- Seafood stew

The stew didn't turn out very well, but I love this picture (taken outside in the early evening light)

- Birthday Season: The celebration never ends

Heather recently introduced me to the concept of the birthday season which, as I understand it, begins with the first of several celebrations and ends with the last. In the Ackert family, where all birthdays are celebrated during the annual trip to the Outer Banks, that could make for some very long birthday seasons.

In any case, Meliss and I headed to Williamsburg in early March to be a part of Logan's 7th birthday season. While there, we made the acquaintance of Wyatt, who is the newest member of the Laroche/Marshall clan (and shares a November 30th birthday with his soon-to-be godmother, Meghan). I also made a trip to Carino's seafood market for the express purpose of spiriting three pounds of jumbo lump crabmeat back to Texas. Thus I was well prepared for the beginning of Paul's 30th birthday season the following week.

Meghan planned a phenomenal party complete with a mobile wood-fired pizza trailer. Invited guests were asked to bring a challenge for Paul, in lieu of a gift. What better challenge, I thought, than a quickfire?


To make it a fair challenge, I filled two identical brown paper bags with butter, cream, Outer Banks seafood seasoning, parsley, chives, celery leaves, and last, but far from least, two carefully thawed containers of Carino's jumbo lump crabmeat. As any good chef would, I also brought my own knife, along with a whisk and a saucepan. The challenge was this: create one dozen crabmeat hors d'oeuvres in gougeres (savory gruyere-laced cream puffs). The time limit: 10 minutes.

Twelve hungry party-goers watched as the gas stove was fired up and the whisks started to fly. Herbs fell under the knife. One guest googled foodie theme music (I'm not sure if it was Top Chef or Iron Chef), while another called out the time remaining. Paul reached for truffle oil as his key ingredient, while I opted for vin santo and dijon mustard. Plates were called for, gougeres split and filled as the final seconds were counted down. And the winner was ... the guests, who got to eat succulent Virginia crabmeat deep in the heart of Texas.


Gougeres

1/2 cup water
1/2 stick of butter
3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1/2-3/4 cup shredded Gruyere

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Bring water and butter to a boil in a saucepan. When butter is melted, add flour and salt and mix in flour with a wooden spoon. Beat in eggs one at a time (the dough will "break" each time and then come together again). Stir in cheese. Scoop tablespoon-size mounds of dough onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. If not serving right away, puffs can be reheated.

That was then, this is now: Paul's birthday season continues tomorrow night at the new Austin City Limits studio/theatre, where Williamsburg-born musician Bruce Hornsby is playing an Earth Day concert. It will come to an end two months hence when we gather everyone together at the Outer Banks to celebrate all the birthdays in the year past and look forward to those in the year ahead ... with any luck we'll also be comfortably numb.

- Priming the Pump: Shrimp Pasta

Since I want to bulk up this blog with some content, I'm going to dig out some writing from our Williamsburg days. This recipe is for a must-have-dish when the Ackert clan heads to the Outer Banks each June.  It was discovered during a business trip with some fellow librarians to Kohler, Wisconsin, home of the “Toilet Wall of Fame" (aka the Kohler Design Center).

After learning more about bathrooms than we ever needed to know, we tried to find a simple place to eat for dinner and happened on an Italian restaurant in a strip mall. The menu was agreeably low-priced with entrees around eight dollars (this was 20 years ago). We made reservations and returned several hours later dressed in jeans only to find that we were in a high-end bistro with incredible food; everyone else was dressed to the nines. Who knew that Wisconsin restaurants charged one-third as much as Williamsburg restaurants did?

The Shrimp Pasta I ate that night was made with linguine, asparagus, olives, sun-dried tomatoes and prosciutto, along with an abundance of shrimp, cream and parmesan. The recipe that I cobbled together once I returned to Williamsburg has gone through many, many permutations over the years, so whatever ingredients you do or don’t put in, it’s really not possible to mess it up … unless, of course, you use bait shrimp.*

Shrimp Pasta

1 lb. pasta (linguine, rigatoni, fusilli ... your choice)
2 lb. Carolina shrimp (10-25 count, no farm shrimp allowed)
2-3 cups of fresh tomatoes, cut bite-sized (beefsteak, grape, plum ... as red and juicy as you can find)
1 to 2 cups of heavy cream
1 to 2 cups of half-and-half (regular or fat-free)
1 cup or more of fresh grated parmesan (parmigiano reggiano if possible)

Variations

• Prosciutto, shredded
• Scallions, thin sliced
• Kalamata olives, chopped
• Garlic butter
• Fresh white corn, boiled and sliced from the cob
• Asparagus, cooked al dente and cut into 1" pieces
• Sun dried tomatoes, cut in small pieces and softened in the heavy cream

Cook the pasta al dente in salted water
Peel and steam the shrimp, cut into bite-sized chunks
Simmer and reduce the heavy cream until thick and fragrant
Add half-and-half as needed to keep the cream from over-thickening
Prep additions as desired
Mix everything together in a very large bowl ... it doesn't hurt to let it sit and meld for awhile

Serve with red wine (Malbec is my current favorite), cold beer (Bass Ale anyone?), or a Mexican Martini (the Texans' answer to Margaritas ... just add olive juice).

* What's with the bait shrimp? 
 

Well, that's another story.  On many of our Outer Banks vacations, Meg was "odd man out" since she was at least three years older than most of the other kids who came bundled with our former college friends and erstwhile co-vacationers.  So Meg would bring along a friend of her own to keep her company.  One year, not sure she wanted to join us for a meal of steamers (soft shelled clams), Meg's friend Jessica opted for some steamed shrimp instead. Not knowing that someone had stashed bait shrimp in the fridge, we didn't give any credence to the kids' table comments about the "really little shrimp" that Jessica was diligently trying to peel.  It was only after dinner that we discovered the regular shrimp still sitting in the fridge and the bait shrimp nowhere to be found.  Jessica survived to tell the tale, and is now happily married and a proud parent in her own right.