Jumbo Shrimp II

I have to admit, I don't like peeling shrimp. But not for the reasons you might expect. Tonight, as I peeled these delicious monsters, I couldn't help thinking about them grazing across the ocean floor, going home at night after a hard days' work finding plankton, greeting their jumbo-shrimp wives and children, only to be plucked suddenly from their tranquil lives by an illegal Russian purse-seine operation.

Flash frozen! The sheer horror. And then to be brined in salt and sugar -- as if they needed more salt -- and peeled, headless and forever wriggle-less, in my kitchen sink. I gave them names as I peeled them . . . "Goodbye, Harvey . . . goodbye, Adolphus, goodbye Margaret and especially goodbye, Troy. You will be missed, and I promise to say a special prayer to the Shrimp God, Scuttillus Maximus, on your behalf, so you go to shrimp heaven."

And shrimp heaven it was tonight!

Check it out! If you look closely you can just see that extra-pink spot on Adolphus (third from left)!