Cooking on the River

This weekend I went kayaking on the Kings River with some friends. It was a last minute decision, so I was rushing around Saturday morning to get my gear ready. There was no time to go shopping for food to take on the trip. I opened the fridge door and riffled through the contents, hmmmm... Pickles. I bagged up some dill spears in a ziplock. After I decided that I couldn't last the day on pickles and beer, I went through the freezer. As the light shone from the freezer it haloed and danced off a shiny object, much like I would imagine the Holy Grail should look. There it was laying in the deep freeze so conveniently wrapped in foil and bagged in plastic. Leftover beef ribs, already cooked. I threw them in the cooler. WAIT! But what else should be laying next to the ribs? Frozen shrimp. I made a quick marinade with olive oil, soy, rice wine vinegar, salt & pepper, and coarse chopped garlic, oh and a little fresh chopped parsley since I had it on hand. The thought was that they would de-thaw by the time we got there. I grabbed some skewers and threw it all into the cooler.

We got there a little late, mostly because of me. But we had a good time once we got rollin'. We stopped about halfway and built a fire. Everyone gathered 'round and poked their hot dogs with sticks and stuck them into the ground. But once I started skewering shimp, everyone was eyeballing me like I was doing something very wrong. I skewered them and stuck the skewers in the ground next to the fire turning them every couple of minutes. Meanwhile I had thrown the whole damn aluminum rib packet into the fire, down into the coals. After it was done I served up ribs, shrimp and pickles to many agreements that this was the best food they had ever eaten on the river.