I’m a good cook—for up to about eight people. That’s my limit, and I prefer to cook for four. So, I was duly impressed by a couple of interesting parties I recently attended. Mony Ty—unofficial mayor of The Coffee Garden and creator of City Weeky’s most entertaining real-estate ads—throws a “Thankful for Friends” party at his home each spring. “Why only eat turkey in November?” asks Mony. So he fixed up a feast last week for a mere 300 of his friends, including fried turkey, roasted turkey, turduckens, stuffing, taters and all the other Thanksgiving Day accoutrements. It wasn’t a catered affair; Ty did all the cooking. I was impressed.

The week prior, I’d been invited to Tony & Gus Magann’s annual Mudbug Supper Club. Each spring, the Brothers Magann throw a big crawfish boil at Tony’s place in Emigration Canyon. Large 25-pound bags of live crawfish from Louisiana were boiled and served along with spuds, fresh corn, boudin sausages, Zydeco music and good wine and beer. The tasty mudbugs were tossed in big piles straight onto a dining table approximately the size of a yacht and we “sucked the heads and ate the tails” till we could stand no more. I urge you to befriend Ty and the Maganns, because you’re not gonna get fed like that at my place!

Quote of the week: Escargot is French for “fat crawling bag of phlegm. —Dave Barry

Send Food Matters info to teds@xmission.com.