Shrimp On The Barbie

"A phrase that NO Australian ever says. EVER."

or

"Normally the last words said by a dead-shit tourist

in Australia before someone hurts them."

-- Urban Dictionary

Shrimp and Barbies on the barbie 9-24-14

Lloyd:

"That's a lovely accent you have. New Jersey?"

Woman:

"Austria."

Lloyd: 

"Austria! Well, then! G'day mate! Let's put another shrimp on the barbie!"

Woman:

"Let's not."

-- Dumb & Dumber

I remember eating in an open-air seafood restaurant about 25 years ago that was somewhere by a river where they served giant barbecued shrimp in little galvanized buckets.

Everybody sat together, elbow-to-elbow at long picnic-style tables and ate with their fingers.

No tablecloths. No plates. No silverware. Bracingly cold beer in a bottle. Lots of paper napkins. Lots of licking.

I can't remember whether the restaurant was in Chicago or maybe Boston. But every now and then my memory of it triggers a serious craving for barbecued shrimp and cold beer.

So last night I made some for supper.

The beer was non-alcoholic, but it was definitely cold and definitely in a bottle.

The shrimp were medium-sized and served in a bowl, but they were definitely barbecued, definitely messy and definitely delicious.

It was a good way to end a g'day. Mate.

Homemade Pizza Dough

"Ideas are like pizza dough,

made to be tossed around."

-- Anna Quindlen

Self portrait with pizza dough 3-4-14

Seriously, guys.

Homemade pizza dough is not even that hard. It's actually fun to make, and it is so much better.

You don't even want to know what Domino's puts in theirs. But here's the list of ingredients in their "handmade pan" crust anyway:

Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Butter Flavored White Shortening Flake (Palm Oil, Natural Butter Flavor, and Soy Lecithin), Vegetable Oil (Soybean Oil, Citric Acid), Sugar, Salt, Less than 1% Dough Conditioners (Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Whey, Enzyme [with Wheat Starch], Ascorbic Acid, L-cysteine, with Silicon Dioxide added as processing aids), Yeast (Yeast, Sorbitan Monostearate, Ascorbic Acid)

Gross.

At least they don't use high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup solids, like Pizza Hut.

Shrimp, chicken and olive pizza 3-4-14

Wanna know what's in my pizza dough? Flour, yeast, sugar, salt, water, olive oil. That's it. About 50 cents worth of ingredients that are always in my kitchen anyway. Might as well use 'em, right?

And homemade pizza is a delicious way to use up leftovers that would otherwise undergo a slow, languishing death at the back of the fridge.

I made some dough yesterday, rolled it out and topped it with leftover shrimp and chicken wings, black olives, cheddar, mozzarella, dill, basil and olive oil. It looked like this (right).

Leftovers never tasted so good. They're more like "left-oh!-vers."

Seriously, guys.

Google yourself a simple recipe for homemade pizza dough and make that shit happen already. Let the delivery guy make tips off some other chump.