Scout

*I actually took the photos in this post months ago, when I was testing out my camera and figuring out how this blog worked. But I was reminded after making this dish again a few days ago. This time, it was especially delicious, made with live shrimp (!) bought at a wet market in Kowloon. If you visit Hong Kong or China, you have to check one out. They typically sell fresh produce and meat, and sometimes live animals such as chicken, frogs, etc.

Those of you who know me well know that I'm not very domestic.

I don't like to vacuum, wash dishes or cook. Dusting confounds me, and I have yet to hear a convincing reason for why making the bed is a good idea. Very few people ever saw the inside of my apartment in Los Angeles. It's not because I didn't like my friends; it's because I was afraid their delicate immune systems would collapse under the sheer squalor. (I'm currently staying with a longtime pal in Hong Kong, and he has a Hercule Poirot-level pathological love of neatness, cleanliness and symmetry. I'm hoping I can get by on sheer sparkle and charm before my inner slob forces him to kick me out.)

However, I love to eat. And over the years, I've learned to make a couple of things (Literally, two dishes. This, and sausage jambalaya) that I especially like. When I was up in the Bay Area visiting my lovely friend Hannah, I decided to make this for her one night after she had endured a long day at her law firm.

This recipe is not mine. For years, I used one from some website that collected Chinese recipes. Then that site disappeared, which prompted a mini-panic before I found this one (which is exactly the same as the old one. Did that other site evolve into the Spruce?).

So go on over to the Spruce if you want the original recipe. Continue reading here if you'd like my tweaks and commentary. I mostly just want to write this down here so I don't freak out if it vanishes again.

Ingredients

-- 1 pound (or half a kilo) of shrimp (the Spruce recipe says peeled. I say to leave at least the heads on, because sucking out the brains is unbelievably tasty. Seriously, go ahead and try it. Food of the gods).

--2 tablespoons (about 30 ml) of some kind of oil (I never measure. Just eyeball it).

--2 tablespoons (about 30 ml) of black bean sauce with garlic (the most crucial ingredient, besides the shrimp. You can find this at most neighborhood supermarkets. My local Vons carried it.)

--2 teaspoons (or about 10 ml) minced ginger

--1 bell pepper, any color works, cut into pieces

--sometimes I'll toss in half an onion, diced into large chunks. In which case, you should probably up the black bean sauce to 3 tablespoons.

--1 green onion, chopped into little pieces

Marinade

--1 tablespoon (about 30 ml) rice wine (Google tells me white wine would work as well)

--The Spruce recommends 1/4 teaspoon (about 1 ml) of salt. Never done this, because the soy sauce + black bean sauce + chicken broth is salty enough.

Sauce

--3/4 cup (about 180 ml) chicken broth

--1 tablespoon (about 15 ml) rice wine (again, white wine probably works.)

--1 tablespoon (about 15 ml) soy sauce

--1 teaspoon (about 5 ml) sugar

Cornstarch mix

--1 tablespoon (about 15 ml) cornstarch

--2 tablespoons (about 30 ml) water

Directions

1. Rinse the shrimp, and also peel if needed. The Spruce recommends patting them dry. I have never done this, and it's been fine. Then put the shrimp into a bowl and pour on the marinade ingredients (rice wine and optional salt). Let it sit for at least 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure the rice wine coats all the shrimp.

2. In a bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients. Then in another container, mix the cornstarch and water.

3. Heat your saucepan and add some oil to roughly coat the pan. I toss in the ginger as well, because I don't like waiting for the oil to get hot. Once it does start sizzling, add in the black bean sauce and stir for a few seconds.

4. Add the shrimp. Do NOT get confused and add the bell pepper first, which I've done before. If you do this, the bell pepper will soak up the bulk of the black bean sauce, and your shrimp will be sadly under-sauced. Stir fry the shrimp for maybe a minute, and then push them to the sides of the pan.

5. Add the bell pepper. If you have onion, throw that in as well. Stir-fry for a minute or two. If the pan starts getting dry, toss in some more chicken broth or water.

6. Push the shrimp, bell pepper and bonus onion to the sides of the pan. Sir your sauce one more time, and then pour into the middle of the pan. Bring the entire concoction to a boil, before stirring the cornstarch mix again and then pouring into the sauce. Stir the sauce. It should star thickening right away.

7. Stir the entire thing, shrimp, bell pepper and all. Then pour in the green onion bits, and give it another stir.

8. Serve with freshly made rice. Try not to drool.

This recipe supposedly serves 3 to 4 people. I have eaten all of it in one setting and wished for more.

Pouring in the cornstarch mix to thicken the sauce.

I'm telling you. Shrimp heads are really good! Just suck out the brains, don't eat the shell. Especially satisfying while watching the Walking Dead or my favorite so-bad-it's-good science fiction movie, Starship Troopers.

For years, I was like 99% of the world's flying population, dreading the hours wasted between passing through security and boarding a plane. That dread fossilized into hatred in May, when I decided that a 19-hour layover at the Johannesburg airport was a trifling hardship compared to saving $100 on a ticket.

It was a decision I deeply regretted ten hours later, after I had piled on every piece of clothing in my backpack and sprinted around the terminal like a deranged racehorse on the last leg of the Kentucky Derby. Hell is cold, and probably resembles an airport at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Then I got a lounge membership, for free, through my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card (this is not an ad, by the way).

I grew up in a family that stayed exclusively at motels with numbers in their name, with a father who suffered unimaginable deprivation during China's Great Leap Forward. I believed in the old saw that suffering built character, and part of suffering involved flying as economically as possible while still getting to your final destination (also that Spam is a perfectly acceptable picnic food, but that's a story for another time).

I'm not sorry to say that those principles melted in the first hour of my very first visit to a lounge inside Terminal 2 of the Cairo International Airport.

Friends, that hour was a warm embrace into a secret club. The kind that serves you piles of ham sandwiches, a pyramid of croissants, and occasionally comes by to offer a juice pack of orange or apple, take your pick. Travelers lounged on comfy, garishly colored leather chairs, silently wolfing down free pastries and fruit. I was one of them.

Since then, waiting to fly out has turned into pure joy. I downloaded the app that accompanies my membership, and eagerly plot out the best lounges to hit in the limited amount of time I have. I will even rush to the airport hours early, just to kick back and enjoy the over-salted soup. In Beijing, I snacked on shrimp shumai. In Beirut, I silently cheered a delayed flight, which allowed me to go back to the lounge and indulge in unlimited beers.

In September, I had another long layover, this time about 11 hours at the Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. Instead of curling up on a skeletal bench, I pushed together two squishy armchairs and drifted off to sleep, awakening occasionally to enjoy a frothy cappuccino and smoked salmon sandwiches.

My membership expires next April. I would actually consider plunking down money to renew it, when the dreaded day comes.

Recipe: Shrimp in Black Bean Sauce

An Ode to Airport Lounges