This is a recipe.
I swear.
But first a letter to those who didn’t make the cut but deserve an honorable mention:
Dear Ex-Boyfriends,
Thank you for teaching me the following things:
- How to kiss with my eyes closed. Yeah, it used to be a problem…a really creepy, adolescent problem. It has since been rectified, thank you.
- How to recognize a jackass/pushover/train-wreck/mama’s-boy from 500 feet across a room. I have shared this knowledge with my girlfriends as needed & by the way, they would like to thank you, too.
- Don’t snoop & don’t look at emails/webpages left on the screen. Most of the time you are going to find a lot of sketchy stuff that should really go unfound…um…I’ll leave it at that. Yuck.
- You are probably not crazy & I am probably not crazy but the weird combination of you + me sends us flying into whack-a-doodle status & therefore we can not be friends. Like, don’t even follow me on twitter/instagram/facebook. It’s that deep.
- Your grandmothers, mothers, & even fathers are some of the best cooks I have ever met. I’m glad I paid attention in the kitchen all those years because quite frankly, sitting next to you on the couch while you watched SportCenter re-runs never really sounded all that appealing.
You are probably thinking, “Why the hell did she just over-share?”.
Well, as I was making the Shrimp & Crab Ceviche that I am sharing with you today, my fiancé came into the kitchen & asked, “Where did you learn to make this? You aren’t even Mexican.”
I hesitated….”Um, my ex-boyfriends’ mom taught me…”
He blinked at me & I cringed awaiting his reply…
“Fair enough”, he said & walked away slurping up his ceviche without a second thought.
Wow.
Leave it to a guy to look past anything having to do with an ex as long as it involves a good meal.
As I stood there, chopping away, thankful I had dodged a potentially awkward bullet, I had a flash back to a time long ago, standing there in the kitchen with countless “mama’s” as they shared their knowledge with me. I couldn’t help but be reminded of all of the valuable life lessons (like the ones above) I learned along the way. Fortunately, each one of these memories is also accompanied by some really great recipes. So great, in fact, that I couldn’t possibly feel good about posting any of them without acknowledging them in some way.
So here you go: An excerpt from a chapter in the cookbook which is my life…
& Lord knows I’m nowhere near finished writing it…
Enjoy!
Nayarit-Style
Shrimp & Crab Ceviche
