Fire drills and shrimp recipes gone bust...

Okay, so Monday night I got all geared up to cook for myself in an effort to have material for my very first blog post on The Lonely Chef. I decided I'd go with a tried and true recipe that I love for Barbecued Shrimp from Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen cookbook, and ventured to my neighborhood Whole Foods.

Half way through my ingredient gathering, the fire alarm went off in the grocery store. Now, I'm pretty sure most people in the store were thinking what is this a joke?, but it turned out to be a real deal fire drill and everyone had to evacuate. Annoyed, I left my cart by the bananas in the produce section and walked outside to stand with the other 300-or-so, irritated shoppers in the hot parking lot. Two fire trucks and 15 minutes later, we were let back in to continue with our shopping...

Long story short, I should have taken this disconcerting event as a bad omen and gone home without my groceries, waited a day and tried again, but no. I went home with my groceries and nearly charred my shrimp -- something I have NEVER done with this recipe! (Sigh.) In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the reason the shrimp turned out a little crispy is because I halved the recipe since I was just cooking for me. Here's where the lesson comes in: Cutting a recipe in half does not necessarily yield the best result. Then again, half of getting good as a cook is experimenting until you find what works. That's sort of what this blog is about. Sort of. All this to say, next time, even if I reduce the amount of shrimp in this recipe, I will keep the liquid the same and all should be good.