Phoenix Crawfish Boil

The Great Cajun Crawfish Boil

Cajun Cactus Foundation

Phoenix Chapter, LSU Alumni Association

Saturday, April 10, 2010

My Crawfish boiling pot! This was a joint fundraiser put on by the Cajun Cactus Foundation and the Phoenix chapter of the LSU Alumni Association.

There were several websites built to sell and promote the event.... I guess the first was the sales page of "The Great Cajun Crawfish Boil"

We were not allowed to back our truck up on to the park's grass, soooooo these guys carried my crawfish boiling pot about 100 yards back to the corner that we were planning our cook! Now, That is a LOAD! .... AND not only that but all 2,700 lbs of CRAWFISH, Jambalaya and a trailer full of pots, burners, propane tanks, ice chests of Smoked Sausage, Corn, Potatoes, Rice, Pasta and tons of catering equipment!!!

Sean Pierre (right) all the way from Destrehan, Louisiana offered his crawfish boiling skills. And BOY, was he a godsend! Sean worked all day and into the evening. He helped boil all 4 batches, that is about 650 lbs per batch!!

Myself and Sean Dieffenbaugher add rice to the Jambalaya Sean Dieffenbaugher (LEFT, try to get your spell checker to suggest something for that last name!) Anyway.... Sean was my Sous Chef for the trip, I picked him up in Houston and we drove to Phoenix. He was a FANTASTIC help, and I could not have made the trip without him!! ......... Well, while our first batch of crawfish, started to soak he added 2 cubes of 25 lbs of rice to our 40 gallon cast iron pot of Jambalaya. We used my 20 gallon rig and burner set up to cook on such a large pot. IT WORKED!!! OK, so we were a little gratuitous to take some pics with the women volunteers!!

To feed the masses of people we expected we also cooked an additional 20 gallons of Jambalaya, you can check out our recipe at Throwdown Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya!!

NOW that is some Jambalaya cookin'.

BTW, these LSU Alums know how to party, they had presold over 700 tickets to the event! They were lined up an hour before the gates were opened!!

OF course, with any crawfish boil there are obligatory condiments!!! We boiled up 150 lbs of potatoes, 700 cobbettes, 100 lbs of Manda's Smoked Sausage, and 80 gallons of Shrimp and Crawfish Penne Pasta!! Then to top it all off, Abita Beer was imported from Louisiana!!

NOW, YA WANTA Talk bout something cool, WELL, the mayor of Tempe showed, YEP is Honorable Hugh Hallman.... HEY, I got to hug his wife Susan!! The mayor excused himself, and said he had another appointment.... BUT, he came back an hour later to eat some crawfish....!!!! NOW THAT is TOOOO Cool, he even gave me his Tempe pin that you can see on his lapel!!

Thanks Your Honor, ya got my vote!!

AND BTW, I want to vacation in Arizona!! NO BOYCOTT HERE!

Cookin' wise..... everything went smoothly, but there were some long lines in service, I bet next year they will fix those problems!!

Well, anyway, we rested on Sunday, and played a round of golf at Longbow Country Club. AND also on Sunday afternoon I won an eBay bid of a '46 Antique Mills Slot Machine that was for local pick up in Scottsdale.

Sean and I were enamored by the beautiful cactuses in bloom... we chatted about that extensively during our drive back..... and the HOT women that helped serve our Crawfish!!!

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