best shrimp burgers ever

photo: jetheriot

I must admit -- I didn’t make them from scratch. I bought them already made. All I had to do was cook them. But this isn’t a story about a recipe for shrimp burgers anyway. It’s a story about the value of doing only one thing at a time.

First I unwrapped the raw shrimp burgers and put them on a plate. Then I pulled out an iron skillet, added a little pecan oil and set the fire to medium-high. My impulse was to put some music on, to entertain me while I cooked, but when I thought about what to play, and where to play it -- on the computer? on the phone? on the stereo? -- I realized it might take me as long to put some music on as it would take me to cook the shrimp burgers, so I decided instead to just cook the shrimp burgers in silence, to devote myself entirely to the shrimp burgers. When the oil was exactly hot, I laid the patties in the sizzling skillet, scooting them around a little to prevent them from sticking.

There are times when multi-tasking is helpful, and I’ll be the first to admit that multi-tasking is often necessary, but that doesn’t mean you always have to be in multi-tasking mode. In fact, I think learning how to recognize when you’re multi-tasking and you don't need to be is a skill well worth practicing.

I pressed the flat edge of a wooden spatula against the perimeter of the burgers to form the spicy shrimp meat into compact and concise patties.

Have you ever felt an urge to fill a quiet room with music, television, noise, something, anything to drown out the silence? Have you ever felt an urge to drive and check your email simultaneously? Have you ever felt an urge to complete a crossword during breakfast? Have you ever felt an urge to send a tweet while standing at a urinal? We’ve become so used to multi-tasking that we’re always in that mode, even when we don’t need to be. We do it out of habit.

Why not? What’s wrong with perpetually multi-tasking? For starters, it can be dangerous. I used to like to sing while shaving, but after nicking the pointy corners of my head enough times I decided to just focus on shaving, period. When you’re chopping an onion, and you’re doing anything else besides chopping an onion -- thinking about all the work you have to get done later, for example -- that’s when you chop off a fingertip. When you're walking down stairs, and you're talking on the phone, that's when you fall and break a leg. When you're peeing and texting, that's when you drop your phone in the toilet. Just because you multi-task sometimes doesn't mean you have to multi-task all the time.

And for all the benefits of multi-tasking, there is always this trade-off you make. You sacrifice depth of experience for the shallowness of many experiences. If multi-tasking has become such a constant feature of our lives, shouldn't we take advantage of the moments when we're able to do only one thing at a time? Shouldn't we learn to embrace those rare opportunities for uni-tasking? There’s a richness in these moments. Yoga's great. So is meditation. But even something as mundane as cooking a shrimp burger can be an opportunity for peacefulness. You don't have to buy a meditation cushion or a yoga membership to tune in to the world around you. You just have to stop and notice it.

When the lower half of the patties had turned from gray to pink, I flipped them over carefully, scooting them around a little to prevent them from sticking to the skillet. Then I washed my hands under warm water, mixing the basil-scented hand soap with the spices still sticking to my fingers, the curry powder blurring into yellow suds before disappearing down the dish drain.

Then I checked the shrimp burgers -- they were done -- and I ate them while watching TV.