NEEDLING

Last night, the Shrimp Man came by the store and sold me one pound of fresh jumbo size shrimps straight from the coast that very morning. The Shrimp Man does his rounds every day, and usually on Wednesdays or Thursdays he comes by the store to see if I wouldn’t want a pound or two. So last night I bought one pound of the medium size ones. As I parked my car under that carport, Kari came out of her place.

“Hey, I brought some shrimps, d’you want some?” I say.
“Sure... why not?”
“Yeah, fresh... what are you guys doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want? I give you some now or we cook’em up and eat’em a little later?”
“What were you going to do? Eat them tonight?”
“Yeah... I mean, they’re fresh, when do you get fresh shrimps around here? I’m not gonna freeze them... no, I want to eat them right now.”
“Sure, you’re right, fresh shrimps, might as well.”
“Do you mind cooking them? My oven doesn’t work.”
“How do you want to prepare them.”
“I don’t know, just put them in the oven I guess, with a little butter.”
“Wrap them in foil?”
“Sure, just add a little butter, some parsley if you have it.”
“Should we peal them first?”
“Oh No! No, no... we peal them when we get them on the plate.”
“All right, that sounds fine.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem... so, just come on over in half an hour or so?”
“Sounds great.”

Glenn show’s up from a few days’ work at about this time.

Half an hour to forty five minutes later, I show up with a bottle of cheap pinot grigio. Kari also has some roasted butternut squash and some home-made banana bread. It’s a very simple and delicious meal.

I think I need to talk about the Shrimp Man some day. He’s an ex-used-car salesman turned Shrimp Man a couple years back when, upon visiting a friend down the coast, said friend pushed one hundred pound of shrimps on him and said to him: "Take these, take these back to Austin with you."
“What am I going to do with one hundred pound of shrimps?”
“Don’t you know anybody who likes shrimps?”
“Yeah... sure...”
“Then go see those people and sell them the shrimp at a reasonable price.”
“What if I’ve got some left over?”
“Eat them yourself, then.”

And the Shrimp Man became the Shrimp Man.