Home again, home again, jiggety jig! We’re back from a fantastic family vacation and easing slowly (painfully….) back into real life. Where is my ocean view? Where is my room service? Where is my 24-hour taco bar? Not here, alas. This is not the manner to which I’ve become accustomed.

Our family took a week-long cruise along the coast of Baja California, a trip that was originally intended to be a once-in-a-lifetime graduation gift for my husband. There have been some technical difficulties with the thesis project so it’s not *actually* graduation time yet, and we had such a wonderful time that we booked again for next year’s Caribbean version of the same cruise. I guess that means we went on a first-of-several graduation incentive trip. Either way, it was completely fantastic: a lovely and luxurious week on a boat with 1600 nerds, geeks, and creative people of all sorts, the annual JoCo Cruise. If these are your people, you really need to be there.

While I can’t do anything about the snowstorm that smacked us upside the head shortly after we got back, I did feel it was within my power to address our sad lack of a taco bar. We invited friends over (not gonna lie, we’re trying really hard to get them on the cruise with us next year!), cracked open the extremely excellent tequila we carried back from Cabo San Lucas, and did our best version of the Lido Deck Taco Experience.

Not the actual band, but you get the idea.

This recipe comes from Mark Bittman’s Best Recipes in theWorld, where it’s called Garlic Shrimp, Yucatan Style. He says that he originally had it near the Gulf of Mexico at a place with mariachi and an outdoor shower. Since shrimp is easier for me to find right now than lobster, this is my homage to the excellent lobster tacos I had in Cabo, at a place with mariachi singing Jimmy Buffett and 2-for-1 margaritas and a breeze off the water balancing out more sunshine than I’m used to lately. I fully expect we’ll do this again on the deck this summer with cold Mexican beer and mariachi on the radio. Bittman claims this feeds 4 people but we could have tripled this recipe and still been fighting over the last of it; scale up as you see fit. 

I Wish I Was in Cabo Garlic Shrimp

¼ cup olive oil
10 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper
1 pound shrimp, peeled
Sliced tomatoes, for garnish
Chopped cilantro, for garnish

Put the oil in a skillet large enough to hold the shrimp and turn the heat to medium. Add the garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the garlic turns brown and crisp. This will take about 10 minutes – don’t rush it or the garlic will burn and you’ll be sad. Sprinkle with salt and remove from the pan with a slotted spoon.

Raise the heat to high and add the shrimp, along with a little more salt and some pepper. Cook, turning once or twice, until the shrimp is pink and firm, about 5 minutes. Put the shrimp and oil on a platter, garnish with the garlic, tomatoes, and cilantro, and serve with lots of white rice.