Shrimp the New Tuna

It used to be that all cooks had a can of tuna around for emergency meals or to get fish in the diet once a week.

My experience was that tuna over toast was a regular growing up. I kind of drew the line on this when my creative mom decided to make it green for St. Pat's day.

Tuna dishes given way to the shrimp meal.

Tonight we had a shrimp meal. Starting with frozen 31-35 sized shrimp from costco, I let them thaw appropriately with a couple of changes of cool water. I dropped in a little olive oil and some butter, a couple shredded cloves of garlic, and some very dry sherry. As it heated up I chopped up some of dad's famous tomatoes and used a paper towel to soak up the juice. A half a fresh lemon went in just before the shrimp. Using a little bigger shrimp (the last of the previous package) we each had 8. I upped the shrimp to 10 (still a few too few) for each of us and sauteed them in the liquid. When they were done, I dropped in the chopped tomato and it was done!

The rice cooker was making the rice. The microwave was having a go at the small artichokes. It was a pretty good dinner out of just a little bit of nothing. That was what creamed tuna on toast was in my day.

For my part I will take the shrimp any day!

What can you pass down?

Last week when we were celebrating my birthday, Sean, Lindsay's husband asked me a question that made me pause and reflect a little.

His question was,"After 34 years of work, is there anything that you learned that you could pass down to others that could help them in their occupational journey?" You can see that I am paraphrasing a little here, but that is essentially the question.

It took me a moment to figure it out an answer. My answer was this:

Throughout your professional career you are looked upon for your professional advice. Throughout the beginning of the career you think that you are somewhat unsure of what you are doing. At the end of the your career you do not have these doubts. Professionally you are more self assured in your decisions. If you can lengthen the time that you felt professionally self assured you would fell more comfortable with your job.

That was my advice to Sean. Also, remember that not every pause in a conversation needs to be filled.

Best wishes to you and all of yours
Pat

Iphone and Netflix a great pair

Good news for Iphone users and Netfix users! I tried it out today and it really works!

Here is a short review that an apple company in Vermont, Small Dog.com put out in its mail review:

After months of silence following its announcement at the iPhone 4 keynote, Netflix for iPhone has finally landed. Coincidentally, its arrival came less than 24 hours after I posted an article on Barkings regarding its whereabouts.

The entire experience had an uncanny quality to it, and I couldn’t help but feel a little weirded out upon seeing it in the App Store the next morning. Now if only iOS 4.1 would come out and make my iPhone 3G usable again…

But I digress. Though the app was not released in the timeliest of fashions, Netflix clearly took the extra time to fix bugs. While performance is somewhat slow on the iPhone 3G (what isn’t lately?) 3Gs and iPhone 4 users have been reporting smooth and snappy experiences. The app is entirely oriented around Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature as opposed to DVD searching and queue management.

The app’s home screen offers suggestions based on your existing viewing or rating history, and a shortcut button to resume your last viewed video where you left off. You can also browse titles by genre or perform a manual search. The app also provides subscribers with access to their Instant Queue and allows titles found within the app to be added to it. Similar to other platforms featuring Netflix streaming capabilities, the app saves your location within a video, and allows you to resume playback where you left off, even on a different device.

Though this app is essentially the same as what iPad owners have been enjoying for months, it is a very big deal for iPhone and iPod touch users. The ability to stream over 3G is a huge perk placing a vast library of titles at your fingertips nearly anywhere you go. All in all, Netflix for iPhone is a very solid app and an absolute must have for Netflix subscribing iOS device users.