I am so tired of my hair. I had to hide the kitchen shears. Yes I could go to the hairdresser to sit in a chair with a tablecloth wrapped around me for extra glamour, in front of a mirror the size of a public aquarium, to talk about–my hair, but I don’t want to do that. I hate looking at myself and I hate change. Which brings me to shrimp. I have one way of doing shrimp, much better than my way of doing my hair, but still, I’m tired of it. There is more to life than shrimp in a classic French marinade and I want to know about it, even if it means peeling my fingers off the mustard jar one by one to get there.
If you are going to force yourself into a panic attack, you might as well make whatever you have to do on the side, easy. Shrimp on a skewer. Throw all the shrimp in a bowl, drizzle well with the best olive oil you can get your hands on, and for 2 pounds of shrimp, 3 whole cloves of garlic cut in half, 4 sprigs of parsley, and just over a half cup of your own pulverized bread crumbs. Let this sit for half an hour. Lay the shrimp out on a piece of wax paper. Season on one side with kosher salt. Shove them onto a skewer so that they are up-close-and-personal-touching each other. Grill for 2 minutes on one side and 1 minute on the other. You can give them a little sprinkle of finely minced fresh parsely and a squeeze of lemon–or not. They are delicious.
I am going to serve them with pasta dressed with a sauce of zucchini trifolatti–an egg yolk stirred in right at the end of tossing the pasta, and ripped shreds of fresh basil.
Then, if I’m still living, I’ll take a deep breath and see how I feel.