Soft Shell Crab Sandwich

Crisp Fried Soft Shell Sandwich

Soft Shell Crab w/over ripe tomato.

One of my favorites -- Soft Shell Crab Sandwich

April is the beginning of soft shell crab season on the Gulf Coast and boy did I start off with a bang. Last week I stopped by one of my soft shell suppliers and picked up a dozen large crabs classified as whalers. I love making fried soft shell crab sandwiches with my first crabs of the season. I picked up a couple of ripe hot house tomatoes and a loaf of soft sliced bread and headed to my office to fix lunch. Soft shell crab sandwiches are a seasonal treat and everyone should eat at least one. I like a crispy fried crab with a little mayonnaise, ketchup, hot sauce topped with an over ripe tomato and served on white or wheat sliced bread. Try one with a fresh soft shell crab and you will be a fan for life.

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake

Birthday Cake

Every year for my birthday, Diane asks what kind of cake I want and every year I say the same thing, strawberry shortcake. Fresh strawberries are always in season in April and adding whipped cream and shortcake together makes my favorite cake.

Diane's shortcake, a giant slightly sweet biscuit holds up well to the juicy strawberries and whipped cream that she generously adds to it. A very simple cake but one that I will take over any other.

We celebrated three birthdays with this cake, Jamie my stepdaughter's, Jay my brother-in-law's and mine, that's what the three candles were for.

Little Eagle's Boiled Crawfish

Little Eagle's Boiling Room

Washing Crawfish

Boiling Pots

Dining Room

Boiled Crawfish

Platter of Crawfish

Kurt LeBoeuf's Little Eagle in Golden Meadow, LA is a favorite stop during crawfish season. I have been stopping at the Little Eagle for more than 40 years and until about 1o years ago I could fill up with gas, get a drink and eat boiled crawfish. Kurt and his wife Jackie decided to stop selling gas and open only for live and boiled crawfish. During the off season Kurt is a fishing guide and manages a fishing camp with his wife Jackie in the marsh south of Golden Meadow. Both Kurt and Jackie are great cooks and have terrific crawfish. Whenever I'm working in the area I always look forward to visiting, having a few platters of crawfish and catching up with the locals.

The Little Eagle is a converted service station with two long communal tables and hundreds of old fishing and maritime relics collected by Kurt's father and mother over the last 60 years. This is the type of place that I grew up eating boiled seafood and find vanishing all over South Louisiana.

Every crawfish season when headed down the bayou, I go through Golden Meadow , I keep my fingers crossed and hope that Kurt and Jackie have opened this little jewel one more year. I know that some day because of rising property cost, increased regulations and "progress", the Little Eagle will be a replaced with a shopping center or maybe a nail salon and sushi bar.

Crawfish Bisque

Diane and Carolyn in kitchen

Audrey "Toots" peeling crawfish and saving the fat.

Jamie and Will stuffing heads

Carolyn and Diane stuffing heads

Stuffing heads

Tray of stuffed crawfish heads


Butter Roux

Crawfish Bisque w/ stuffed heads

Making and eating crawfish bisque, when I was growing up, has always been a special event for our family. Because of the work involved in preparing and stuffing the heads, eating crawfish bisque was reserved for restaurants. When I was growing up there were plenty of restaurants that served great crawfish bisque. Today due to the inability to buy crawfish fat and heads some restaurants have taken this traditional dish off of the menu or have eliminated the stuffed heads.

During Holy Week, the peek of the crawfish season, I decided that I would get the family together and cook crawfish. My grandson Will, on his way to visit with us in Grand Isle for the week and knowing that we were cooking crawfish, asked his mother a question that really made me feel bad. He asked Jamie, "Mom what is crawfish bisque?" When Jamie told me that I was ashamed I had not cooked this traditional crawfish favorite for him.

I knew this week would be the perfect time to make crawfish bisque. Diane's mother, Audrey and sister, Carolyn were going to be here. With the children and grandchildren also here it would be a perfect time to make an old fashioned crawfish bisque and everyone could help.

We started early Friday morning, first boiling and peeling the crawfish. We cleaned heads and saved the fat buried deep in the head. Without that fat our bisque would not have tasted like we all remembered it. We spent all day, making roux, chopping vegetables, cooking the bisque, preparing stuffing and cleaning and stuffing the crawfish heads. We were six people working on this family meal. This was a real labor of love, after all we were cooking for the family and we would be serving at least 14 of them that night.

After supper was served and everyone said that this was the best crawfish bisque they had ever eaten (our last bisque is always the best) we realized why Will had never eaten bisque. To make great crawfish bisque takes much labor and time but all of us vowed to at least cook one large bisque a year and to make it a family event.

Crawfish Peeling Plant

Hand Peeled Crawfish

Crawfish Peeler

Pile of Crawfish on Peeling Table

Peeled Crawfish Meat

Premium Hand Picked Crawfish Meat

Last week while working in Louisiana I had a chance to visit an old friend's crawfish peeling plant which is now being run by his daughter Rose and nephew Greg.

Lionel Hayes was the first person to start peeling crawfish commercially. He told me that while selling live crawfish for Joe Amy in Henderson, Louisiana he had 7 sacks of crawfish left over one afternoon. He dropped a few sacks off at each of his sister's homes to peel so that he wouldn't loose the crawfish. After they cooked and peeled the crawfish he asked one of his large customers, which was Don's Seafood & Steakhouse restaurant in Lafayette if they were interested in buying the crawfish tails. Don, Ashby and Willie Landry said that they would and thus an industry was born. During the early 50's restaurants that served crawfish etouffee, bisque and stew had to peel them which required extra labor during crawfish season.

Joe Amy owned a grocery store in Henderson and decided to open a peeling plant and have Lionel run it for him. Demand for peeled crawfish began to grow as more restaurants and supermarkets needed the meat

Lionel later opened his own plant and during the early 70's I began buying from him for my own first restaurant. We opened more restaurants and a wholesale company and eventually bought most of his production. He had the best peeled crawfish in those days and his reputation for top quality remains today.

Lionel died last year, but his daughter and nephew have kept his high standards and still produce one of the best peeled crawfish in Louisiana.

I knew Lionel for over 40 years and had the opportunity to spend many hours with him during crawfish season. When I hear the word crawfish I can't help thinking of Lionel Hayes, he was a pioneer and great friend I truly miss.