A Bowl Full of Happiness

When I was just a boy I remember looking in the back of a comic book or maybe it was Boy's Life Magazine.  I became very interested in the ad you see below:

I mean, could this be real?  All you have to do is add water and these little creatures come to life right in front of your eyes.  They can be trained.  They like clowning around and doing tricks for you.  Why, they are like little people in a bowl that you keep in your room.  How cool is that?  I scraped up some money to buy some and...  I don't think they lived up to expectations.  I remember being disappointed in my purchase.  I think the ad embellished things a bit.  I don't remember anyone being pleased with their Sea Monkeys, but the marketer sure did well - a buck 25 at a time.

I think the inventor, Harold von Braunhut, made a bunch of money off of this idea.  Many young boys and girls sent their allowance off to Fifth Avenue, NY, NY.  Sea Monkeys came right on the heels of Ant Farms.  I had one of those, too.  I think that Sea Monkeys were more famous, though.  Sea Monkeys actually went into space in 1998 on Space Shuttle Discovery with John Glenn.  Sea Monkeys aren't really monkeys, though.  They are brine shrimp.  These shrimp go into a type of "hibernation" when water evaporates and are reinvigorated when water and other elements are added back.

So, I'd much rather shrimp that you can eat!  I absolutely LOVE shrimp!

A friend gave us a bunch of them fresh from the Gulf of Mexico, and Tricia headed them out and peeled them.  She saved the heads and shells to make a good shrimp stock that we'll use as a base for soups, gumbo, etc.

I butterflied them, removing the "poop string" and readied them for cooking.  The Sea Monkeys ad in the back of the comic book advertised them as 'a bowlful of happiness.  In fact, a bowlful of fresh butterflied shrimp is indeed a "bowlful of happiness!"  And they won't leave you disappointed.

I put them on skewers, sprinkled with fresh lime juice and Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning and lit some charcoal in the BBQ pit.

Shrimp don't take long to cook and I think even though I was being careful, I left these on too long.

These shrimp were still delicious and far more appealing and satisfying than Sea Monkeys!  A bowlful of happiness indeed!