With most of the weekend left to wait until the Super Bowl, New Orleanians will be doing what they do best to count down to the Big Game: sitting around and eating seafood. On Saturday, a pair of events bring new flavor and digital technology to shellfish. A block party-sized crawfish boil in Mid-City highlights a new app. In the Quarter, an oyster-eating contest brings in hot beaver.

by Chase Lowenstein

Once again, the U.S. Coast Guard is scrambling to make sense of recent releases of oil in the Gulf. The source of the latest sheen, which appeared near the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, remains a mystery. But the USCG is investigating the oil to attempt to determine the cause.

by E.J. Ruane

Stories of fish "this big" abound all over the Southeast this week, as fishermen who flocked from all over Louisiana, as well as Florida, Mississippi and Texas, for last weekend's Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo go home to tell all of their impressive catches. The annual event drew 25,000 people to the coastal city that has a year-round population of about 1,200. Asked about her own highlights of the weekend, director Angela Dorbin said, "Here's a highlight for you. The very first fish caught and weighed at the Rodeo was a 154-pound Tarpon!"  

by E.J. Ruane

Tomorrow at daylight, it's Tarpon time on Grand Isle. The International Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo is being held this weekend Grand Isle from July 26-28. According event organizer Angela Dorbin, tarpons "jump, they crash, they break tackle and bones." While this may sound like a reference to our beloved Saints, tarpons are one mean fish.

The Coast Guard is crediting good samaritans with finding the remains of a helicopter pilot who crashed off Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend. On Monday, a team of divers found the pilot, whose helicopter was reported crashed Sunday about 35 miles off the coast. The pilot, who Houma Today is identifiying as Arturo LeBron, of Lafayette, was discovered in the cockpit of the aircraft, according to a Coast Guard news release. 

Tarpon are some of the toughest fish on the Gulf waters. What do you expect of a fish that belongs to the genus, Megalops? The fishers of the Gulf Coast have had their battles with these great beasts, but that's no reason not to celebrate. Starting today, the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo returns after the Big Oozy put the giant pole party on hiatus last year. Even if you don't want to trawl and tame, the festival features plenty of music, and there's a chance to watch the big ones get weighed in. Check out the full schedule here.

A few weeks ago, more oil spilled into the Gulf courtesy of Anglo Suisse Offshore Partners. Or, so the Coast Guard said. The Texas company wasn't taking responsibility for the mystery sheen, but they said they'd clean it up anyway. But the company and the Guard seem to have returned to even footing once the spotlight was lifted. On Friday afternoon - where government news goes to die - the Coast Guard slipped in a release saying tests confirmed the oil was in fact from an Anglo Suisse well. And, in even better news, the beaches near Grand Isle have been cleaned up to "pre-spill levels." Good thing, because that beach was spotless before they came along.

The Big Oozy's beginning is almost a year gone, but reports of tarballs washing onto shore continue to trickle in with the tide. Missing among the conjecture, however, has been actual photographic evidence of the beaches where the oil's still rollin'. Sounds like a good opportunity for Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland to have a standoff with a BP flunky! McClelland returned to the scene of her prime this week, seeking to see how the beach has changed in a year down at the Grand Isle-adjacent wildlife refuge, Elmer's Island. After the go-ahead lackey lambasting, she found an even better example of primitive thinking: cleanup workers who fashion their own tools. And, oh ya, there's oil, too.

So, Billy Nungesser wasn't possessed by an alien lifeform that made his mind manifest more oil after all. The rapidly spreading oil off the coast of Grand Isle leaked from a well owned by Houston-based Anglo Suisse Offshore Partners. The company was trying to plug the well, which has been out of commission for some time now, and expressed alleged "surprise" that the thing could still cough up oil. Maybe they shouldn't have plugged it after all!

The U.S. Coast Guard continued to investigate the "oily substance" that was spotted in a sheen in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday, then started to wash ashore Sunday. In all, the Coast Guard said in a statement issued last night that a half-mile of the shoreline along Grand Isle, Elmer's Island and Fourchon Beach has seen the stuff roll up. Four skimmers, two barges and 10,000 ft. of boom were dispatched to the scene. Despite testing that began Saturday, the source and exact makeup of what exactly was in the sheen has yet to be identifed. The Coast Guard doesn't think it's from the Deepwater Horizon, leaving open the possibility that it's got tiger blood.