Paddling to Eat - Red Crawfish

Here’s a chant from the DieselFish songbook:

WHO ARE WE?
DIESELFISH!
WHY DO WE PADDLE?
TO EAT!
HOW MUCH DO WE EAT?
A LOT!

I'm not crazy about this old chestnut anymore, because it ignores all the gains we’ve made in fitness and competitiveness. But damn it, there’s an element of truth to it. DieselFish does eat a lot. The trick is to burn off the calories with a good workout. The team recently got together for a dinner outing at Red Crawfish, a Cajun/Asian fusion (?!) restaurant that recently opened in our neck of the woods.

We didn’t bother with anything from the Asian side of the menu. A group of us ordered a set meal that included boiled crawfish and shrimp, Cajun fries, fried calamari, gumbo and beignets. Everyone had a steamy, spicy and messy good time (even the guy with the life-threatening shellfish allergy!), but the conversation lulled slightly after we began the delicate task of extracting meat from the crawfish.

You’d think restaurant outings like this would be the bane of our existence, but I think they're beneficial. On one level, the act of sharing food with your teammates creates a bond, and that bond is especially important for a sport like dragon boat paddling which is based on synchronization. On a more basic level, hanging out with your buddies is fun. Next time, I’m going to get one of my teammates to shell my crawfish – all in the name of team harmony and morale.

-The Minister of Newbie Happiness

Hello Internet friends! Doesn’t dragon boat racing with DieselFish sound like fun? Go to http://dieselfish.org/ now to sign up for a free practice session!