It’s early and the world outside my window, which is very quiet and still, is softly lit by a morning sun that promises a good day. Looking at the calendar and realising that we are fast approaching the end of the eighth month of the year makes me want to enjoy the remaining summer pleasures to the hilt. Amongst these pleasures, with which we are all familiar, are tiny, particular pleasures such as being comfortable walking barefoot on the stone floor of our house, a feat (was that really necessary, Roger) that is unthinkable by the end of October, the magic of inhaling the pervasive perfume from fruit bowls laden with peaches and melons and the joy knowing that the markets will be full of rainbow coloured and misshapen tomatoes, that only late summer provides. Some of those fruit became the heart this simple pasta dish.
I had been looking for something to do with a packet of quite uninteresting cooked prawns when I came across a small bowl of fiery tomato sauce that I had made a few days ago. It appears that I have a great deal of American copies of my cook books as recipes for prawns were non-existent whilst recipes for shrimp were legion. The chasm between the same language, as spoken on two sides of an admittedly large ocean, is as deep as the Mindanao trench. Me saying potato, and you saying patattah I could live with, as there is some phonetic sense, but me saying courgette and you saying zucchini, and me saying prawn and you saying shrimp makes searching the index of a cookery book similar to checking out recipes on a Buddhist prayer wheel. In the end, like the redcoats, I gave in and searched shrimp, found nothing that I liked, and made up this little dish. The “shrimps” were given a short marinade in lemon and tabasco. I then warmed some chili flakes, crushed garlic, fresh thyme leaves and a large spoonful of the fiery tomato sauce in some olive oil in a frying pan/skillet. The spaghetti was cooked for a scant 5 minutes in boiling salted water, drained and then stirred through the juices and seasoning in the pan. And now today is beckoning and I can’t wait.
Roger Stowell Photography
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OK, I like you blog!
that pasta looks delish. great post
Katherine’s started to say things like rasher and aubergine. We’re perhaps reading too many food blogs. This looks delicious.
Whatever you call them you’ve made good use of those crustaceans! To me (on this side of the Atlantic) shrimp are tiny, whereas prawns are something you can eat. I was thinking about these different names when you posted your egg plant yesterday – that seems to me the vegetable with the biggest variety of names. I call them aubergines, and that’s what they are in French, but in Spanish they’re berenjenas, in Occitan they’re merinjanas (and another slightly ruder name), in Italian melanzane….and so on.
Yes, yum in any language… although “yum” almost certianly means something entirely different in different languages as well. Oh for the “universal translator” of the science fiction stories, but really, what fun would that be? (grin) In any event, this looks lovely!
I don’t care what others call them. When they look this good in a dish of pasta, I’ll call them delicious. Great post!
I appreciated the feet/feat pun! And, your photograph is lovely, and my eye was drawn more towards the purple handle of the fork because purple is my favorite color!
I SO UNDERSTAND what you are saying. Sometimes I just have to use pictures!!. I shall pass this recipe to Our John as he is the shrimp cooker in the house.. looks great.. c
Love it and the spoon! It seems to me that pre-autumn is the time in which I do a lot of thinking about times past, present and future. I do not know why? The changes in all that we see I think make me think of the changes in one’s life. I too love walking on our tile floors shoeless, if feels so good (in a few weeks I will have to wear my house shoes!) to me it feels like an open window with a slight breeze. Some say autumn some say fall both are full of color as with this dish it is perfect… This shrimp dish is ideal … quick and easy… I would eat mine while lounging in the garden … looking at the last of blossoms of the season … the spices bringing the right heat…RaeDi
Who makes the cutlery? I love the purple.
This photo is so awesome. I love this blog – I shall have to come back, the photography alone is good enough to bring me back again. Awesome use of prawns.
Thought provoking in many ways. I made something similar and put the photo in “my vault”. I was taught by a learned individual that some things should be saved for future use.