Bubba Gump and Blue Ribbon

Recently I tried a very exotic food for my personal palate- shrimp. Yep, you heard me. Shrimp. Shrimp. Shrimp. Oh, and eel and oysters and raw tuna. And anybody who knows me or who has ever eaten with me knows this is not normal.

First off, I don't eat seafood. Not shrimp or crab or anything living underwater. I stick to what I know- a good, plain cheeseburger. Hold the ketchup and mustard. I just wanted that slab of beef. It's what I know. It's comfortable, it's good, and hey, if it's not broke, why fix it?

I've been so against seafood my whole life. And I honestly didn't like it. Maybe my tastebuds have changed, maybe I just ate it the wrong way. But there's nothing about it that sounds appetizing. How can you people justify eating something that STILL has it's tail on it. Or cooking something while it's still alive. At least the animals I eat were dead first.

But that's not the point. I'm writing tonight to speak on the positive effects of trying the seafood again for the first time since, I don't know when! The first night I had seafood was last Sunday night. The lady I babysit for, Katrina, was ordering food from a sushi place. Well, I like sushi- at least I thought, so I told her vegetable sushi for me please! And she looked at me like that was the dumbest thing I ever said (OK, she had a right to- she lived in Japan for four years! She knows what sushi is! And it is not only vegetables!). And she told me I had to try real sushi. Not the fake kind I was brought up with in Wisconsin.

She told me we wouldn't order anything too adventerous. And the first thing she picked off the menu was eel. We hadn't even seen shrimp on the menu yet. Of course it made me nervous. And also gag a little. But for the most part I was proud of the fact that I would be trying something new. And a little bit because Katrina was making me.

So when we got our food, we sat down. Graciously, she ordered me a couple things that I could recognize- beef, pork, edamame. But then she looked at me and at the seafood infested sushi rolls and said, "OK, come on. Eat." I looked at her like she was making me eat a batch of live worms.

And in a sense she was. But I'm no wussy. I took the shrimp roll first. It was the most recognizeable. And I took a bite.

And I liked it. I mean, like, it tasted really wonderful.

I liked this new me! Someone who could like beef and shrimp! At the same time! I daringly tried the rest. The tuna, the eel, the oyster rolls. So good. So, so good. I couldn't even pick a favorite.

Why was I liking this? I've disliked it for so long! I should be gagging or vomitting or demanding chocolate to wash it down!

Same thing happened this last Sunday. I went to church with my friend James. Afterwards, we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp- I've never eaten here before for obvious reasons. But, we went because he worked there and had half off and because I knew that if I could like Japanese food, I had to like American beef in a shrimp place. Totally feasible.

I got a burger (duh!) and James order hush puppies. Cute name, I thought. But now so cute inside. Shrimp and crab in the middle of bread. Ick. Or so I thought. James asked me if I wanted to try one. I said, no thanks, don't like shrimp. And he said, "Are you allergic". No I said. "Then try it." And he said that not like, "Oh, well maybe you'll love it!". It was more like, "So what you're saying is, you've never tried it, already determined you don't like it, and you expect me to let you get away with it? Nuh-uh!".

Hush puppies are good. I like them. And they're particularly good with that sauce.

So my advice for tonight is don't knock it until you try it. Or try it again if the first time it didn't exceed.

My guess is you'll like it.