An Embarrassment of Mangoes by Ann Vanderhoof Read Free Book Online Page B

kind of a cross between a frisbee throw and a tennis backhand. Orland’s ruddy face cracks into a grin. “Now don’t forget to open your mouth.”
    During the lesson, he insists Steve take a couple of breaks in his cabin cruiser—one for some jug wine and one for tea and cookies—and stuffs him with stories of life in the Carolina marshes. “This one’s a favorite around here,” he says, launching into a tale about two “British lads.”
    “They were cruising at the low end of the scale, in an old World War I lifeboat, and got caught in a wicked storm off the coast. They holed up belowdecks to ride it out. Meanwhile, the wind pushed them right through the inlet here and into one of these creeks that weave through the marshes. When one of the boys finally came topside for a look, he told the other they’d washed up in Kansas.”
    I can believe it.
    It’s almost dusk when Steve roars back to
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, his jeans and sweatshirt plastered with bits of marsh—strands of weed, splotches of creek mud, and hairlike pink shrimp feelers—to exchange a plastic bag bulging with shrimp for a couple of bottles of our wine. “For my pal Orland,” he says, as he grabs the wine and hands over the sack. I’m duly impressed—even when he confesses Orland had to supplement his student’s catch with his own shrimp so we’d have enough for dinner.
    What to make is easy: shrimp and grits. I’ve been keen to cook hominy grits since buying a box at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store (motto: “Big on the Pig”) in Georgetown, South Carolina, a couple of days earlier. The only problem is that unlike storebought shrimp, Steve’s haven’t come sorted by size. Some are truly jumbos . . . and some are barely salad shrimp. Which makes the shelling, deveining, and, particularly, timing the cooking a little tricky. I complain to the supplier, who’s by now pinching off the last of the shrimp heads in the cockpit. Given that he’s just delivered the freshest shrimp I’m ever going to eat, he’s not the least bit sympathetic.
    Eating shrimp just an hour out of the water is a revelation. The first thing we notice is their texture. They’re meaty and firm, with none of the mushiness that affects their brethren that have spent a lot more time on ice. When I bite into my first one, it almost pops. And then there’s the smell: clean, fresh, the essence of shrimp without any undertones of fishiness. They are set up perfectly by the mound of soft grits underneath, ribboned with melted cheddar.
    As we wind the rest of the way through the marshes of South Carolina and Georgia, Steve no longer needs encouragement to get underway early. He wants time at the end of the day to cast before dark. Rock Creek brings stir-fried shrimp with garlic and ginger; Herb Creek, red-curry shrimp with coconut milk; New Teakettle Creek, shrimp in garlic butter; Shellbine Creek . . . cheese omelets. Damn: The wind’s too strong for shrimping.
    Steve’s making it look easy now, but he’s taking far too much credit for being the great provider. One evening I decide to go along in the dinghy and try casting myself. I thoroughly soak us both with marsh water before I manage to throw the net so it lands wide open. I can’t wait to haul it in to see what I’ve got. “Let it settle for a few seconds,” says the expert. “Okay, now, tug it closed and bring it in.” Four measly shrimp. I try another equally unproductive cast, and since I have my heart set on pad Thai for dinner, I turn the net back over to Steve. By the time it’s dark, he’s brought in enough that we can even give a bag to another couple, who have dinghied up the creek from their own boat to join us on
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for drinks.
    The marshes give us solitude, though, as well as dinner. There are so many bends and twists that even if another sailboat anchors nearby it is usually out of sight, only the tip of its mast visible across the marsh grass. One evening,
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sits alone under a vast sky that has