Shrimp ’N’ Noodle Bowls

Week two hundred. I have written two hundred of these, baby. Two hundred weeks of standing in my kitchen and telling you what I cooked and what happened and what I thought about while I stirred. Two hundred weeks of grief and joy and tomatoes and hot sauce and funerals and birthdays and shrimp and grits. If you stacked all two hundred blog posts on top of each other, they'd be taller than me, and I am not a short woman.

I want to mark this. Not with a grand gesture — that's not my way — but with a truth. The truth is this: I almost stopped. After Earl died, I almost stopped writing. I almost stopped cooking. I almost stopped everything. For three months, the kitchen was dark and the blog was silent and I ate crackers and canned soup and I thought: maybe this is it. Maybe the cooking was for him and without him there's no reason to stand at the stove.

But Kayla came. Kayla came with shrimp and grits and the words "Teach me your way." And I put on the apron and I lit the burner and I cooked, and the cooking brought me back, the way it always has, the way it brought me back after Michael and after Mama and after every loss that tried to close this kitchen door.

Two hundred weeks. I am sixty-four years old. I have buried a brother, a son, and a husband. I have fed tens of thousands of children. I have loved one man for forty-three years and I will love him for the rest of however many years I have left. I have cooked approximately 1,400 meals since this blog began, and each one was an act of faith — faith that the food matters, that the stories matter, that an old woman with an iPad and one functioning finger has something worth saying.

She does. She does have something worth saying. And here it is:

Feed somebody. That's the whole thing. Feed somebody and love them while you do it and don't stop until you can't anymore. That's Hattie Pearl's lesson and Pearl's lesson and mine. Feed somebody.

Now go on and feed somebody.

The night Kayla came with that pot and said “Teach me your way,” I didn’t go straight to shrimp and grits — I went to this bowl, because it was what I had and because a bowl of broth and shrimp and soft noodles is exactly what you make when you need to remind yourself that cooking is still worth doing. It’s humble and it’s warm and it comes together faster than grief has any right to know about. Two hundred weeks in, this is still the one I reach for when somebody needs feeding and I need to remember why I’m standing at that stove.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 oz rice noodles or thin egg noodles
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 cups baby spinach or bok choy, roughly chopped
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 lime, cut into wedges
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

Cook the noodles. Prepare rice or egg noodles according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
Build the broth. Heat vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for 1 minute until fragrant. Pour in chicken broth and water, then stir in soy sauce and red pepper flakes if using. Bring to a gentle simmer.
Cook the shrimp. Add shrimp to the simmering broth and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, just until pink and curled. Do not overcook — the shrimp should be just done.
Wilt the greens. Stir in spinach or bok choy and let it wilt for 1 to 2 minutes. Taste the broth and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.
Assemble the bowls. Divide noodles among four bowls. Ladle broth and shrimp over the top. Drizzle each bowl with a little sesame oil, then finish with sliced green onions and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Nutrition (per serving)

Shrimp &rsquo;N&rsquo; Noodle Bowls — The Dish That Brings You Back