He's Here. He's Safe.

Walter got in around noon yesterday. Heaven only knows how, but I had the sudden energy to spend the morning in a fit of housekeeping. When I picked him up we embarked on a long, careful, tiring bout of shopping and getting prescriptions filled. We did extremely well on our available funds - oh, such excellent shopping we did! So much so, I even called the shot on splurging for some really superior shrimps at Sam's, 15 count wild caught monsters for less than $10 a pound.

We got home and rested on our laurels. Then around 10 PM I made the shrimp, which I can do most of sitting down. Here's a little example of Alternative Cooking for the feet-challenged. You know. Peel shallots - loads of them, like half a pound or more - and peel the shrimp. The rotini was boiling as I peeled.

I have to do a lot of my cooking with my feet elevated, and yesterday it was mandatory. Between some extreme and feet-intensive yard work last week, and all the housecleaning Saturday morning, then the shopping, even with Walter's help dropping me off right by the store scooters, it was way too much. Poor Mr. Foot! He was doing the muffin thing, where he gets so hugely swollen the top of the foot hangs down over the sides like a muffin. He almost went to his *Blue Cantaloupe* stage. And Ms. Foot wasn't far behind. So sitting in front of the computer to do my prep work was a must.

I've no idea if this dish has a particular name; I think I just sort of morphed it together one day long ago. Here's how the recipe went.

First: peeled and washed about 3/4# of shallots. I washed them with soap, because they got a bit of that black onion mold shallots are susceptible to, and it can be highly allergenic, that mold. Bought in bulk rather than those dainty little net bags, purple shallots run from $1.99 - $4.99 a pound down here. I got the organic ones, $4.99 at Whole Foods, because I didn't want to make yet another stop to save a buck a pound - and spend that much in fuel, and a hundred times that much in extra foot pain.

I peeled the shallots sitting in front of the computer with my feet way high, like usual. Then in the kitchen, after washing and thoroughly rinsing I chopped them fast and rough. They went in a large microwave glass bowl with extra light olive oil drizzled over them, a fair amount of it; then on into the nuker. Five minutes, stir, four minutes, stir, three minutes, stir, then wait for the shrimp.

Shrimp that huge I devein on both sides, top and bottom, and wash carefully, then dry on a paper towel. Everything but the washing and drying was done sitting down. Like any manual task, it goes fast once you've gotten some practice in.

I poured the olive oil from the shallots into a medium-heated frying pan, then gave it a dollop of whipped butter. The olive oil not only balances a cholesterol-lowering oil with the butter, it keeps the butter from burning. The olive oil I use has no flavor really, by preference, but the butter is yummy.

When the oils were hot, in went the shrimp. I turned them when they were barely pink on that first side, then dumped the almost-finished shallots on top. They got a sprinkle of salt and a much bigger sprinkle of turmeric. After the second side of the shrimp got barely pink, I started mixing it all, cooking a few minutes longer to let all the tastes blend.

The only other ingredient was scads of fresh-grated parmesan cheese. That's a very high-protein, relatively lower fat cheese. NOT *low fat* to be fashionable and find a great use for extra salt and chemicals, but lower fat because it's the way the recipe goes for making parmesan cheese. (So there, Dr. Idiot! 'Scuse please.)

I can grate 5 oz. of parmesan cheese in less than two minutes. The reason I notice the time on these tasks is because I simply can't stand up, even on a good day, for more than a minute or two before the pain starts to skyrocket. Walking's not so good either, but not as bad as standing.

Back to the food. Fresh raw veggies? You bet. Again, I'm lucky in my tastes: I eat this stuff because it's what I want. I make a salad of them, and almost never use any kind of lettuce. Spinach sometimes, yes. Usually, it's something like tomatoes, sweet onion, carrots, cucumbers. Peeled broccoli stems, black olives, spinach, kohlrabi, water chestnuts, hard boiled eggs or egg whites - depends upon my mood. Cheap Catalina Free dressing, too, in a nod to my diabetes. Walter loves cucumbers and tomatoes with ranch dressing for a *salad,* and I can feed him fresh raw spinach for a green leafy veg. (He's a challenge on the green leafies.)

I drained the rotini and put it in two bowls, way less for me than for Walter because there's your starchy carbs. The shrimp and shallots went on top. I also had a tiny side bowl of just rotini and whipped butter and a mound of the cheese. I like it plain like that, and I don't like the cheese on my shrimp and shallots, but Walter does.

We took our salads and shrimp and pasta dishes and ate like a king and queen, having a special *fancy* dinner for the grand total of about $15. Maybe $20 if you count the electricity to cook it, and the dollops of butter...So, say $10 each, to eat one of my pricier meals in the comfort of our own home? Not bad.

And this whole time, we talked and talked and talked and talked, from noon till midnight. He showed me some gorgeous pix he finally took with a digital camera, my gracious I had no idea he could take pix like that! We love to talk to each other, Walter and I. After all these years we still aren't tired of each other's company.

Tomorrow we have an intense day of strategic phone calls and letter writing and an MRI, and probably a need for a yard work fix to keep me on an even keel after the MRI.

But for today...ah, sleeping and lazing about, and surfing up how to cook this liver pudding ring he got at Penn Dutch yesterday, and fine long discussions of sausage - and giggling about how I had to stop surfing sausage info after reading about Tibetan lung sausage making, and that old saying about eating sausage vs. knowing how they make it - but Tibetans, I mean, who knew? Besides, I was looking for how to cook it, not how to make it in the first place.

I ended up sticking it in the lovely DeLonghi convection-toaster oven at 275 for an hour and a half, and Walter pronounced himself delighted. --How's that for a Don't Stand Up cooking procedure?,-- I asked him. Spray-oil a piece of aluminum foil, put it on the toaster oven pan, take the liver pudding ring out of its wrapper, place on tray, set oven for 275 for 90 minutes, go lay down and read Jane Austen. Ding! Rinse the (already clean enough) spinach, put in bowl, get bottle of salad dressing. Put some already cut-up cantaloupe in bowls for both of us. Sit by computer and listen contentedly to the sound of my guy eating something he really loves, knowing he might have bypassed the spinach part if left to his own devices.

And now the allergies are descending upon us like a sleepy but toxic warm bath, so off we go for another nap.

You see? Our lives have wonderful shares of pleasures, too.
.