Better Now

When greeting dear friends, they often ask how I am and I often reply, "Better now." Friends make everything better.
Even disappointing shrimp and grits.

My friend Wenirs and I chatted by phone over the weekend and laughed together over all the grits recipes I've been posting. You may get the impression that Wenirs is not a Southern cooking fan when I tell you that she opened the conversation by demanding, "When are you gonna get off of the grits?!" I laughed out loud. That's okay, she just hasn't tasted the cheesy grits yet; I know she'll be a convert.

As we chuckled and chatted, I was devising in my mind a 'fix' for the too-rich shrimp and grits leftovers. I couldn't bear to throw them away since they contained fully a half pound of shrimp, but I also couldn't face eating them in their super-rich state. I added another can of chopped tomatoes, a big squeeze of lemon juice plus some additional shrimp stock and served them over nice, chewy brown rice. They weren't perfect and I probably won't make anything quite like this again but they were, as I like to say, better now.