D’Angelo wakes up, walks into the kitchen, notices the mac and cheese on the stove top and declares, “Yes, I love this. I should wake up every morning and the food should be ready.”
I give him  the  ‘slavery has been abolished a long time ago’ stare.
He grabs a fork in hand and taste test the Penne rigate in the roasted butternut squash cheese sauce.
“Can you share my food please mom.”
At this point, I just wanna give him two box(slap)
“Like do you have any idea how long I’ve been standing in the kitchen while everybody slept. I’ve been in here since 6:30 this morning. What makes you think that you are hungrier than I am? Matter of fact I’m not finished with the shrimp yet, so you gonna have to wait.”

Such dialogs occur on a daily basis between my son, D’Angelo and I. He hates doing the dishes but he loves to eat. Once his belly is full, he takes off and I’m on my own again. Gone are the days when he was a momma’s boy. He is self sufficient and whenever he’s in his mood, he may whip up one of his specials dishes every now and then; even though he prefers his mom’s cooking.

Lord knows we eat a lot of shrimp in this household. It’s quick, simple and tasty. I may even love shrimp as much as I love my earth foods. Ain’t no such thing as too much garlic on shrimp either. I love garlic. It’s a natural antibiotic and it’s d’luscious! I love garlic so much, I even make my own garlic oil. Roasted garlic is like candy to me. Shrimp and Garlic has to be one of the best culinary marriages ever! Garlicky shrimp and pasta is pure unadulterated joy. Not having both in my system may cause an imbalance or a minor shift in my equilibrium.

With shrimp already on the menu, I had to decipher how I would authenticate the recipe. I wasn’t in the mood for curry shrimp, scampi or alfredo. I was yearning for fried shrimp. To be honest, I’ve been enjoying fried shrimp much more than I really should. Tempura batter has become quite popular in my kitchen these days. I think it’s that crunch on the outside and that juiciness on the inside. So I made the batter and dipped these bad boys in.
All of a sudden, everybody in the house sort of made their way to the kitchen; not to meet and greet, but to steal my shrimp, my labor of love. Where food is concerned, y’all don’t wanna see me in ‘guard mode’ because I guard my food for dear life; and if they happen to get around me and snatch one of my shrimp, I will count that as one less shrimp from their serving. After frying the shrimp, I had to take it through another step just to bless  it with all the garlicky love.

I couldn’t even cook this meal in peace. They were just rushing the pot. Like how do you rush the pot? Am I supposed to communicate with the stove and tell it to hurry up and cook? Needless to say, after they were served, they were back into the kitchen for seconds and thirds, talking bout “this some good shrimp!”. Thank God I had made a buffet size platter. They were all shrimped out.