After spending 19 years with unlimited access to crawfish in Louisiana, I moved to the almost-crawfishless state of California in 1997. In the past 5 years, I've only been able to enjoy crawfish twice. One of those magical times was on March 26, 2003. My mom ordered 10lbs of crawfish from CajunCrawfish.com and they were overnighted to me in San Diego.

I was extremely pleased with the crawfish upon arrival. Of the hundred or so crawfish, only one arrived dead. That's even better than some of the 10lb sacks that have arrived on my porch in Kaplan. The crawfish were also HUGE. Honestly, they were some of the biggest I'd ever eaten.

The package arrived on Friday in cardboard box filled with crawfish, seasonings and ice packs. We weren't ready to eat them just yet so we put the crawfish in an ice chest with water and waited patiently for Saturday morning to arrive. Some of the crawfish weren't so patient though and a few escaped from the chest. My wire fox terrier, Gracie, took quite an interest in the alien bugs and tried to corral them. Thankfully, neither she or the crawfish were hurt. We secured the chest a bit better then headed off to sleep.

We opened the ice chest on Saturday morning hoping for the best. These crawfish were tough, only one more had died during the night. Time to boil! Purchasing a butane tank wouldn't be a good investment since we only eat boiled crawfish once or twice a year so we decided to boil up the crawfish on our gas stove. We filled a big gumbo pot with water and threw in the CajunCrawfish.com seasonings.

When we ordered from the website, they told us that (powder) seasonings were included along with the crawfish. We were a bit skeptical but their seasonings turned out to be extremely delicious and authentic. They included more than enough for our crawfish boil. We boiled up the water and added about half of the seasonings provided.

We threw in potatoes, onions, and corn and let that boil for awhile. We then boiled some shrimp we'd purchased at the local grocer and then the crawfish. Once they were all done, we put everything back into the cleaned ice chest, threw the remaining seasonings on top and let it all steam. We then made the dipping sauce using 1/2 cup mayo, 1/2 cup ketchup and a few teaspoons of boil seasoning while we waited anxiously as the crawfish steamed.

Hardwood floors in homes are very popular in Southern California. Our house was no exception. We imagined how horrible crawfish juice stuck in old wood would smell and promptly decided to eat outside. We moved our dining room table to the tiny porch out front and lined it with trashbags. We threw the boiled crawfish, shrimp and vegetables onto the table and began to feast. If I cut down all the surrounding palm trees and squinted hard enough, I could have very well been at home in South Louisiana. The food and the experience were amazing. I highly recommend CajunCrawfish.com to anyone looking for live crawfish and great seasonings.