Monte's Bourbon Chili

         The thermometer has been bouncing around like a rubber ball here in New York.  It was in the sixties earlier this week.  This morning it was 31 degrees. As it looks like it is going to stay cold this weekend, big bowls of chili make all the sense in the world.  This recipe is no all-day affair. You will be in and out of the kitchen in a half hour.  Then the pot sits on the stove for another hour. You can easily double or triple the recipe so you can make a big batch this weekend and then ladle it out all next week.  When I came across a recipe for Bourbon Chili, I was intrigued.  But the original recipe included the cardinal sin that true chili makers just won’t stand for.  The thing was chock-a-block full of beans—back beans and garbanzo beans.  Now if you’ve ever looked at my previous chili recipe http://www.chewingthefat.us.com/2011/12/texas-beef-brisket-chili-with-butternut.html, you may remember the phrase “If you know beans about chili, you know chili has no beans.”  So I set out to make a bowl of Bourbon Chili minus the beans.

Crystal Shrimp with Ginger, Sweet Peas and Scallions

         No matter how gray a day it’s been, coming home to a dinner of beautifully pink and gold shrimp paired with sweet peas, fresh scallions and ginger medallions is a visual treat.  The simple salting and rinsing of the raw shrimp gives them a firm texture.  This recipe, which first appeared in Bon Appetit five years ago, gives credit for the name of the dish to the crystal-like texture of the shrimp. I would also have to say that there is a crystal look to the shrimp as well.  There’s not a lot of prep time involved in this recipe however it does require a 1 to 3 hour rest period for the shrimp once they’ve been battered with cornstarch and egg white.  While that was going on, I took a look at the history of the Shrimp and another look at where mine come from, that marvel of food shopping, Costco.

Marco Polo 

         In a kind of believe it or not, the shrimp’s name is derived from a Middle English word ‘shrimpe’ which meant ‘pygmy’.  This of course could lead to an entire discussion on the dichotomy of the words “Jumbo Shrimp” and doesn’t really give a satisfying answer to why someone would pick up a shrimp and think “Pygmy!”   Putting that aside, shrimp has been around for a very long time.  The Chinese were eating shrimp in the 7th century.  And when Marco Polo arrived in China in 1280, he commented on their abundance in food markets.  This country, however, has long held the record for shrimp eating.  In the 17th  century, Louisiana’s bayou residents were hauling in shrimp in giant seines that were up to 600 feet in circumference!  And there were no mechanical devices involved at all – just human labor.  It wasn’t until 1917 that mechanized shrimping arrived.  And with it came some unfortunate side effects.