All this warm weather we’ve been having has gotten me in the mood to cook something a little lighter, a little more like spring or even summer. I’ve really enjoyed taking a deep dive into soups, stews, and comfort foods but I think I need a little break. Maybe something like fish or seafood. Shrimp. Shrimp would be great and I think I’ve got some buried in the bottom of my freezer that’s just begging to be enjoyed.
This is the way my mind works. Sometimes I have a definite plan for supper, maybe even a week of suppers. Other times, I’m just winging it. This was one of those times.
Summer’s not here yet, and spring is still a little way off. I don’t want to make something too light, it might blow snow and ice any minute. We do live in Michigan. I think maybe I’ve got a recipe for Shrimp and Grits somewhere. That would be perfect. Spicy and playful enough to hint at warm weather but hearty enough to sustain through a potential long, cold evening.
Some might say that I was overthinking this menu dilemma. You want shrimp? Just make some shrimp. Fry it up in a pan with a little butter and lemon juice and serve it with rice and some steamed broccoli. Boom, that’s dinner. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t just do “Boom, that’s dinner.” When it comes to food, I have to overthink everything.
I save all my columns in a document file on my computer. I treat this file as a kind of cookbook, a record of recipes that I’ve loved enough to share with you, my faithful readers. When I want to prepare a certain dish, I just go through my files to see if I’ve got a recipe that I know will work.
Usually, I just scroll past the story to get to the recipe. I just need to make dinner, not take a leisurely stroll down memory lane. This time was different. I opened the first file that caught my eye. I knew it didn’t have the Shrimp and Grits recipe I was looking for but I just couldn’t resist the title. I had to read “Tomatoes and the Awful Homesick Blues.”
I suppose I should include a note about my titles. They are generally not the titles that you will see in the newspaper. They are titles that, while descriptive, are mostly meant to amuse me.
This one, a derivation of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” song title, accompanies a column about the first time I left home. It was 1986 and I went away to college, oblivious to the mind-opening experience it was going to be. The critical scene in the column describes an 18-year-old homesick boy, returning home from college for the first time to find the rest of his family scrambling to cover their garden tomatoes with blankets because of an impending frost. I wax nostalgic about the difference between homegrown tomatoes versus the truck farm variety we were served in college. I include two recipes, one for the Peruvian stir-fry Lomo Saltado and another for a green tomato relish called Governor sauce.
I love that column. Upon reading it, however, I realized that I have definitely evolved as a writer. I don’t know if I’ve actually gotten any better but my style has definitely changed. I think it has something to do with age. When I was younger, I had so many things that were bursting to come out and I tried to get them all on the page. I like to think I have become a little more focused as I’ve gotten older, a little less likely to throw 15 different concepts into a column and then end it with multiple recipes that are only related to each other by a single ingredient.
I hope this change has made my writing more enjoyable.
As I continued to plow through my documents, searching for that elusive Shrimp and Grits recipe, I came to some more realizations. My early columns were very contemporary, full of buzzwords and insider info on what it was like to work in a professional kitchen. A column called “Salmon Maltaise (Eggy, Eggy)” was all about the magical alchemy of creating Hollandaise sauce and using that magic as a tool of seduction.
Another column entitled “Haunted French Pancakes” talks about Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee and fresh squeezed mimosas to be served alongside blueberry crepes at “that most civilized, genteel, and adult meal. Brunch.” As I read this, I smiled and slowly shook my head. Did I really write that? Sheesh.
As I continued through my computer cookbook, I found that my later columns focused more on family and childhood memories. In one of my favorites, “Call Me Whitefish,” I shared memories of a childhood neighbor who was a commercial fisherman and would occasionally bring the best of his daily catch to my mom to broil for our supper.
In my first column for the Record-Eagle, “Fluffy Golden,” I described a typical Saturday morning as a child. My siblings and I would wake up early and make pancakes for the family breakfast and make a mess of the kitchen in the process. I included a very simple pancake recipe and an equally simple recipe for spicy pancake syrup.
In reading and contrasting my early columns with what I’ve been doing more recently, I do find myself missing that flashy, hyperbolic style of writing a little. A little. I much prefer the columns about my childhood memories and my family’s relationship to food. They bring back pleasant memories and I find myself cringing far less when I read them.
If anyone has an interest in these old columns or recipes, or would like to comment on or question anything in my columns, my email address is brucejwallis@gmail.com. I will provide a link to my columns to the best of my ability.
Here’s the recipe that got me started down this rabbit hole. Actually, it’s a reasonable facsimile of the original recipe. I realized as I read through it that I may not have been the greatest recipe writer in the world when I started. Here’s a version that’s cleaned up and simplified while still maintaining the flavors and spirit of the original. Enjoy.
Shrimp and Cheese Grits
For grits:
4 C. chicken broth
1 t. salt
1 T. butter
1 C. grits
.25 C. half and half
1/3 C. grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 C. grated cheddar cheese
For topping:
1 lb. cooked andouille sausage, cut into quarter inch thick slices
4 oz. ham, cut into quarter inch strips
2 T. butter
20 med. shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 pt. grape tomatoes, halved
.25 C. sliced scallion
1 t. minced garlic
.5 t. smoked paprika
¼ t. cayenne pepper
.25 t. allspice
Salt and pepper to taste
.25 C. chicken broth
Bring water, salt, and butter to a boil in a 3-quart heavy saucepan. Whisk in grits and cook following directions on the package. Stir in half and half and cheese. Continue stirring until cheese is melted and smooth and remove from heat.
Make topping 10 minutes before grits are done:
Cook andouille sausage and ham in ½ tablespoon butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until sausage begins to brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer andouille and ham to a plate with a slotted spoon.
Add 1 tablespoon butter to skillet and heat until foam subsides. Cook shrimp, turning, until just cooked through, about 3 minutes. Stir in andouille, ham,, remaining butter, and the rest of the ingredients except salt and pepper.
Cook, stirring and taking care not to break up grape tomatoes, until heated through, then season with salt and pepper. Serve topping over grits.