FOWC with Fandango — Skimp
“What is this?” she asked him as he portioned out dinner on the plates.
“Hot and sour Chinese fried shrimp,” he said proudly.
“I sense the Chinese part, although as hot and sour goes, it’s not really that,” she commented, “But where is the shrimp? And for that matter, are we out of hot sauce too?”
“We were a bit short on shrimp. I couldn’t work out the sour part, so I just made do with what we had. Since I skimped on the shrimp, I added extra vegetables.”
“I haven’t found a single shrimp yet.”
“Maybe I skimped a bit too much,” he admitted and went fishing in the pan. “Here’s one,” he announced proudly. “Wait a minute, I think I see another one in there. No, that’s a water chestnut. There’s got to be another one in here somewhere…” as he trailed off.
“Listen. You can cook anything any way you like, but if you don’t have the ingredients, maybe try a different dish?”
“Okay. We’re having hot and sour fried mystery shrimp with Chinese vegetables. Is that better?”
“It isn’t hot. It isn’t sour. And you didn’t fry anything,” she pointed out, using her well-worn chopsticks as she plowed through dinner. “It tastes okay, but you need a new recipe name. It is shrimpless. Fundamentally, it’s missing all the key ingredients. It tastes okay, but… Well, I’m not sure what it is, exactly. Pass the hot sauce. Maybe use chicken next time? You won’t have to skimp quite as much.”
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Categories: #Food, #FOWC, Cooking, Daily Prompt, Fandango's One Word Challenge, Fiction, Humor
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
If they invent the transporter in time for you and Garry to visit Australia you can have a nice seafood lunch in Hobart although I’m not sure if we have swordfish locally. Overfishing is a big issue. Currently, super-sized fishing trawlers are banned from Australian waters but some environmentalists say the laws don’t go far enough. As for Japan’s commercial whaling industry don’t get me started.
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Does food need a name? I cook a lot of nameless dishes….
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Most of my food is nameless too, but for the purposes of this prompt … Although all my Chinese dishes have a name or something like one. Usually, it is a variation on something from the huge recipe books I have — but it’s never EXACTLY the same because I never have all the ingredients. I’m a serious substituter 🙂
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lmao
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Skip the shrimp, scrimp the hot and sour as long as it tastes good.
Leslie
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But maybe call it Vegan veggies with rice!
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sounds good to me…. 😉
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I love shrimp. Actually, I love almost all shellfish excepting oysters which are icky. We used to eat a LOT of fish, but there’s not much available now that George’s Banks has been closed because of over-fishing. Salmon, swordfish (which Garry LOVES)(and it is kind of pricey) — and halibut. Not even scrod anymore, which used to be THE cheapest fish available. Most of the fleets are gone.
They were warned to stay away from George’s Banks to give the fish time to rebuild, but they said they had to pay for their boats and earn a living. I get that — but when what you are doing is going to also put you out of business sooner rather than later, you really need to at least consider that you have a hard choice to make. It’s a lot like today saving the environment. Yes, saving the planet so we and our offspring can live on it requires hard choices that will change how we live in many ways. But if we don’t, we are going to be like the fishermen with expensive boats … and nowhere to fish.
You have NO idea how many of these stories Garry covered. I remember thinking that you really need — EVEN if it is YOUR professional life on the line — about what is going to happen long term. I sympathized. Especially since I love seafood and I loved our fishing fleets and all their mythology. But they did in themselves — and the rest of us too, Because George’s Banks was where the fish mated and when they were grabbed before mating, there were fewer and fewer fish remaining. Now, it will be at least another 10 years before normal levels of fish will be back … and maybe with the pollution problems, never.
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It is a sad state of affairs, Marilyn. They will come back given a chance.
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Lol!
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Vegan food makes me want to go out and have another meal.
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It is usually low in satiety as there are fewer calories and fat in it.
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Maybe I’m crazy, but all my Vegan friends have a kind of pale and rather wan look, like there aren’t enough red blood cells in there. Maybe they need to take iron supplements.
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Probably. Animal protein has iron and other nutrient for body to make red blood cells.
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Sounds like a vegan Chinese restaurant I went to recently. I had chicken-less orange “chicken.” At least it was orange. And it didn’t taste bad, either.
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No, you can make very good Asian dishes with just vegetables … but if you are Vegan, don’t pretend there’s shrimp where there isn’t any or chicken-free chicken dishes. I always feel hungry after one of those meals.
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