Just a few minutes ago the phone rang and woke me from a deep slumber upon the couch. Upon the first twinkle of light hitting my sleepy eyes, I realized the light at 6pm ET is precisely like the light at 620am ET. That detail is important because while I searched out my phone from a pocket hidden in an unseen denim jacket, I thought I had slept through the night and overslept my insanely evil 5am shift start time at a fancy television network 60 miles away in NYC. I did that a few weeks ago in the middle of the move and since no one staffs my little part of the world overnights on weekend, there were many people very unhappy with me. So, while I frantically searched for the tolling phone and I thought I had done it again, I was also trying to think how I would explain getting fired from my job just a week after moving into a new home and signing a mortgage. But hey, at least a lot of shit is still packed up.
All week we've been at a bit of logjam of cardboard in the new place. This business of combining two households into one is trickier than we thought. First there's this whole business of disposing of the doubles, or in one case, the triples of stuff - ever try to get rid of a microwave these days? You can't even give them away. I had one sitting out on the street for days with a large multi-language "FREE" sign upon it and no one took it. And two blenders, and two irons, and two sets of dishes and two of lots of things and so on. Eventually we are going to do a yard sale but in the meantime, it's making things slow getting moved in. I’m tempted to simply start posting it all on Freecycle but we could use the extra change after bleeding green the past couple of weeks. The first couple days I had some help so we get some wedding guests into the place without them having to sit on boxes but then everything came back out and my wife still had tons of crap at her house waiting to be moved over so that orderliness lasted only about 7.3 hours. Plus, that help was in the kitchen and I can't stand the way she set stuff up in there - the dishes are in the wrong spot, the dry goods are all wrong, and horrors of horrors, she wanted to put my nice oils and vinegars and salts right next to the stove. So now I have to pull everything out and redo it so it fits my desires and needs.
All this on-going turmoil has put a crimp on cooking too. Granted, I do know where the important kitchen stuff is and I even managed to pick up some fresh spices yesterday to start replacing all the old ones I tossed during the move itself. That felt good and even better was the preparation of one of my wife's favorite dishes last night:
New Orleans Barbecued Shrimp
3 slices bacon
1/2 lb. margarine (my preference is butter)
2 tblspns dijon mustard
11/2 tspns chili powder
1/4 tspn basil
1/4 tspn thyme
1 tspn fresh ground coarse black pepper
1/2 tspn oregano
2 cloves garlic
2 tblspns crab boil (I use Old Bay)
1/2 tspn tabasco
1 1/2 lbs shell-on shrimp
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In small frying pan, fry bacon until clear. Add the margarine or butter and everything else but the shrimp. Simmer for 5 minutes. Put shrimp in an open baking dish and stir sauce into them coating all shrimp. Bake 20 minutes stirring twice.
Serve immediately. I like to eat them shell and all leaving only the tail.
For tonight, I am dining alone and picked up a couple of soft-shell crabs to cook. My honey doesn't like them and she is out flying around so it was the perfect opportunity to indulge in my favorite spring food. New Jersey asparagus is starting to come in as well and so that is my green veggie for my crabs. But that long nap has kind of thrown me off and I need to be in bed by 9pm so I'll probably hold them until tomorrow. They are still alive so it's not a problem. Tonight will be wild foraging in the fridge I guess.
So there you have it - my crowning glory for the week. As long as I keep telling myself the cardboard will all be gone soon, it really will, I will be okay. But in the meantime, it sucks feeling so unsettled and unorganized.
Along the unorganized line, let's make this an open thread for foodies tonight.
What for Dinner in your house?