September 12-15, 2015 shrimp and crab feast, Brunswick, GA

Saturday
Rainy day spent on small projects.  At 4:00, I went to the club house to watch the Alabama foot ball game. Roll Tide!!

another amazing sunset

About 6:00, Randy and Deb Louchart came to pick us up for a mini vacation.  They live in Atlanta, but are from SD.  We met through mutual friends in 1980 or 81 in Brookings, SD.  They rented a VRBO-vacation rentals by owners-about 10 miles inland, but on a small waterway.  We had pulled pork and a tabbouleh salad that I made for dinner at the beautiful 5 bedroom home. 

Sunday
Great frittata made by Dave for breakfast.  And relaxing morning on the porch. 

view from the house

5 bedroom house

great front porch

chef Dave

We went for a drive today looking for fresh shrimp.  The usual places were closed on Sundays.  So we drove to Jekyll Island, drove around, and ended up at the Rah Bar for an afternoon snack of seafood nachos.  While we were there, a shrimper brought in a basket of fresh shrimp for the restaurant.   So we followed him outside and asked if he had more to sell.  He  said he had a bout 100 lbs at $2.50/lb.  We only wanted about 10 lbs, so we compromised at 50 lbs.  He said he actually gave us about 60 lbs.  We were tickled.  Can’t get them any fresher than that.

on Jekyll Island on the Intra coastal waterway

shrimp in coolers right off the boat-Jekyll Island

Deb with 60 lbs of shrimp

So we  put them on ice and headed back to the rental.  We hauled them up the 12 stairs to the kitchen in pots and put them in the kitchen sink.  Then we started cleaning enough for dinner and ceviche.  We removed the heads of the others and put them in bags to freeze.  We found several squid and a few little fish in with the shrimp. 

all transferred from cooler to sink

assembly line

bonus with the shrimp-butter knife for dimension

Randy breaded and cooked “bang bang shrimp” for us for dinner.  He made a special “bang bang sauce” to go with them. 

chef Louchart making 'bang bang shrimp"

After dinner, Deb and I started a jigsaw puzzle in the living room.  Dave and Randy sat telling stories in the kitchen.  She and I would just shake our heads and sympathize with each other.  Those two just feed off of each other with nonsense. 

Monday
We started the day with mimosas on the deck.  Today, I made the frittata and Deb flipped pancakes.  We also put together the ceviche with what we had at the cabin-shrimp, onion, green pepper, jalapeño pepper, lemons and limes.

mimosas

mimosas

While we were cooking, Dave took a crab trap out on the dock and put it in the water.  He used shrimp heads as bait. 

I enjoyed a brisk swim in the swimming pool.  Deb and Randy enjoyed lounging by the pool while Dave took a nap.

refreshing

The tide was going out, so Deb checked the crab trap and we had 12 crabs!!!!  Two females were taken back to the water.  We transferred them to a cooler and watched them fight with each other or act like a chain of monkeys when you tried to lift them out of the water.  Randy would fetch one crab.  Then Dave or Deb used an ice pick to pith the crabs.  Then Dave broke open the shell and broke them into two halves.  Deb used the garden hose to rinse all the parts (good farm girl).  And I was the “historian”.  Somebody had to document the moment. 

days catch

more fun than a barrel of monkeys

group effort

trying not to get pinched as he checks the gender

pith-ing with an ice pick

beautiful blue crab ready to cook

We decided to have a seafood buffet instead of going out for dinner.  First we ate the boiled crab, then the ceviche and left over shrimp from last night.  We had a couple salads to round things out and had a fine meal.  

Spent the evening with a mix of cards, jigsaw puzzle and TV.  Very relaxing!

Tuesday
Happy Birthday Randy!
Randy planned this weekend to celebrate his 60th birthday.  They had the week off to go to a wedding in SD.  They will return to Atlanta today and fly to SD tomorrow. 
Thank you so much for inviting us to join you in your birthday celebration!

Randy and Deb Louchart, Mary and Dave Roth