"Celebrating freedom with family, food & fun" by: Jessica Shepard

   My siblings came down for the holiday weekend last week.
   Strangely enough, I think this was the only year we haven’t had a homemade fireworks show since I graduated from high school.
   We’re lucky enough to live outside of the city limits and that makes it easier to celebrate our freedom with the three F’s – family, food, and fun.
   Not to mention we go to the Bay City Parks & Recreation Department’s celebration every year.
   But, I really prefer having our own little explosive display at our house so that I’m not fighting for a good place to sit and view the show.
   We were mostly cramped for time this year due to mom having a bit of food poisoning and my brother wanting to leave earlier than usual.
   Still, we managed to get a fair amount of quality family time in before everyone left.
   We even changed things up this year and decided to forgo our traditional ribs or burgers meal plan and opted for steaks and shrimp.
   I have to admit that I don’t really quite remember the last time we had a shrimp boil, but I can guarantee it was probably at our old house in the Baywood subdivision.
   And honestly, I don’t remember it being so much work when it came to peeling and cleaning the little creatures.
   We also ran into a strange phenomenon when it came to the boiling seasonings.
   If it’s strong enough to make you cough, sneeze, and your eyes water, it might be too spicy.
   All I know is that it certainly left our corn on the cob and baby potatoes in a zesty state.
   I’ll have to remember to rinse them later or hope that one bag of seasoning is enough.
   Even after I rinsed the corn, it remained a bit spicier than anyone else likes so I separated it from the cob and am adding it to my future ramen bowls.
   We’ve all agreed that one bag of boiling seasoning should be enough next time and that we’ll definitely need large or extra-large-sized shrimp for mom to shove onto skewers and wrap in bacon.
   The medium size was a bit of a disaster and definitely created more problems than they solved.
   Still, I’m just grateful for the chance to have a majority of the shrimp leftover so I can add it to my ramen bowls, too.
   Don’t forget, I’m all about recycling food and using leftovers as soon as possible – especially with inflation pricing like we’re slogging through now!
   Besides, shrimp has a very limited window of edible-ness before it turns into something extra stinky and gross.
   We’re not even going to touch on the subject of mom’s sensitive nose and stomach that made cooking harder all the way around.
   After all, nothing quite puts a kink in celebrations more than a bout of food poisoning.
   Mom’s still being careful about her meal choices as of Monday afternoon.
   I guess that just leaves me and Mike with the majority of the steak leftovers.
   That means by the end of this week, we’ll be good and tired of steak.
   I’ll probably not want to see one until my birthday rolls around in October.