Building a better Briguy

I finally signed up for gym membership at a community center that's not terribly near my apartment and doesn't have quite as much equipment as I'd like, but the price can't be beat and I'm eager to get back into a regular routine of working out -- something I haven't had since Duluth. I'm also planning on playing tennis once a week, which will be nice.

I've also finally got the numbers of a couple of guys to contact about getting guitar lessons so my guitar can stop being a decorative object and something useful.

I have also vowed to begin cooking on one of my nights off of work and going out to eat at someplace new during the other night off. Last night, I went to a little place called Cici's Pizza tucked into a shopping center near my apartment. They do takeout, but their main thing is a buffet -- all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta, salad (if you like that sort of thing) and dessert. How much does this feast cost, you ask? That's the best part -- $6! And that includes a drink. I was quite happy with the discovery. Happy and stuffed.

Tonight, I cooked spiced shrimp with rice with Hawaiian sweet rolls on the side. Cooking is always a bit of an adventure for me, mostly because I have very lofty goals but not much of a clue as to what I'm really doing. From start to finish, the meal was supposed to take 45 minutes. But for me, it was more like 2 hours. And that doesn't include the trip to the grocery store, which inevitably runs about an hour because I often have no idea what the things I need even are. (Star anise?!? Is it a fruit? A vegetable? A spice? I have no idea. It sounds like something a ninja would use.) I finally got what I needed and got it home. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the shrimp had already been deveined. Although I have to admit, I was sort of looking forward to trying that out. But after just peeling 1 pound of shrimp, I got over my disappointment pretty quickly. The mixing of the spices went fairly well, although I keep having to grate fresh ginger and it always seems stringy, so I'm not sure I'm doing it right. But whatever. The bigger problem came when it was time to add the onions. Besides being tired of grating ginger for various recipes, I've gotten tired of cutting up onions. Especially when I don't usually need much. So I decided to get the chopped onions in a bottle -- they're dried and sort of flaky. But they burned pretty fast when I cooked them, probably because they had no moisture, so I think I'm going to have to stick with regular onions in the future.
Oh well.

The rest of it seemed to be going fine, but when I thought I was done, I scooped it out onto my plate and began eating only to find that the rice was undercooked and still crunchy.

Umm ... oops.

So back onto the stove to cook for a while longer.

Of course, then I overcooked it. So it was still crunchy.

But hey, at least the shrimp were tasty.