Artichoke & Shrimp Casserole

Yesterday I had jury duty. Well, actually yesterday and today I had jury duty, which had me quite a bit miffed because I wasn't on a jury and yet I had to come back. It's the secret loophole in the one day-one service thing, I guess. At least in LA, it turns out that if you are called for a panel at the end of the day and they send you into a jury room where they start the juror selection process but don't finish it, they make everyone come back the next day--even those of you who have yet to be called up to be interviewed in the jury box.

This, I think, is bullshit. Why isn't it If you're in the jury box then you come back and everyone else lucked out? It's not like they can't get another panel from the next batch of beleaguered jury duty-ites the next morning should they need more.

Also bullshit is the fact that there were an unbelievable amount of morons there. I mean really, truly stunning morons. At first it seemed like it was LA and therefore there were actually an uncommonly high proportion of normal-seeming people (to you I bet this sentence is crazy. To me, as someone who loves it here, it makes perfect sense).

I thought, 'All right, LA, nice going.' Then the weirdos started cropping up. The guy who had the flat, hangdog affect and Aspbergers-esque speech like a mind-bendingly real-life version of Kevin from The Office. The girl who was dressed in stretchy acid washed jeans and bright makeup and a side ponytail like a reject from Square Pegs 20 years after the fact. It was a struggle to keep my mouth from hanging open while I stared at them in shock. As my friend Andrea would say, I was falling in love.

And then the people on my panel. Oh my panel. Listening to their pathetic attempts to get out of being selected while the no-bullshit judge (she was pretty cool) was like, 'Yes, that's great. Are you capable of separating your personal bad experience 30 years ago that has nothing to do with this case from these other people now? Yes? Good. Next.'

Most of them actually seemed more excited to be talking about themselves than anything else and would just ramble about fascinating things like how they live in dorms and love their families. It was excruciating. One guy said he didn't have any problems with any of the jury questions they gave us, and 'maybe the judge could help him with that (??)' One woman claimed she didn't understand English--in perfect English. And there was one guy, some big, stupid, smug, fat blowhard shithead who was so annoying I realized if I got put on the jury my main challenge would be to not punch him in the face.

Oh, and did I mention the lawyers? The shitty, low-rent, weaselly, sycophantic, and not-very-good-at-their job lawyers?

As you can see, I had a lot of feelings about all of this by the time I got home yesterday. So I set about making Josh and me an Artichoke & Shrimp Casserole while I bitched enthusiastically about my day and Josh set about trying to listen sympathetically enough to not make me bitch more.

Artichoke & Shrimp Casserole is from the Mertzes, contributors of the surprisingly decent Mixed Salad with Feta & Golden Raisins. Carol Mertz claims that Adlai Stevenson served it to JFK and Secretary General U Thant. A little search of Wikipedia tells me that Stevenson (who I have heard of) was the US ambassador to the UN and Thant (who I have not heard of) was secretary general of the UN. A further search of Carol's recipe says that Thant wanted the recipe and Kennedy "thought it delicious." I say that the image of JFK wearing a frilly apron going, 'Do you think I used too much paprika? Oh, I hope U eats shellfish!' can improve just about anyone's mood.

Did you think you were going to be getting a civics lesson AND a history lesson today? No, you did not.

It seems bitching while I cook only enhances my skill because if nothing else this recipe turned out pretty smart looking. It was easy to make AND provided the opportunity to use my new casserole dish--which weirdly looks like a pan, but whatever, Crate & Barrel called it a casserole dish--that Andy got me for my birthday. That was pretty swanky.

Josh completely lost his shit when it came time to have dinner. He inhaled the casserole, stopping only to yell, 'This is wonderful! Wonderful!! I don't care who gave you the recipe or where it is from! It is wonderful!!' before all but rolling naked in the dregs of the sauce. I'm sure his enthusiasm was aided in part by the fact that he'd quickly downed nearly all of his 'momo,' a mojito-like concoction that he'd made himself to likely make my bitching go down more easily. But nonetheless, he loved this thing.

Which is good for him, because as an artichoke-disliker, I will probably not be making it again. It was fine, but mostly I just picked the shrimp and mushrooms out from around the artichoke and soupy sauce. Not sure what all the fuss was about. At least there's another serving for him to have as leftovers.

You can even tell how much Josh loved the casserole by this
near-erotic picture he took. Food porn indeed.

Carol Mertz's Swinging '60s Artichoke & Shrimp Casserole

1 can of artichoke hearts
3/4 lb med cooked shelled shrimp (or 3 breasts of cooked chicken, cubed)
1/2 lb mushrooms sauteed in butter
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Cream Sauce:
1 1/2 cups milk
4 tbsp butter and flour
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup good sherry

Cook shrimp or chicken. Or buy it already cooked, in which case just shell the tails. And then notice that even though it was already cooked and mostly shelled the end bit of the shrimp intestine needs to be removed on some of them. O, to be born a New Englander--where you know that if you just pull off the shellfish shit, you can rinse said shellfish and eat it--good as new. Gonna call me fussy today?

Saute mushrooms. Realize after you have used olive oil that you were supposed to use butter. Call it a draw.

Quarter artichoke hearts, all the while thinking, 'You know, I'm not going to like these.'

Assemble all these ingredients in casserole dish, while yelling about the crazy juror who announced to anyone who could hear that she was not going to be spending her vacation in jury duty, nuh-uh, no way, and by the way do you watch QVC?

Cream sauce:
Warm milk. Worry that you will boil it.

Make a roux of butter and flour. Wonder what a 'roux' is. Melt butter in microwave and mix with flour, at which point you determine that a roux must be a sludge of equal parts butter & flour. Let thicken, stirring constantly. Pour in warmed milk, slowing whisking until the cream sauce is smooth and cooked on medium flame for 2 minutes.

Slowly add Worcestershire sauce--whisking. Then add sherry--ignoring the fact that you should use 'good' sherry and just using 'whatever sherry you have in the house'--whisking until well combined.

Pour over ingredients in casserole and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Dust with paprika.

Oven 375. Bake for 20 minutes. Drink beer Josh got you while you wonder about the guy who, when Shitty Lawyer #1 asked the jury if they knew the percentage of mail that gets delivered correctly, excitedly volunteered, 'Two days!' Ask Josh to get parsley out of garden. Sprinkle chopped parsley to serve.