That being said, I continue to say and do...very dumb things.
Last summer, we had a large cookout at my dads lake house. Lloyd was outside frying catfish, fried green tomatoes and other things, and I was supposed to be preparing the "inside food". That works out good for me because then I get to be in the air conditioning. I like air conditioning...a lot.
So, one of the foods I was supposed to prepare was a large thing of boiled shrimp. I hadn't ever boiled shrimp before, so Lloyd came in and patiently explained the process. You boil the water, add a couple of things of crab boil, stick the shrimp in, let them boil, remove and drain them, and Voila! boiled shrimp.
(Good deal...I can handle this.) The shrimp get done boiling, and I noticed that the bags of crab boil had burst in the pot. No biggie, that will get rinsed off in the colander.
In the kitchen with me, I had my brothers girlfriend Hope and his friend Victor. Hope hasn't cooked a lot so she was interested in learning. (Given this particular situation, I can't say that I may be the best person for her to learn from.) Victor was just there for the air conditioning and beer.
So, I go to rinse the shrimp and noticed that there were peppercorns, apparently from the crab boil, all over the shrimp. So, I rinsed...and rinsed...and rinsed...and they would not come off to save my life.
*sigh*...man...those things are spicy when you bite into them, I really have to get them off. But we are talking...10lbs of shrimp...that's a lot of peppercorn removal. Especially if they are "boiled on".
These particular shrimp were "shell-on" shrimp. I don't generally eat shrimp like that, as I don't like to have to remove the flipper-thingies, or the exoskeleton. It just grosses me out because inevitably you have the little legs stuck everywhere on you, and you never quite get all of the shell off and unless the shrimp is fried, it just shouldn't be crunchy. If we go out to eat, Lloyd will usually peel a few for me, probably out of pity. Please sir...may I have some more.
So, I started looking at the shrimp a little closer and realize that these particular shrimp are a little more "shell-on" than I had realized. The head was still on them.
huh. Head.still.on.them.
Damyankee: you know...I just don't think the black things on these shrimp are peppercorns.
Victor: um...yeah. You thought the eyeballs were peppercorns? Is that what you have been trying to rinse off for the last 15 minutes???? bwahahahaaha...(and then he ran outside to tell my husband what an idiot his wife was...like he didn't already KNOW that).
Damyankee: Well, what am I supposed to do? Why would the head still be on there?
Hope: (grossed out look on her face) I don't know.
Damyankee: Well, am I supposed to serve them like this, you think?
Hope: um....well...um....I just don't think I can eat something with the eyeballs still on there.
Damyankee: yeah...I see what you mean. It's like they are lookin' at you. What do we do? (see how I have now made this *our* problem...lol)
Hope: I don't know. Maybe you can just cut the heads off. (hmm...she isn't seeming too keen on it being "our problem" and helping me mutilate these shrimp)
Meanwhile, Victor has come back inside from tattling on me, like the little girl he is. He watches me cut the head off of a couple of the shrimp...and I look down at the 5 billion or so left to go. I hadn't actually planned to touch the shrimp with my bare hands, and my dad doesn't carry disposable gloves at the lake house. A problem I plan to remedy this year. No house should be without a 500 count box of disposable gloves, as far as I am concerned.
He then tells me that I am "doing it wrong". He said you don't cut the heads off...you "pop" them off.
(Oh hell no...you have to be kidding me. I am not popping nothin' off with my bare hands.)
He grabs a shrimp and basically just rips the head off and throws it into another bowl. No big thang jangalang.
Crap. So, there I am...ripping the heads off, tossing them aside, for at least 45 minutes. When I got done, I had at least 5,000 little flippers stuck everywhere on me, in addition to several hundred eyeballs that had became dislodged (probably because I had loosened the hell out of them trying to rinse them off for 15 minutes), and I stunk. Like nasty tootie-tootie. (you know what I mean)
Needless to say, I didn't eat any shrimp that night. I hope everyone else enjoyed it, though, because it will be the LAST "whole head-on eyeballs and flippers included shrimp" we will ever bring up there.
:)
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