DONT SQUASH THIS BUG

There has been an increased debate around animal welfare in the past few years and its all good. Apart from one species. The Crayfish. When you come from a fishing family thats been in the business for 6 generations in New Zealand, you can become anaethetised to killing fish.

Our crayfish or rock lobsters, normally came home in a sack , were chucked in the cool of the wash house tub and then the water of a big mush pot was ready for them when it reached a rolling boil. You quickly dumped them in and jammed the lid on quick as they didn't seem to like the hot water very much.

And in the days of tailing at sea - the body was severed from the head. Probably the worst way to kill them as the bodies remained active for quite some time.

As knowledge increased iki-ing became the done thing. A slice into the body that basically munched the very small brain. Then into boiling water.

So all good - And we see that the BSA has not upheld a complaint that came out of Master chef when a young aspiring chef dunked her cray into boiling water to kill it.

And frankly if its been chilled down long enough and the water is on a good rolling boil - there is little movement from the crayfish.

Now, we iki most fish these days- it stops them wriggling and means you get less spikes in your hands and it has the added benefit of them dying very quickly.

But occasionally we need a reality check - you see the crayfish has quite a close terrestial relative.

And we wonder just who among animal activists is going to go into bat for the extremely common slater or wood lice.

So why should the crayfish warrant more sympathy than a slater?

Personally we tend to ignore slaters, irritating and frikking ugly they may be but they are pretty harmless. And they tend to turn bad shit into good shit.

However if they really annoy us we just squash them - sort of a mega iki.

Works fine for us.

And for the record - one of the most viewed blogs on roarprawn, its about crayfish how to cook it and eat it naked.

And the best wine to go with crayfish?? That simple - any damn fine champagne will do especially the great NZ bubbles we have on offer these days - like the Le Brun Number 1

JAMMY BUGGERS

Someone got a bit sniffy about our comments on Shed Five here the other day and sent us some cryptic info about a jam eating competition featuring the man who started our favourite Auckland restaurant Euro , Simon Gault.

Well our good mate Mrs Ring Ding a Ling set us right with this link to the event at the Old Bank today.

Well all we can say is that Busted should have had an invite. We only have one jar of our hedgerow jam which contained, elderberries, greengages and rhubarb and plums. It is sublime....

It might just have won..

SHED FIVE= BELOW PAR

We managed to squeeze in a quick lunch at Shed 5 today.Its owned by Simon Gault of Masterchef NZ fame. We were with some mates , one of who was a very well known and highly respected Wellington chef.

He had a big problem with his steak.. It was not good.

Now we are seriously big fans of one of the Wellington dishes we think all food lovers should try - Snapper Pie at Arbitrageur. Comfort food at its finest.

Today we had the crab and prawn pot at Shed Five - it was crap. We do a better fish pie on a bad day with cheap fish.

However we have to say that since Stephen Morris is running front of House the service is impeccable. And the French waiter was superb.

Shame about the food.