This last Sunday morning my wife said to me, "Let's have a cookout this afternoon and invite a few friends". I responded with my usuall reply, "NO". Which prompted the counter reply, "YES". I then told her that I wanted nothing to do with it and she said she would do all the work. " Fine", was her answer. This all started about 10am before church.
Well after church, I asked her what was she going to do regarding the 'cookout'. I was thinking hotdogs, burgers and such. She responded with " I want a Low Country Boil". I almost fell out . I told her we did not have the cookers or even the ingrediants for a Boil. That did not phase her. She fired up the phones and things began to happen quickly.
I thought that a few friends meant a 'few friends'. Wrong. 6 became 12, 12 became 16, 16 became 20,20 became 30, I think you see the trend. I said where are you going to get the shrimp in quanity on short notice. She said don't worry. Yeah, right.
As the number of guests kept increasing , I decided to set up some tables (3) outdoors for people to use for eating and to have a place to stack the ingrediants. She left in her SUV and was gone about an hour. When she returned the back was full of 'stuff'. The phones were still on fire. We have 5. People were bringing this and bringing that. 4 porpane burners and 4 very large pots showed up thanks to my sons. Actually my equipment, they just finally returned them. Even Folding chairs arrived .
A case of crab legs was delivered and a quanity of Stone Crab claws. And many pounds of U.S. White shrimp heads off and xtra large or jumbo in size.
I told my sons that I was retired as the cook and now it was thier turn to do the cookouts. They did a fine job with the 'boil'.
They dicided to boil the crab legs and the claws first. I figured that the ladies young and old would not bother with the crab legs and mainly the males would feast on the crab. Wrong.
It was like a human feeding frenzy when the crab hit the tables, the gals tore into those crab legs and ate as much as the guys. What I had thought had been a lot of crab quickly disappeared.
Next was the actual Low Country boil. I figured 'well everybody has got to be full by now'. It seems that the crab had only taken the edge off thier feeding frenzy. They ate like there was no tomorrow. Which I was glad to see. I hate picky eaters. The plowed through the sodas, the cole slaw, the chips , the iced tea, the french fries, the chicken fingers, the ice cream, the cake. It was obvious that they must have saved thier appetites for this Boil and gathering.
I played host and traffic director. At one time we had about 30 cars parked out front. We had kids, grandkids, wives, x-wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, and good friends show up.
Just goes to show that sometimes it does little good to say NO to a determined wife. A good time was had by all and we sat together in a circle enjoying the fellowship of the family for hours. And if you really want people to show up for a gathering...tell them you have crab legs and shrimp.
As one of the guest was leaving she said," You need to have one of these LCBs about once a month". Well, Tuesday I was looking at some of the reciepts for the event and the seafood alone was almost $500. dollars. She can host the next LCB.
