Food and Old Houses

I was tempted to try Deep Fried Cheesecake but just couldn't

Cajun Seafood Boil

The idea that going on the road after the holidays would make it easy to cut back and lose a little weight didn't take into account gulf seafood, Texas BBQ, near the border Mexican food and the southern propensity for frying.  We saw lots of shrimpers on the Texas coast, smallish boats in Fulton that specialize in bay shrimp and oysters and large ones in Palacios that go out into the gulf.  I am told there are different licenses for the bay vs the gulf.  In Fulton the daily oyster catch was amazing, small boats,largely  manned by Asians and Hispanics, unloaded 100lb sacks of oysters each afternoon.  Just wish I liked them as they couldn't be fresher.  The bay shrimp were not available so I content myself with buying a pound of gulf shrimp and cooking up a stir fry.  That was pretty healthy, as was the cajun seafool boil.  It is like the new england version with shrimp, crab, potatoes, spicy sausage, potatoes and corn.  The difference is that the seasoning is hot and spicy.  Can't wait to try it with king and dungeness crab.  They even sell spicey boiled potatoes as a side down here.  I bought a package of seasoning to make it easy.  

We also found a great restaurant called JD's, run by a former Coastie (Coast Guard) who had served in the Aleutians and Bering Sea.  They serve humungous meals at low prices so we always got dinner and the next day's lunch for one price.  Because they had no liquor license you could BYOB.  We bought a nice bottle of wine but noticed that the boys at the next table brought a CASE of beer.  The waitress didn't bat an eye and brought a pail of ice to keep it cold.

Fulton House

DJ's Shrimp Taco and Shrimp Po'Boy

Right next to our RV Park was the Fulton Mansion built in 1877 in what was then a pretty remote area.  The owner, George Fulton, was an engineer who included many very modern features such as gas lighting, central hot forced air heating as well as gravity fed flush toilets and bathtubs.  The construction was so strong that the house has withstood nearly 150 years of hurricane exposure, facing straight into the Aransas Bay.