Hot Spring Dinner

One of the quirks of weather in northern California is that our hottest days come in the spring and the fall, rather than in the summer. In summer, the fog rolls in from the ocean, cooling and cleaning the air so we have overcast mornings that give way to bright afternoons, but the temperature doesn't have time to climb.

In the spring and fall, however, the fog retreats out to sea and we have sunshine from morning until night, raising the temperatures to the point where those who have lived here a long time start to complain of the heat. We like to call them "Dangerous UV Ray Days" to hide the fact that we love all that light. Of course, people from Hawaii or the East coast would not call this hot - 75-80 degrees F doesn't qualify as hot to most folks. But we Bay area wimps are used to very even temperatures winter to summer, so we suffer when the thermometer goes above 75.

As it did last week. The pasta dinner I had in mind was jettisoned in favor of something cooler, namely shrimp tacos. This is my new favorite dinner.

I warmed the tortillas (we use a half corn/half flour tortilla that has good flavor), chopped cherry tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, and green onion and put them on a pretty Mexican pottery platter that I got in Arizona when visiting my pals Annie and Jim. All that was left to do was take the frozen shrimp from the freezer (I used peeled and deveined), sauté it in a little butter and Mexican blend seasoning until the water from the shrimp evaporated and the butter caused the spices to stick to the shrimp, pile all that onto the tortillas and pass the Cholula hot sauce. Oh, and I put some creme fraiche on mine but My Beloved doesn't care for crema or creme fraiche or sour cream on his.

You can see the beautiful evening light slanting across those colorful tacos. Just the perfect thing for a hot spring dinner.