Hi, lovers.
Oy.
It's been a week.
You would not believe the force with which I almost shouted this morning in overwhelming dismay, "It's only WEDNESDAY?!"
Yes, self, it is only Wednesday.
So I'm throwing this dinner party tomorrow night at The Mansion. (AKA: the place where I live).
It's turning into a weekly thing, where a few girls who live in another house on the other side of town, and myself trade off and on hosting the dinner. Last week we had it at their house. This week it's my turn.
Now, I'm not going to go into all the details of how this happened, but somehow this dinner got to be planned on a day which I work.
I meant it for my day off- somehow- I got confused. Calendars have never been my strong suit.
So tomorrow I'm working from 11-4, and then coming home to cook the dinner for this party of people. Which, I might add, I don't know the number of.
So all of last night (because I worked yesterday all day) I spent deep cleaning the house. We're talking dusting window ledges, wiping down cabinets, and toasters, and scrubbing Comet all over the oven and microwave, mopping, etc. To get the house in order for this party.
Sidenote: I probably didn't have to actually do any of this in order to entertain these lovely friends, because, they are all young people and generally young people could care less if your oven is slightly sticky or your toaster is covered in finger prints. However, these young people were not raised in my house, and I live with a constant hologram-like hallucination of my mother peering over my shoulder whenever I am away from home and in charge of some sort of get-together. Therefore, I cleaned. Like a madwoman.
I collapsed into bed around 12am, exhausted and full of sore feet after a full day of working, cleaning, shopping (we were in dire need of toilet paper and paper towel) AND making dinner.
This morning, before I work, I've taken it upon myself to get all the final groceries so that I can spend my evening tonight after I work prepping the food so as to ease my transition from work to hostessing tomorrow as smoothly as possible.
This brings us to right now: where I am currently sitting, in the Coach house, furiously typing away on my keyboard, ignoring the groceries sitting on the backseat of my car and thinking about shrimp.
Shrimp.
I've prepared a great menu for tomorrow night: grilled lemon chicken, with a side of garlic bread, salad, and a delicious linguini with shrimp scampi that was going to be the star of the meal.
So after consulting with my boss, who used to be a private, live-in Beverly Hills 90210 chef, (... I know, right???) I decided to visit the local seafood market, because she said it's the best seafood market around and I'd be sure to find what I was looking for there.
So there I was, after checking and re-checking my recipe and having decided to double the size just to be safe, awaiting my opportunity to buy 4, yes, 4 lbs of cocktail shrimp.
I scanned the display case. My eyes caught the sign of "FRESH SHRIMP. 7.99 per LB."
Okay. I thought. That's a wee bit more than I wanted to spend on four lbs of shrimp, but, what the heck. Good food costs good money. Entertaining should always be an area in which you splurge. Serve your guests only the best! Yadda yadda yadda.
That was when I realized that the sign was proclaiming bay shrimp for 7 bucks a lb. (Now THAT I wouldn't stand for.)
Bay shrimp. Okay. That's ridiculous. Where is the normal shrimp?
I took a closer look. "JUMBO PRAWNS 13.99 per LB."
Jumbo prawns are gigantic. Huge. Monstrous. I was fairly certain if I served those on the linguini, somebody would faint for fear of the prawn coming to life and eating them.
Finally it was my turn to be serviced.
I asked the lady for shrimp to be used in a pasta- she asked me if I wanted the bay shrimp meat.
"Er... No... "
"Oh so you want the prawns, then?"
"Well, no, actually, isn't there a size inbetween? You know... scampi sized, cocktail sized, bite sized sauteed shrimp sort of shrimp?"
"Nope. All we got is the bay shrimp and the jumbo prawns. The jumbo prawns come in raw or precooked."
"....... Okay. Well, thank you, but that's not what I'm looking for...."
So I left. Defeated. Best seafood market around? Really?
Back to square one. Now, I live in a very small beachtown, and this was, unfortunately, the only fish market in town. Either I go back to the tiny market where I had purchased my other ingredients, or get back in my car and travel ten miles down the road to Seaside to hunt around some other fish markets.
So I decided I'd try the market again, because I don't have time to go to Seaside and back before work.
In the market, they only had tiger prawns (like jumbo prawns, only slightly smaller, striped and more leggy).
They had frozen pre-cooked shrimp that were the perfect size, quantity, not to mention they were de-veined.
But I, tragically, needed raw shrimp. Pre-cooked was not going to cut it.
Well, shoot.
Now I don't get off work until between 6:30 and 7. Which means I have to go home, change my clothes, get back in my car, drive all the way to Seaside, hope that the fish markets aren't closed and try desperately to find some average sized dinner shrimp for hopefully less than 8 bucks per lb, come home, prep the dinner, clean my bathroom and collapse, again, exhausted into my bed before work tomorrow morning.
Luckily, Friday is my day off to recuperate. In which I plan to do absolutely nothing but laze around like an opalescent nudibranch. Or, sea slug.
If this shrimp thing doesn't work out- we're having chicken linguini. Thank God for back-up plans.
Now I have to pull myself away from this comfy couch, change my clothes, and head on into work to tell small children all about intertidal life.
During which, I severely hope I won't get sidetracked by a sand shrimp, and turn my educational spiel into an economical, dinner-shrimp- fueled rant.
With love,
A very frustrated Shrimp Hunter.
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