The Great Seafood Debacle

   Hello my dear readers. I hope this post finds you all well. I had a tad of a cooking/eating mishap on Christmas Eve and since I know you all love a good laugh I figured I would share the tale.

    After receiving a nice bonus at my one job, we decided to splurge for Christmas Eve dinner and visit the seafood counter at the grocery store where our son works. I have never bought seafood there as it is too freakin’ expensive, plus the fact that we are in a land-locked state in the middle of the country so God only knows how long that shit has been frozen. Yes, I am a prima donna when it comes to seafood. Anyhoo, my eyes were glazed and my husband could only watch while I told the kid behind the counter what I wanted- 6 little lobster tails, 2 pounds of scallops, I box of oysters and a shrimp cocktail ring. I am sure he was wondering how many people we were feeding- it was only the 2 of us LOL.

The Seafood Counter
 

  Recalling a trip to Seattle,  I asked if they could toss around the seafood like they do at the famous Pike's Market, but they said they better not since the manager was still there and there were several corporate type big shots prowling the store, otherwise they would.  So I had to settle for them just tossing the stuff into bags.

Fish tossing at Pike's Market
 

    Around 5 pm I decided we better start cooking. I placed an urgent call to my one brother as I have not broiled scallops or fried oysters before- he is a super cook and he loves his seafood. His ass is damn lucky he answered the phone! And as luck would have it, he was just taking oysters out of the hot oil on his end! Great minds think alike! So, after careful instructions and a one hour phone call I was ready to go.



Brooke making up stories about his dear sweet little sister!

  My brother and I did have a great time reminiscing about days gone by. Of course he had to bring up the great shrimp head story of 1982. I was standing at the sink at our house and taking the tails and veins out of some shrimp while visiting with my brother. I was talking to his dumb ass and not watching what I was doing, and the next thing I know I look down and I had a freakin' shrimp head in my hand! I threw the little bastard across the room and let out a scream I know the neighbors 4 doors down heard. Brooke was on the floor laughing, tears streaming down his face. To this day he cannot clean a shrimp and not think of me and laugh. I am glad I am the source of much amusement. It is a gift. I have never cleaned another shrimp. I will pay the extra to have those little bastards already cleaned for me.

 

 But for some reason, however, I take much amusement sucking the meat out of crawfish heads-though this may be directly associated with the amount of alcohol that is consumed prior to said sucking. I will need to do more research on that one. I will get back to you all on that. Maybe it is revenge thing of some sort.

 
Anyway, on to the great seafood cook off of 2015. I got my bowls ready for the oyster breading ceremony (I even sent a pic to Brooke to approve the layout-of course he places his bowls right to left as he is a lefty- we found that humorous), Bob started to boil the lobster tails and I gathered the ingredients for my scallop dish. As we snacked on the shrimp cocktail, we worked furiously, and by some miracle all of the food was ready at the same time. HERE WE GO!

   The scallops were good, the oysters came out perfectly and the tails were ok, too. I ate like I was never going to eat seafood again. And now I probably won’t. All was well, until about an hour later when my stomach began to gurgle, and gurgle some more. OMG- I never actually got sick but I sort wish I had. 40 Tums and 3 days later I was finally able to eat solid food. The only thing I ate that Bob did not was one crummy oyster. Then I started to remember that the last time I had fried oysters my stomach got a tad weird as well. Then I recalled a trip to New Orleans last year and I thought I got bad oysters in my po’ boy sandwich. Oh dear God- am I developing an allergy to shellfish? Or just to oysters? NOOOOO- say it ain’t so!

Oyster Po' Boy
 

  We had only cooked half of the scallops that first night, and with time running out as they were already thawed Bob decided to make the other half Sunday night for dinner. I was a tad leery, but damn it I was not wasting $14.99/pound scallops! I got out the bottle of Tums and proceeded to eat the scallops. I did have a bit of rumbling after that meal, but not near like before. Whew—but now I am really not sure of the problem. Can one damn oyster really do that to a person? They smelled good, tasted great and the expiration date was ok. So, now I am a bit sad. I will be leery to ever eat another oyster- one of my most favorite foods on this earth. Oh well- there is always red velvet cake! If I ever develop an allergy to that I will be really pissed.

     Rock on my dear friends- rock on.

                                                                        Happy December!

   Hello all! I hope you are all enjoying this time of year. Food, family, and more food are a big part of the celebrations and parties this month for some of us. All I keep doing is asking myself why in the Hell I thought re-joining Weight Watchers before the holidays was a good idea. All of our salesmen at work think bringing us chocolate covered pretzels and cookies is a good idea. Then my wonderful friend Jan shows up with her home-made fudge- this is the creamiest fudge on the planet! And bless my sister’s heart, here she is sending her yearly package of chocolate treats. God help me! So far I have not gained this week, but I still have 3 days to go before weigh in. We shall see!

     This time of year brings back many wonderful memories of Christmas seasons gone by. I remember the year I got my denim-looking 10 speed bike- best Christmas EVER! I also remember going to our little church for Christmas Eve services at midnight, the wonderful family dinners, and that round Santa light thing that my dad used to plug into the porch light. Wish I still had that little gem!

 

    The one thing about Christmas is that I do not remember ever believing in Santa- cue the violins now, please. According to the family legend, many years before I hit the scene, my one sister got up one morning on a Christmas Day before everyone else and opened all of the presents. After that all of the presents all got opened Christmas Eve. Explain the whole Santa down the chimney thing on Christmas Eve now, mom. That and the fact that our fire places had been closed off for many years.

 

    I  remember taking long walks in the snow at night- it was so quiet and beautiful (one of the perks of living in a tiny town- all I hear where I live now is car traffic and many sirens). If I was lucky my dad would have the day off of his construction job and he would let me go with him on the snow plow. Now that was kick ass! I felt so cool being so high above the cars on the road. There was this one time , at band camp however, he was trying to help a family that lived at the bottom of a very steep hill and we almost did not make it back out. But I never thought we wouldn’t- I trusted him completely and he got us back up that hill just fine.

 

     I so enjoyed Christmas when my kids were younger- the excitement, the fun, the surprises. Now that they are grown it has lost a lot of the magic. I rarely put a tree and/or lights up- I admit it I am a Grinch. Someday if I am lucky enough to be a grandparent I will get back into it again. But for now my heart is still 10 sizes too small.

   So my dear readers, if you celebrate any holidays or if you don’t, have a very wonderful rest of the year. I hope to be better at getting blog posts up next year. This thing called life sure gets in the way of my fun sometimes!