The monumental sadness of everything.

Harken back to a happier time, while stoned and watching, I think it was Bourdain.

 He was in some remote village in a place I long (I’m certain Dok has already been) to see, when the host asked where one can get the best drunken egg rolls in the whole city? One of the locals mentions a local shop just around the corner that does shrimp and pork egg rolls, all conversations stop and everyone looks at the fiend who uttered that sequence of troubling words, Shrimp and Pork egg rolls? Indeed! 

After depleting entire piles of everything, the host and everyone on the show agreed that they were amazing. I being also drunk when the question was floated, can that really be done?

What?

Pork and shrimp?

 “How the hell do I know?” I responded, “Grab me a beer while you’re in the kitchen”

 I mumble all tipsy like. Shrimp and Pork?

Let’s just see if such a dastardly thing does truly exist, off to the world wide interwebs I go.

Lo and behold, (such an idiot for typing that) there are many recipes available, I did not use one, I made one up.

What? You expected quality?

You’re at the wrong rodeo cowpoke, get to shufflin’.

Simple enough: This came from www.dinneratthezoo.com Sort of.

½ pound ground pork

½ pound ground skrimps (Their recipe had no shrimp at all, dirty hippies)

S&P to taste, no shit!

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp minced ginger

They used a coleslaw salad bag!  To that I say no, no sir, not today!

¼ cup of (not near enough) green onions

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp toasted sesame oil, What the fuck is that? We’ll get there

12 egg roll wrappers I tore the hell out of one which was wasted and only used 8 others

1 egg for the egg wash

Oil for stuff, Oh wait, you’ll see when I start the house on fire.

So as you can see that is not complete, so I also did

1 cup Napa cabbage shredded

1/2 cup grated carrot

1/2 cup Mung bean sprouts washed and cleaned chopped in half

Way more onion

Let’s address that “toasted” sesame oil first.

Upon opening the cabinet I see sesame (that Yeah Right has at least 24 different kinds of oils) oil but not toasted, what is one to do? 

SEE TOLD YOU, NOT TOASTED, BUT I AM

Off to the inter thingy again to watch yet another video

Take a sauce pan and (I’m not kidding) put it empty onto a medium hot burner and allow it to come up to full temperature, Now add the small amount of oil you need directly into the hot pan. 

This is precisely when I exploded into flame. 

Now swish (best word my small brain could come up with) the oil around in the pan, do not stop, swirl it gently around over the direct heat and wait for wisps of smoke to appear. Move constantly or you too can burst into oily flames, it should smell toasty or is that just your silly ass burning up?

 You’ve been warned.

Move to a small glass vessel immediately and let cool completely.

SEE GOLDEN BROWN, LIKE THE STAINS IN YOUR UNDERPANTS

Now lets get to shredding, where’s my guitar?

First carrots

LOOK MA NO FINGERNAILS

Garlic

Ginger

Cabbage

Green Onions

Mung Beans

NO REALLY WHAT IS THAT?

From the mythical land of Mung where some of the lesser known gods & beasties reside.

It’s meat time, first pork

GOT THE EXTRA FAT BECAUSE SHRIMP HAS NO FAT

Got to get sum skrimps

You big baby. It’s dead, you’ll be okay. That is what a “real” shrimp looks like.

Now grab yourself a real sharp knife and just cut the bejesus out of yourself because you are simply too drunk to hold that slippery little bastard in your hand.

When done bleeding we’ll get back to the fun.

Yes we are going to cut off its bloody head, get the kids.

Grab that dead varmint right by its neck and chop that damn head clean off, watch out for what locals call the “liquor” Some folks just eat the whole dang thing.

Have you ever been to New Orleans?

That’s how they serve them, so yes it’s all perfectly edible, if you don’t eat the whole creature? Well the old Cajun folks say it’s the animal’s essence that you are wasting.

I myself have consumed many, many plates of whole shrimp, just got to get your fingers dirty and remove the parts that you don’t, shall we say, savor?

IS SHE PREGNANT?

 Cool.

I want to eat it’s essence

“You drunk sum bitch sit down over there!

Heads gone? Don’t you dare throw them away.

Now we need to remove the exoskeleton, legs and antennae. Keeping all of these yummy bits for a killer fish stock down the road.

Now get rid of the, don’t you barf, don’t you do it, I don’t care what it smells like soldier, you pull those legs off . Get back in there,

NO PRISONERS!!

IT JUST SPILLED OUT LIKE ROTTEN GUTS AND BILE

You will see stuff you may not be familiar with, it’s ok it’s all delicious, except. 

Once shelled, washed and cleaned you will need to pick up the shrimp and examine its little spine area. You see that black line that runs down its back, that is its digestive tract. That black line? 

