Shrimp Scampi

Start with the shrimp. This is everything. Find a fishmonger you trust, someone who can tell you where the shrimp came from and when they arrived. Wild-caught Gulf shrimp, when you can get them, have a sweetness and snap that farmed shrimp simply cannot match. The shells should smell like the sea, clean and briny, never ammonia.

Scampi is a dish that asks almost nothing of you except good ingredients and restraint. Butter. Garlic. A splash of dry white wine. Lemon. Parsley. The shrimp cook in minutes, curling into tight pink crescents that tell you they are done. Overcook them and they turn rubbery. Pay attention. This is a conversation between you and the pan.

I learned to make this in a tiny kitchen in Berkeley, long before anyone called it farm-to-table. We bought shrimp from a man who drove up from the coast twice a week, his coolers packed with ice and whatever the boats had brought in. The dish was always the same: butter, garlic, wine, lemon. The shrimp were always different, and that was the point. You tasted the ocean, not a recipe.