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There’s a pretty ferocious mailbox out at Area 51 too. People like to write things and put stickers on it.

What did you do to your fingers Stoaty? I don’t remember you writing anything about that.

And now I’m hungry for shrimp.

Same as Mitch, what’s the deal with the digits? I do not like to peel the shrimps, give me jumbo coconut shrimps fried up in big batches.

The nice thing about living in Florida is that one can generally find peeled and deveined shrimp for sale!!!

man, NOW I’m hungry.

Never go to the grocery store when you’re hungry.

brb!

Cocktail sauce is good, but I prefer eating fresh steamed shrimp à la lobster, dipped in melted¹ butter. Maybe a little sprinkle of lemon juice first, maybe not.

1. I lack patience when it comes to eating good food, so I’ll never be the one to take the time to clarify or otherwise mess around to create “drawn” butter: I’ll just melt it and dip stuff in it!

Sorry to hear you’re having a difficult time with your fingers, Mme. Ermine. That runs in my family and so I know how frustrating it is.

When my late mother had her options similarly severely curtailed, she dropped back to an older and much easier seafood option that we all enjoyed fully as much as a shrimp dish. She called it Mussels à la provencale but her style was quite a bit simpler and just as satisfying as some of the fancier recipes. A quick look online turned up this one that looks close.

Hint 1: the tomatoes are optional.
Hint 2: the broth is important; sop it up with crusty french bread.

edit p.s. — We were introduced to this dish while living in Buenos Aires where it was known as Mejillones a la Provensal.

Of course there’s always “poor man’s lobster”, Uncle Al:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE1rKLhNCpg&ab_channel=CardiganBayFishingAdventures

Stoaty…are there crabs in Dungeness?

One of the PNW and Northern California’s bestest critters of the sea is Dungeness crab dipped in drawn butter with a squirt of lemon. Oh my word…and the Motha’s are huge! We usually buy one crab per person, boil em up, clean, toss a plastic table cloth over the kitchen table add with a thick layer of newsprint and pig out. The season is short so we tend to stuff ourselves when they are available

Yum…now I’m hungry too.

Darn. And I managed to develop a shellfish sensitivity. Used to be I could just take a benedryl or two and be fine. Then one day after we moved here to coastal Georgia, south of Savannah, it really took me out. Lost a few days off work. Humbug.
But where I was going: Cocktail sauce is a good substitute for straight ketchup almost always.
Old Bay crab dust is good for stuff, too. There’s a place nearby that, I think, uses old bay on their french fries. They taste really good. Next time we get plain french fries I’ll have to see if we still have some on-hand and give it a try.

“she ate the crab and the dab,
And the plaice and the dace,
And the maker-eel, and the picker-eel,
and the really truly twirly whirly eel,
all the fishes that she could find in all the sea
she ate with her mouth…so….
Then she smacked Uncle B. ”

That sounds wrong somehow, would Kipling object do you suppose?

Cocktail sauce and shrimp – nom nom.
And homemade actually tastes very nice on good (we must emphasize GOOD, oh best be-lov-ed) saltine crackers.

Can one have that for breakfast?

http://www.anglingaddicts.co.uk/2011/how-to/plaice-dab-flounder-differences/

An unfeasible amount? You’ve got to be chitin me!!

PS hope you aren’t impacted by the new “pingdemic” as the government app closes down society just 2 days after your PM opened it. Raise your hand if you feel you’re being played!

Being played would imply going along with the first Greek Kabuki tragedy and then going along with the 2nd as well.

Not happening, their science (masks that don’t stop a virus, distancing, pretending you’re safe in a restaurant if SITTING without your mask but not if you’re walking around, and a vaccine that doesn’t seem to prevent you from contracting the virus…) is almost on par with swinging a deceased feline around their heads by the tail, in a graveyard, at midnight, while they dance backwards chanting “Mary had a little lamb” in Swahili.

BJM, the dungeness crab is named after the port of Dungeness, Washington – which no doubt got its name from Dungeness, Kent. I’m always amazed when a new British place pops up with a name I’m familiar with in the US. We all know it happens, I just didn’t realize how many of them.

Drew: I just didn’t download the app. You don’t have to and most of us haven’t. No pings for me.

As for my hands, I occasionally do something stupid and unknowable in my sleep that irritates a nerve in my neck. I did it so hard a couple of months ago that my arms were inoperable for a couple of days. They’ve slowly gotten better and the only thing that’s really still impaired is making a pinching motion with my right index finger and thumb.

Those movements are, sadly, banjo picking imperatives.