The internet may well be ruthlessly fragmenting society, pushing our interests into narrow RSS-feed-delimited boxes. But here on Washington Island it did serve to bring two people together. Faithful commenter S. turned up the other day from Chicago, after cyberstalking me all summer, and invited me over for dinner at her fab chalet-moderne house overlooking a thick field of island oats.

It was like the best kind of brilliantly awkward, innapropriately drunken, chaperoned blind date. She plied me and my house guest with wine and shots of raspberry eau de vie, and we stuffed ourselves silly on pasta riddled with shrimp and chicken sausage, with a side of greens imported straight from her Angelic Organics box in the city. As I told her (I think three or four times), knowing that someone with island cred was reading the blog has been a lifeline this summer. Without an identifiable audience all writing is like spitting into the void; blogging just makes it worse, promising instant gratification and then most often failing to deliver. So, thanks S.!

About the wedding–the social event of the summer–the less said the better. The unexplained bruises are fading, the scabs peeling off, and the cramped muscles from the dancing on the chairs with the underage Russian dishwashers are slowly, slowly unknotting.

Ten more days and I’m home.

Pasta a la S.

One box Creamettes shells
One bag frozen Trader Joe’s shrimp
Two (three?) links organic chicken chorizo
Couple tomatoes
garlic
red pepper flakes
olive oil
white wine

Boil pasta. Saute garlic and pepper in olive oil. Add chopped tomatoes and splash of white wine. Toss in shrimp and sliced chorizo. Simmer till pasta is done. Toss and serve.