done, we decided to walk around the beautiful Pensacola Historic Downtown area.  We enjoyed the cool breeze, reveled in the time we had together, and I had a blast shooting some FANTASTIC PHOTOS of my beautiful hometown... but that is another blog for another time!

A good time was had by all and I have adopted a fabulous cajun phrase I would like to pass along to you.  But first... find yourself a huge plate of Crazy Cajun Crawfish, then say with me...

"I WILL EXPERIENCE~ 

"Joie de vivre" (zhwah duh viv-re)~ "The joy of living"

There is a lot to be said for trying something new! You NEVER know if you will like it~ you may end up loving it, and I must say that I have a new appreciation for all things Cajun, including my Crazy, Crawdad, Crustacean, Friends~ LOVE 'EM!

And before I heave on outta here, I will leave you with my favorite of all cajun sayings:

"LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!

Living, Laughing and Loving me some Crawfish!

Patti