We had never ever thought of going out to catch our own shrimp before. Then, yesterday, our home teacher and his wife came over to visit. They told us it's shrimp season, where to go, and HOW to catch’em.
Seeing I’ve got 3 out of the 7 family members in this house that are ADDICTED to Shrimp, it is TOTALLY worth it to give this a shot. Today, Jason and I went out to the exchange to see just how much it’d cost to get a casting net (only way I could remember the name…to me it sounded like the Kehr’s had said “castanets.” LOL. pathetic, I know, but it worked to remember.) So, the casting nets started at $35 and working up to the $60 range for something we had NO idea about and were attempting to do, yes? no? do we really want to try this? hmmmm. Robbie got home from school just before we returned from our little trip to the exchange, and we had texted her to tell her what we were up to. She called us to beg if we could go TODAY. Please oh PLEASE oh puuuhhhhhhllllllllleeeeeeezzzzzzz!!!!! It was too funny. We pulled up into the driveway, and I traded out for Robbie. I sent her and Jason off to Walmart to see if they had anything lower priced for us shrimping beginners, and I stayed home to wait for all the other kids to get home from school, and get some laundry done. {Honestly now, is the laundry EVER done??}
They returned with a casting net, another net on a pole, and LOTS of excited energy to take off and try this all out. I had cut the back yard – YEAH, finally enough grass to have it be worth pulling out the lawnmower –and had sent Curtis to do our neighbors too since we had our mower out. He was weed whacking, and still needed to finish fixing his bike. Randy was off at marching band practice, and Craigan and Zac were just being tired and difficult. So I kissed them both, told them good luck, and sent Jason and Robbie off to try this whole shrimping thing out. Since they’re the ones that’ll eat most of the take, if THEY like it, it would be worth making a family event out of it to get more.
OH they had FUN! It was exhausting, but they were both home a couple hours later with great big smiles on their faces, and about 3 lbs of shrimp, with some tiny fishes that snuck thru. Apparently, they caught an entire net FULL of the tiny fishes the first casting, and threw them up to the seagulls and tossed the rest back in.
So they cleaned them and everyone checked out real live FRESH Shrimp. A few kept jumping out into the sink. It was pretty funny.
Then it was time to cook them up.
They were SO happy with what they had to show for their work for today. They couldn’t wait to get to EAT it.
Ahh, but first Jason needed to teach the kids how they prep the now cooked shrimp. All his years in restaurants, the catching was the only part he needed to learn.
Robbie was right in there. Afraid of nothing and REALLY hungry at this point in time. After all the work, our friends called and told us about a great kitchen gadget to get to clean all the icks and yucks out of the shrimp. Still, seeing Jason do it all by hand, the kids were all VERY impressed. :o)
So Jason’s favorite part about all the cleaning of the shrimp was actually NOT about the shrimp. It’s when he went to chop up the little fishies for our cats to try. Now, some of you may or may not know, that I am NOT big on seafood (yeah yeah, grew up in New England and I don’t eat seafood. shoot me now), and REALLY NOT big on prepping food with bones in it. I have gotten over it enough that I can finally prepare and even eat chicken on the bone, pork chops, etc, but I much prefer NOT including the bones. Gives me the willies BIG time. Also, I tend to have a REALLY strong stomach. Other people around me get sick, and I can handle the smell, clean up, all that gross stuff. Jason, on the other hand, can be pushed to throw up just by talking about it too much, or hearing someone gag. All the tough guy stuff about him, and that’s the thing that gets him. Poor guy.
What IS it that the prepping of the little fishies was Jason’s favorite part of the night?? Favorite ALMOST EVEN to the EATING of those wonderful shrimp he and Robbie caught??? It was MY reaction to his prepping of the fish. He cut one, I started to look away. Made the second cut, and I felt my entire throat clench up and my stomach working VERY quickly to try and turn itself inside out via the center of my throat. In the last 15 years we’ve known each other, Jason has NEVER seen me react to ANYTHING that made me gag, leave the room VERY fast, and STILL nearly throw up just at the thought of what I just saw. (even writing this story is making my throat ache…yuck.) So, I’m happy to have provided a great deal of laughter to my family this evening as they witnessed just what it WOULD take to make Mom gag BIG TIME. LOL.
I never ate the shrimp, but BOY where they gone FAST. Now the plan is to get really good at this whole shrimping thing as a family, go out as often as we can, and stock the freezer up BIG TIME.
YAY for good friends that taught us something new :o)!!!!!!
