Twitty Bird and Sylvester the Cat

So I spent the day in Atlanta yesterday. Client business in the morning, work from our office during the afternoon. Dinner with a friend. Great day.

Then I get in the car around 9 p.m. for the 90 minute ride home and the wifey calls. It appears a bird has flow into the house as the roommate's fiance exited. So, Wifey and Roommate try and catch the bird and get it to leave. After I suggested wifey use the broom to shoo it out, she said "I don't want to get that close". After hearing that, I just suggeseted they take the animals to the back of the house and leave the avian creature be.

After I arrived home, there was no sign of the bird. I swatted around under the furniture with the broom, they said they left a window open and it must have gotten out. Works for me. Let's have a drink and then go to bed.

I slept like a log only to wake up to MEEEOOWWW and SQUAAAKKK. And there's the cat on the dresser peering intently around the pool bag. (you should get yourself a pool bag and keep coozies in there). I walk over there and say, I don't see anything, the cat's being crazy and the squak must have come from outisde and proceed to head toward the shower. Wifey, not being satisfied started looking and I hear her squeel and then sure enough, there is the bird, hiding behing the picture frame.

I figured it had to be injured but just in case, I got a t-shirt and grabbed hold. Good thing for the t-shirt, it was very much playing dead so I released it outside and sure enough, NO BIRDS OR CATS WERE HARMED DURING THE FILMING OF THIS EPISODE.

Shrimp are Important to Me

I just at some leftover creole and I thought I might share my thoughts on the mighty shrimp. Well, let's preface this by saying the smell of cooking shrimp made me nausious for the first 10 year of my life. It took some time, but I have grown my appreciation for this small creature.

I grew up about 100 miles from the coast and most of the shrimp we ate came from the back of someone's truck where the purveyor of the prawn had driven down to the docks in Glynn County and would return with what were probably Jumbo shrimp for about 6 bucks a pound. Mom would by 20 pounds or so and freeze them. Of course, we'd always have a big shrimp boil and eat the fresh ones. So I developed a bit of a snobery for shrimp after I got over that weird childhood reaction. Now I find it rather easy to distinguish from Atlantic shrimp, Gulf shrimp, and imports. I remember the shrimp in norway were like little pieces of lobster. Weird.

We were at the Your Dekalb Farmer's Market last sunday and I picked up a very fortoutious set of ingreedients for what I call shrim creole. Here's my recipe

1 lb of 15-20 count jumbo shrimp
1 16+ oz can of fire roasted tomatoes
1 cubanelle pepper
1 onion
several shallots
white pepper
salt
red pepper flakes
bay leaf
Beer - I used natural light.

In a sauce pan, I combined the tomatoes (you need to be sure to go through with your hands and pick out the skins/tough pieces) and the pepper flakes and bay leaf with some beer.(bout 1/2 can). I put it on medium heat and let it start to combine and reduce. If it got too reduced, I'd add more beer along the way.

I diced the pepper, shallots, and onion and sauted them until soft in a frying pan. While all that was going on I cleaned the shrimp, leaving the tails on but nothing else, be sure to get both veins.

After it all cooked and the tomatoes tasted spicy, but not too bad, I combined everything in the frying pan. I then brought it up to simmer and added the shrimp and a little more beer, and some green onion tops for garnish. Got that hot, put a lid on it and turned down the heat so the shrimp could cook and the onion would wilt.


Serve over rice. Be sure you salt your rice. I hate it when I forget to salt the rice.

Now I'm going to pay some bills and head to the pool.

Anyways, i turned out to be the best creaole dish I've ever cooked. Give it a try.

This Is Good

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Misty Watercolor Memories

Overheard: "my god, aren't you glad we aren't taking the bar exam".

I bet I have heard or said that phrase at least 100 times this summer. It was such a miserable summer last year. This year is not too bad.

So if you are taking the Bar Exam - good luck to you!

In other news, I'm pretty proud of myself. I came up a little short on hours when I finally figured out how we are reviewed here at my place of work but I formulated a plot an stuck to it and I think I'll hit the target number. Its always better to exceed the tartget number but let's not get too crazy here. Expecially since I only had six weeks to make things up.

I hope you have a good weekend. I think I'll be on the golf course or at the swimming pool. Good times in the Summer!

Whats going on?

Hope ya'll are doing well. We had a good 4th of July - just going to the pool and grilling hamburgers and watching some fireworks. Good times. Sory it has been so quiet around here. I'm working my butt off this month to make up my hours for the good times we had back in June. Hopefully this push will put me on the positive side for the better part of the year.

We had a great sushi dinner last night with some new friends we started hanging out with at the Bar meeting. I always like new friends.

I hope yous guys are doing well.

Happy Independence Day!