After setting up camp there will be a Cajun Seafood Boil for Saturday dinner. This is the one big community meal.

Robert brings a big kettle, propane burner, potatoes, corn, garlic, and spices. Everyone else brings their own "seafood" to throw in the pot and we ask for a little help shucking corn and prepping potatoes.

Good choices to bring are: shrimp, smoked sausage, crab, lobster, clams, mussels.

Shrimp and smoked sausage are very common , cook fast, and tend to get shared in a big heap, and thus are cooked first. More specialty items get batched by themselves after the large masses are batched through. Uncooked Italian sausages and bratwurst fall into this category because of the longer cook times (20-30 minutes).

Crawfish are a special case. If you want to deal with keeping them alive through the drive, keeping them from crawling in tents, and purging them before they go in the pot, it's ok . But since they do muddy the pot, they will be in the last batches, after all the other food is cooked -- which isn't that bad, you'll have corn and 'taters to munch on from the start. (If you don't know what "purging crawfish" means, you probably don't want to bring them.)

The other individually prepared meals everyone fends for themselves, or in small self-arranged groups. Usually everyone brings too much and there's a lot of sharing going on. Breakfast Sunday and Monday ranges from breakfast burritos (very popular -- but if you are putting more than 6 lbs. of chorizo in a pan you need to think a little on the phrase "individually prepared") to sweet rolls. Mimosas have caught on in a big way as of late. (There are cafes, stores, and fast food within 5 miles of the camp site if that's your "individually prepared" preference.)

Dinner Sunday night is usually something grilled, ranging from steaks to hot dogs. There are no built in grills , only open fire rings. If you need a grate, charcoal, a spit, or a stove, you need to make arrangements. A lot of people bring these, but you can wind up waiting a while for them if you haven't arranged ahead of time.

Sunday lunch is on the river. We'll pull over on a gravel bar, haul out the ice chests, sit down and eat. Sandwiches, cookies, fruit, etc. are common. Water-tight or water-resilient containers are the key here. If you don't want your bread to become cold-bread soup, double zip-locks or a zip-lock inside tupperware is a good idea. There will not be fires on the river to heat food.

In general, for all the meals, you want simple preparation with as few utensils as possible. The nearest running water is the river. The nearest treated running water is a water hydrant 400 yards away. If you need chopped onions, chopping before you go and putting them in a zip-lock is a good idea. If you are having kabobs, skewering them before you go and putting them in tupperware is a good idea.

Make sure you have sufficient ice chest storage to hold your meals and for lunch on the float. You don't want to be hauling your Sunday night steaks and Monday morning champagne on the river to keep your beer cold. It's also a good idea to freeze meats that you will be cooking on Sunday and Monday. They'll be thawing in the ice chests and will help keep everything else cold. If you bring eggs, breaking them and putting them in a plastic jar keeps them from breaking and running all over your cooler.

If you have any questions about food or cooking arrangements, feel free to email Robert at robert@eskridgefloat.com