January, San Francisco 70, New York -2

It is finally, graciously and mercifully, January 2009. The country is still going to hell, just a little faster now. The snowball has gained mass and speed, and our friends, Bank of America, just received $20B to help out their crappy investment/purchase of Merril Lynch (should be called Merril Loss). Oh, how, you old crusty banks like Lehman got so stupid. We trusted you to do the right thing and your greed took over and now we are bailing you out. We the taxpayers, while your CEO's are still taking bonuses. Shame on you.

That and a US Airways plane landed in the Hudson yesterday. That was pretty spectacular and fortunately no one was injured. The plane was assaulted by a flock of birds that were caught in both engines. There were 155 people aboard that plane and the pilot is being lauded a hero, which is well deserved, he handled the crash amazingly well.

That and Andrew Wyeth died. Forgive me, but I thought he was already dead.

Ready for a recipe? I have been experimenting a bit with phyllo dough, which is ridiculously easy to work with. Over Christmas I made Dover sole with greens wrapped in phyllo and baked. It was good. Last night, came this:

Phyllo Shrimp Bundles
1lb. peeled and devained shrimp, tails removed
6 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped fine
4 T. butter
2 T. fresh ginger, chopped
2 T. sesame oil
4 T. olive oil
1 t. fish sauce
3 T. rice vinegar
1 T. soy sauce
a pinch of oregano crushed just before adding
6 sheets of phyllo, cut lengthwise in thirds, then layered in twos

Make sure to take the phyllo out of the freezer at least 5 hours before using, but don't unwrap it until ready to fill.

Saute the shrimp in 2 T. of butter and 2 T. of olive oil until just done. Set aside to cool.
Saute the garlic and ginger in the remaining butter and olive oil, adding the sesame oil as well, until semi-soft.
Add the fish sauce, the oregano and the rice vinegar, let simmer and steep until the aroma is pungent.
Chop the shrimp and add it to the garlic mixture with the green onions.
Saute for one minute then remove from the heat. Transfter the mix to a bowl
Unwrap six sheets of phyllo
Cut them lengthwise in thirds
Separate out the strips to two layers
Working from right to left, brush melted butter along the right edge of the phyllo
Place a liberal teaspoon of the shrimp mix on the right edge and fold up the bottom corner of the phyllo into a triangle.
Reapeat the triangle folding twice more using melted butter to seal.
Cut the phyllo and make another triangle
You should get two bundles per strip of phyllo so 12 bundles in all.

Place the bundles on a greased baking sheet
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until golden brown

These turned out pretty good. I used too much fish sauce so mine were salty but I have lessened for this recipe. I am going to try veggies next, will let you know.

Since it is 70 degrees today, it is time to go outside..