aw, shucks.

My brother Barry's church was having a shindig. Not a potluck, not a chicken pie supper, or any of the usual Methodist gatherings I am used to, but an oyster and seafood roast. It was a fund-raiser put on by a Sunday school class to raise money for a family over the holidays. I guess oysters are what you get when you don't live so far inland.

I don't eat a lot of seafood. As a kid, I ate only shrimp. Then I went shrimping, and I quit eating that, too, because once you see those things alive, you have a hard time putting a dead one in your mouth. It is only recently that I've started eating seafood at all again, mostly due to working at fine dining establishments and realizing that there are other ways to cook it than to deep fry it. God bless the South.

I'd never had oysters at all before, except in this stew that my grandmother used to eat. The people in my dad's family are seafood people, having grown up on the North Carolina coast. My grandmother loved that oyster stew, and she'd have one of her children run down the street from her nursing home to this specific seafood restaurant to get a to-go cup of it. I don't remember much of the taste of the stew, just that there were very questionable-looking items floating in what looked like milk. My other experience with oysters was walking along a beach and watching my father fish them out among the rocks and eat them raw. Daddy doesn't hold much with those silly sanitation rumors about undercooked meat. I think he figures that anything he used to do sixty years ago is probably still safe.

Barry and his wife, Holly, invited me and Josh to the oyster roast. I automatically assumed that Josh would not want to go - hmm, hang out with your girlfriend's family and a church full of strangers? To my surprise, he genuinely seemed down with the idea, leaving the decision up to me, and openly declaring in front of Barry and Holly that he had no other plans, obliterating any chance of making up previous obligations to get out of going. Though I myself was unsure about going to a strange church and eating seafood, I don't get to see Barry's family all that often. Plus, my ten-year-old niece Sarah was begging for us to go. So we went.

Man, oysters smell bad. The spread was impressive, though. There were chicken wings (mild and spicy) and hot dogs for the seafood-disinclined, as well as shrimp and hushpuppies and clam chowder. There was a huge table in the middle covered in desserts, and had I been a regular attender of this church, I probably could have identified which little old lady brought each one. I helped myself to a hot dog, some hushpuppies, and shrimp. I'm starting to like shrimp again as the memories of my shrimping experience fade, but these were not the succulent plump jumbo grilled kind that I was used to: these suckers still had their legs on. So gross. But I was feeling frisky, so I helped myself to half a dozen. We made our way around the different food tables, helping ourselves as strangers said hello and excuse me and how are you? and were the very essence of friendly Southern Christians with a night of good food and fellowship in front of them. I grew up in a church very much like this one, and so I felt somehow at home. Even Josh leaned in to me and said, "I'm having a really good time, and I don't know why."

Josh had never had oysters either, but he was an old pro with shrimp de-legging. So he did a couple of mine for me while I watched with wrinkled nose, and then I took on the amputations for myself, trying not to look too hard at the little legs that I was ripping off. I would make a lousy vegetarian because I love meat so much, but I have a hard time when I'm forced to associate what's on my fork with an actual creature. We sat around and ate, us adults making jokes about what they say about oysters while Sarah demanded to have the joke explained and then being denied. This was Josh's first time among any part of my family, but he fit right in, joking and telling stories and teasing Sarah with the rest of us. She is gorgeously gullible and good-natured, a perfect combination for light-hearted teasing. I told the story about Daddy eating raw oysters on the beach, to which everyone was disgusted, but the ones who knew my dad were not at all surprised. Sarah, who is not an adventurous eater, was especially revolted. She refused a piece of my freshly legless shrimp, and wouldn't try a hushpuppy, even after I assured her that no animals were injured in their making. I tried to convince her to eat an oyster, promising that I would eat one if she did. She asked for cash payment instead.

And then Josh came back from getting seconds with a pair of oysters, raw. He pulled out his Swiss army knife and began prying the first shell open. I was amused. I grew up eating raw cake batter full of raw eggs, and I don't generally hold much with those silly sanitation rumors either, but even I was a little grossed out. Holly watched, delighted, and Sarah, disgusted. The idea of swallowing a creature while using its house as a plate was too much for her. Having opened it, Josh eyed the thing for a few seconds, then slid it down his throat, paused thoughtfully, and then said, "Salty." He grinned at me, saying that he had honestly wanted to try one, but that he also really wanted to gross out Sarah. After he polished off the second one with slightly less trepidation, we made our way to where the cooked oysters were being served. I'd decided that I was going to be brave and try one, and Sarah had decided that she was going to be brave and watch me.

Salty is about the word for it, like eating a giant booger marinated in saline. I'd probably eat one again.

Holly, Josh, and I were still invested in getting Sarah to try an oyster (cooked). At first she refused to eat it out of the shell. Problem solved, we got her a plate. We set her up with a nice big juicy one. Josh leaned in and patiently explained the process of shucking an oyster while Holly and I watched with little smiles on our faces, both of us suckers for a man who is good with kids. In wearing Sarah down, she had worn us down, and Holly had promised her $3 to eat one, meaning she couldn't get it in her mouth and spit it back out. We all stood around her and egged her on. She would put the thing on her fork (who eats oysters with a fork, anyway?), bring it closer and closer to her mouth before giggling and putting it back down while we sighed in increasing mock frustration. This went on for several minutes. I was starting to lose interest with the game, though we had drawn a crowd of half a dozen people by now. Finally, she put the oyster in her mouth and swallowed in one gulp. When we asked how it tasted, she replied that she hadn't really tasted it because she swallowed it so fast. Then she demanded her $3. Holly promised to give her the money when they got back to the car, where her purse was, but Josh pulled out his wallet and handed her a couple of bucks. He told me later that he had easily gotten $2 worth of entertainment out of the experience. Sarah realized that she had made $5 just by swallowing and immediately offered to eat some more. Imagine how much money the church could raise by having people pledge money to watch little kids eat gross stuff.

The night was chilly, and we moseyed over to the small marshmallow-roasting fire, which Barry was manning. Sarah excitedly told him about her dining experience and the money she made off of it. Barry didn't say anything, but was obviously not impressed. Holly asked Barry what was wrong, to which Sarah whispered, "He doesn't approve." I grinned, because I knew that she was exactly right, that his reaction was exactly the same as my own father's would have been at having his children be paid to eat something unusual. I was even more amused that Sarah, at only ten years old, picked up on it immediately. She may not be adventurous, but she is sharp. And then Sarah herself solved the problem by putting all her oyster earnings in the donation jar for the underprivileged family.

Wow. Josh was impressed, as was I. I knew already that Sarah is a good kid, but she even surprises me sometimes.

Neither Josh nor I was really dressed for spending a mid-November evening outside. It was getting cold, and the only hot chocolate they had was water-based (I prefer milk), so Josh and I decided that it was time to head out. We said our goodbyes, promising Sarah that we would see her soon at Thanksgiving at my parents'. We hurried shivering back to my car, huddling close for warmth, and I left happy, because I had a wonderful family and a wonderful boyfriend, and the two had been successfully combined with beautiful results.