Birthdays, Blue Crabs, and Cake Balls

July.  The month when you really know that summer is here.  July.  The month we celebrate our country’s independence.  July.  The month that marks summer vacation being half over.  July.  The month my son-in-law, MuzicMan was born.  July.  The month Danno, our second son was born.  July.  The month I was born.

We celebrated the nation’s independence and MuzicMan’s birthday in a sort of combo get together.  We gave him a gas grill as a gift, and he in turn invited us over to break it in on hamburgers, hot dogs, and stuffed peppers.  We had a delicious meal and a wonderful family time.  However, all our children could not be there.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, with sons who work 7&7, and 28&14, it’s difficult for us to get the whole gang together.  But this month, with many opportunities, it was bound to happen.

We got together for my birthday at the camp, and this is what I wanted for my birthday from Termite . . . .

Except I wanted more than just one of these.

Now, that’s more like it.  I wanted him to catch enough for a big birthday boil.  It looked like we would all be here except Daboo, the oldest son.  He was still out on a tugboat somewhere.  BigSis and one of my nieces drove down from New Orleans, so it was a great day.

And in case you couldn’t read the ruler on that ice chest up there, that was a pretty big blue crab Termite caught.

Whose tray do you think this crab ended up on?  Mine, right?  Well, it WAS my birthday . . . . but it ended up on someone else’s tray.  Hmmmm.  I wonder whose?

Not quite a week after my birthday is Danno’s.  For his birthday dinner he wanted a big pot of “Redneck Gumbo“. . .

and some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cake Balls.  Dotter and I developed the recipe, but we turned them into “Lolli-cakes” by using sucker sticks rather than just forming them into balls.  I can post the recipe if anyone is interested in how we did it.  They were delicious!

Because we did not get together with Daboo (the oldest son) for his birthday in May, I decided to bake his favorite–dewberry cobbler  So, I was pretty much in the kitchen all day last Friday and loving every minute of it.

The second thing Danno wanted was use of the camp for the next day to have some friends down for a crab boil of his own.

This time, Daboo (big brother) got to be here for Danno’s birthday, and he did the honors of boiling crab for his brother.

This is starting to look like a family tradition!  We have the recipe for perfect boiled crabs, if anyone would care to have that posted, as well.

It’s been a wonderful week of birthdays, boiled crabs, and lolli-cakes.

Now, the long-awaited rains are filling the ditches and flooding the city streets from here to New Orleans.  I think we can finally say we’ve had enough.

Rain anyone?

BW

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29 Comments

    1. Ha ha ha! We had a TON left. The recipe made 60!!! I just ate one, by the way! Let’s see, I wonder what’s going on August 5th or 6th. Hey are you filming the fishing trip? Call me . . . .

  1. I can almost taste that crab….oh wait…I have! I still think we should have brought Termite home with us for the rest of the summer, that kid can boil crab!

    We need rain, badly. I brought rain to you in June, I think you should bring rain to me in July. 🙂

    If you think about it and if it’s still there can you either send me the name of the seasoning Jason left in the cabinet or send me the bottle, I’m afraid I will have to make another drive to the middle of nowhere to get another one.

    1. Oh, dog gone it. I looked at it the other day and forgot to bring it home. It came from Opelousas. I remember that much. I will do my best to remember, Tara. Will buy a padded envelope somewhere. Email me your mailing address again, please, okay? Termite has to stay here and finish Driver’s Ed, but he might have gone if he could bring his new puppy . . . . .

  2. Recipes please! Unless of course you can send some home with Tar Baby on the 5th. I’ll pick them up at his house. LOL

  3. Please get your buckets out and save me some rain to bring back home. This food looks delicious.

    1. Oh my gosh. It started before daylight and rained all day again. We’ve really had enough! Bring your buckets and take some back with you!!!

  4. Send some rain to the northeast. We hit the 17th day of 100º+ temps today. If anyone tosses a cigarette butt out of their window or down when passing the house……..it will be “POOF” and the fire will be on. We are on water rationing and they are asking us to conserve electricty too!

    That crab boil makes my mouth water! I am pushing the husband for our vacation and he still hasn’t said where yet. And please put the recipes on here.

    Termite is in drivers ed? So are two of my daughters sons. One is 18 and has his licenses but, he is terrified of driving and if he could, he would pass it by altogether. The other one is ready for his since he plans to enter the Navy after his graduation next May. Said he might want to drive someplace off base when he docks.

    A belated Happy Birthday to you and your family.

