For two years I’ve been invited to a friend’s summer pool/Astros viewing party, and the varied foods have had a vegetarian bent. This time, she announced, she’d serve carrot dogs.

Whatever you are imagining, you’re right. It’s a carrot on a bun. Dress it up with your standard hot dog toppings and go to town with your dog. Laugh if you want, but I wanted to see how it was done.

The deal is, I knew I’d be out of town and missing the party. Now I was missing carrot dogs, too? Don’t worry, she saved some for me and I picked up a bag of whole-wheat hot dog buns and a container of lovely carrots with grill marks. The carrots looked so good, I ate one cold and loved it.

Total confession: When I warmed up my stash, I put some leftover barbecue on the bun, so it came out like a long sloppy joe. The grilled carrots went on the side, until I ate them all up.

Maybe I’ll try it as the hostess intended when I have leftovers of the leftovers.

Mushrooms in the boil?

A newspaper friend tweeted surprise that people put mushrooms in their crawfish boil. I have seen it done, and I love mushrooms.

But I always considered mushrooms a pricy extra that gets lost in the commotion of the boil. Onions, corn, potatoes and sausage are good for me, but I can see wanting to season everything you have on hand in that pot. I’d love to know how all those “extras” started.

Readers, if you have some thoughts on mushrooms, etc., share them.

I sent word back to my friend that I’d recently boiled some eggs and peeled them, then let them heat some more in retained crawfish juice.

By that I mean I removed some heads from boiled crawfish and boiled them down to make a stock for my next gumbo. I have a freezer full of spicy blocks of ice. Anyway, the spicy boiled eggs made a great lunch accompaniment for the rest of the week.

Darragh Doiron is a Port Arthur area foodie who knows it’s always crawfish season somewhere (if you froze ahead). Reach her at darraghcastillo@icloud.com