Well it’s the creatures discharge.

SMELLS AS GOOD AS IT TASTES

Ever been to one of them all you can eat shrimp nights at your local crummy seafood chain? Just bite one of them skrimps in half and you will notice a nice black line running the entire length of its golden deep fried dead body. So you have already consumed plenty of fecal delights, stop whining, we spoke earlier about how the entire rest of civilized society eats the whole thing,

Now simply run a sharp knife down its spine while leaving crustacean intact. Under cold water we go, rinse, rinse.

REMOVE ANY REMAINING ICKY STUFF

NOW LETS CHOP IT UP

Chop it up? I guess some fish markets have ground shrimp? Mine no. which means? I chopped it, I want you to notice that all of the “essence of life juice” was chopped right into the filling.

THE IMAGE OF VOMITING BLOOD

Now let’s cook, who’s ready?

First the pork.

Brown 5-6 minutes.

Now the chopped shrimps

Cook together 4-5 minutes.

BEAUTIFUL.

This is where you use salt and pepper to taste.

Add the toasted sesame oil and soy sauce.

Let’s get some damn onions in there.

Need some darn carrots cook at least 5 minutes.

I see you’ve added the ginger and garlic, good.

Add cabbage.

Comes together quick at this point, maybe 5 minutes watch for the cabbage to wilt fully.

Taste again for needed salt or blood. Put it over there and let it cool.

Grab those wrappers.

Squeeze your meat to get all of the air out, what are you doing?

Diamond shape, keep tight, roll right.

Cook silly.

Oil, 350 not the 492 that I set it at and burned my little weenus right off. Had to reset, turn everything off and try a second time.

350 for 3 minutes flip and cook for 2 more.

Notice still burning my edges!

EAT, EAT, IF LISTENING TO JOHN DENVER EXTRA GOOD VIBES TO YOU

What?

Sauce?

You do what you want. I found Soy to be delightful as I am always mindful of the salt content. The homemade Teriyaki was epic of course, or do that sweet and sour thing, it’s your tree, shake it till you break it.

Je ne decherche pas de sympathie.

I met a guy in kindergarten when I was the ripe old age of 5 and we became fast friends. Through high school if you saw Ken you saw me. The first time I did acid? He was sitting right beside me. There were other space adventures to follow. Many concerts, ball games, golf rounds, jamming on guitars, tripping balls at Disneyland to name just a few.  Over the years we kept in touch. In the old days phone calls and actual handwritten letters. As days stretch out and turn golden it turns into emails and of course texts soon follow. We spoke over the years at least 4 times a year, new music, pissed off about that goddamn president, family or just hijinx. For more than 55 years, we remained friends, Christ I’m old.

My friend died on April the 14th. I did not find out until May the 12th, the very day that his service was to be held.  It’s scheduled for 11:00 AM.

It’s 9:am  when I receive the notice of his death. I live at least three and a half hours away and there’s never traffic in L.A.

If I just could have found out one day earlier I would have been able to be there to say goodbye.

I only found out because I have a ghoul for a brother who sent me a text saying, “Hey did you see that your lifelong friend died, I saw it on Facebook?”

I’m not part of the whole social media world, not very, what do the kids say? Connected. No Facebook, no Instacrack, nothing.

I was able to track down his sister and she told me that at that time they had not figured out how to even unlock his phone, so some people still did not even know!

In the new world there are new rules, no longer do we have gravesites with stone benches to spend somber moments reflecting on the long lost days and grieve or just tip a beer for the truly missed.

He was cremated and his son has the ashes but he’s not sure what he wants to do with them.

Not looking for sympathy as this life crushes us all at one time or another.

This is more of a life lesson that I was too old to understand. If you keep your phone password hidden away like that pair of your dead grandma’s panties you keep for sniffin’, then what if the unknown happens? 

People like me who aren’t plugged in may not ever know of life’s disaster. Yeah Right has my password. As far as the bank account goes I keep a sealed envelope in my dresser drawer that says in case of, well you know. I want someone to get my meager worth.

I was 17 hanging out with my best friend and we were out of weed. Called up a buddy swung by his crib to score a lid. We got our sack and as we were leaving one of the guys said, want to hang out and get high, I’ll put on some music? We said sure. As the smoke unleashed my mind I started really getting into the music, I say hey man who is this playing, they being older than me said that’s “Rock and Roll Animal” by Lou Reed. The song “Heroin” had just ended and I said,

 “Can you play that song again? He went over to the turntable, grabbed the stylus and moved it back to (look it up) restart the song. My lifelong love affair with Lou Reed was born right there and who was sitting right beside me?

Until in hell where we’ll meet again, I will miss you everyday.

TAJ/Lar 04-06-2023