  5. You know I still haven’t ate a real live Loozy crab. Ya’ll should be ashamed. I did however watch some dumb yankee tourists 3 doors down from Choup Camp with hammers and vice grips and serious tools once.

    I got to say the PBCB’s look as good as DCCDC’s. In summer one of my main food groups is peanut M&M’s cause I fish till sugar drops and too tired to cook. Campbell’s Gumbo is a close second. 110 heat indices till Friday. Be a good time for you to visit no wind chill at all.

  6. I would love to have the cake ball receipe. I will be in town next week, and would LOVE to have some boiled crabs too!! Did you guys catch those, or buy them somewhere?

    1. Hey girl. We leave from Falgout Canal, go to what we call “Crab Canal” with our string, chicken necks, and crab dip nets. We tie off about 4-8 strings on pilings, watch them, and BOOM! In no time, the crab are there. And you know the rest . . . we slowly pull in the string and scoop up the crab with the net and dump ’em in the ice chest. However, these particular crabs in this post were purchased (although they were NOT much bigger than the ones we hand-caught on string the weekend before) from a local crabber (I have his number if you want it), and we paid $40 for about five dozen.

      1. Thats how we used to crab, Beef lip, and tie an old washtub with a rope around our waist. Not sure which was better the day on the lake crabbing or that night when the family’s got together for a big boil. Probably the day on the lake because I was always sunburned by the evening boil.

        I would be hard pressed to pick which sounded the best of your foods, crabs to cobber. How can you go wrong?

        Looks like a great time…… Happy Happy Birthday

        1. The first time I ever went crabbing down in Galveston off the rock jetties, I got the worst sunburn of my life. Nobody thought about sunscreen back in the sixties, right? I am trying to picture this heavy wash tub around your waist. Were you wading? And did it float? You have to draw me a better picture, because I am a very visual person.

          1. FYI, sunscreen in the ’60’s was by prescription only and most people were unaware of it.

          2. We would run a string line like you said Termite did, no traps nor those little round drop nets that you would always see the tourists using off some bridge or pier. Instead of chicken necks (those were a treat every so often when Mom had saved enough of them to make chicken necks in onion gravy), we’d get beef lips which were worth little of nothing to get at the slaughter house and even crabs can’t tear them up. We’d appropriate a metal dip basket from someones outdoor fryer, tie it to broom handle and catch the crabs just as termite did. Walk the string line, one finger on one hand slowly raising the line as we walked (you could feel the crabs if they were on the next piece of meat), slowly glide the basket under the crab which was hanging on to it’s beef lip lunch, catch the crab as he dropped and deposit him or her in the pulled wash tub behind you.

            Once done you headed to shore to talk sports or women with the guys till the next runs.

            Just an old round wash tub, like ya grandparents had on the back porch for Saturday night bathing when you went to visit as a kid. Just tie some line to a belt loop (we usually wore cut-offs) and attach it to the handle on the washtub. Maybe add a bit of water if too top heavy.

          3. LOL.. its late, Steffi got BW’s reply. As to suntan lotion, it was the pits as a kid. To quote Eric Cartman I was a ginger, extremely fair features and back then bright red hair. I burned fast and bad! But no one ever used sun tan lotion and if you burned bad it was either butter or vinegar for the burn. Some people would put zinc oxide on their nose but that was never cool. I worked for a summer in the Atchafalaya Spillway laying a pipeline and never did have any hide left on the top of my ears till I went back to school.
            But for some reason when I read Steff;s post I remembered that back then the girls had suntan lotion, it was mostly homemade though. They would mix iodine and baby oil and use it to “tan”. Guys, even gingers were just too cool to do that, but we all appreciated the girls letting us rub it on them……..

            1. That iodine and baby oil lotion gave you a nice burnt orange look! I don’t think I ever used it, but I had plenty of friends that came back to school with that “orange glow”.

  7. Yes, please. We’ll take some rain! There have been some showers, but a half inch times two doesn’t do much for a twenty inch deficit.

    Crabbing, good food, family, fun – it all sounds like reports from another galaxy! But so nice to read about it all, and I’m so glad it’s been such a good month for you.

    I’m nearly done with the process of clearing out Mom’s apartment – that may be done this weekend. Then, it’s just a matter of getting everything I’ve toted down to my place organized, finishing the paperwork and getting caught up at “real work”. Then? Well, I hear fall’s a time time on the bayou. 😉

    And I second the request for the cake ball recipe!