Fairbanksian Dinner

Tonight for dinner I tried these:





Local Alaskan shrimp!

Fall is my favorite season to eat, because the seasonal produce is rich and flavorful and allows for the creation of simple, but sumptuous meals. I realize that it is still Summer in California, but here in Fairbanks, the fact that it actually gets dark at, oh, eleven pm is a reminder that the seasons are soon to turn. Fall is beautiful in the Tanana Valley--the aspen and birch all change into bright colors, the air is crisp, and the bluetrueblue Alaskan sky is thrown into sharp relief. The sandhill cranes begin staging their migratory takeoff, and wheel across the sky, forming, breaking, and reforming Vs, and the sky is filled with honking birds with outstretched necks.

Anyway, because I had never seen shrimp like this before, I decided to veto my original plan (not difficult to do when you are a committee of one) to make shrimp with marinara and instead saute them with garlic and olive oil and veggies, to lighten up the flavor so I could see what they really tasted like.

Imagine my surprise when I found that a quarter of them had this:



Well! The shrimp were so fresh and odorless that I deduced that these things could be useful!

Unfortnately, when I tried to remove them from the shrimp shells, they stuck to each other, to the shrimp legs, to my fingertips, and to a spoon that I then enlisted for help! And as I tried to separate them to gather into a bowl so I could at least have them all together before I decided what to do with them, they popped and burst! I put in an emergency call to my sister to ask for advice, and she told me that, while they may be a delicacy, they are actually quite flavorless, and nutritionless, and high in cholesterol, and that I should not feel bad about throwing them out. So I threw them out. I am now convinced that they are a heavenly delicacy and that I threw out the best part, but I'm still not sure how I should have dealt with them or how I would have prepared them. BT probably is reading this in horror. Did I throw out the best part?

Okay enough of that.

These are what the Tanana Valley Farmer's Market gave me:



OK the can of olives is from Tracy (so close to my former home!), but the rest is legitimate Fairbanksian fare. Here is what I did:






OK the wine is from California (again near my former home), but... damn, nevermind. You get the point!

Those shrimp are good! Sweet and tender and notshrimpy.

OK I have to go do other stuff now!