Jumbo Shrimp

"That's not an animal. It's a mammal."
Cafeteria worker serving shrimp at a public high school.

Cold weather reports. Pictures of ice and snow across the country. Notes about power outages. Shivering at the computer in my office. The sun beating through the window in the typical Mile High way of contradiction.

Winter in America.

It usually leads to travel to somewhere. Somewhere warm. Or, at the least, somewhere warmer.

I'm old enough to remember when the promise of travel to a warm place in the winter was considered a business perk. And, it was perfectly legal. Until recently, I didn't live in the kinds of places where this carrot was held out with much gusto, even when it was included in the annual budget. But, all the bailout talk and false bravado flanked by public outrage about companies who followed through with reward trips for sales-oriented people brought to mind the one time that I was called to indulge in this "travesty."

It was a very long time ago. The fact that I could reconstruct the name of the destination and some of the facts about the place is a complete tribute to the internet.

It was about this time of year. It was 1983. Mark and I had been married for about 15 months, and I was doing a brief stint in the family business. The one that he rejected when he entered law school but couldn't avoid for a couple of years after his dad died.

I didn't ask for the trip. In fact, having the same last name as the President of the company made the fact that I was given the trip a bit embarrassing. It was one of those "National Association of Something-Or-Other" annual conventions. One of those things that took you to an exotic location, held you in windowless conference rooms in the name of "education" during the daylight hours for the equivalent of an entire work day, and micro-managed your meager free time within a nanosecond.

This cruel reality didn't change the fact that we were going. And, that we wanted to go. It was cold in Kansas, I had a respiratory condition that wouldn't let go, and it wasn't going to cost us anything.

I was the registered executive, and my husband was the trailing spouse. The list of activities for the "spouses" had probably been composed by a counsel of wives with husbands who either ruled this event or had worked their way up the leadership queue; and, they had finally earned the right to be "Chairwoman" of something.

As you can probably discern already, being the trailing spouse should have been the better of the deal. But, if you happened to be a husband rather than a wife, you were left with the queasy feeling that you were going to be bused on a daily basis to yet another shopping destination, with no hope of escape. Your alternative would be to sleep, read, or hang out in the open air lobby and wait for the meeting czars to release your wife back into the wild.

We were headed to the Cerromar Beach Hotel, which shared a thousand acres ("verdant," according to the travel brochures) with the Dorado Beach Hotel. It was about 22 miles west from San Juan on Puerto Rico's Atlantic coast. This complex was later purchased by Hyatt; the internet informed me that the Cerromar is now out of operation. Apparently, it continued to operate itself into the ground and into disgrace, which is disappointing to learn. But, at the time we were there, it ran almost exclusively on business conference bookings. Not surprisingly, the majority of that business also came from the United States. And, coincidentally, it came to this location when their rates were highest. Makes sense. Charge the highest rates when your services will be most in demand.

The Dorado Beach was actually the older of the two hotels. It was also smaller, about 300 rooms in scattered two- and three-story buildings, more expensive, and more exclusive. The Cerromar Beach had opened about 14 years later, in 1972, with 500 rooms in a seven-story, double Y-shaped building. The Cerromar had the convention facilities.

We flew from Wichita to Miami and switched planes to San Juan. I thought we would never get there. But, after we arrived, I realized that our journey was far from over. What would have been a 30-minute drive at most in the States seemed to take hours through the Puerto Rico countryside. Past filth, poverty, smoking grass fields, and the blank stares of the locals as yet another luxury tour bus made its way past them to a destination they could not afford. We had picked up a few hours in time zone changes, but it was still light when we finally reached the Cerromar.

We checked in, I got my credentials, and we made our way to a room that fit the Caribbean atmosphere. Tile floors, white linens, shuttered sliding doors, the smell of the ocean, and a modest view of it. We were on what was called the "Modified American Plan." At that time, it meant that we could eat everything we could hold from breakfast and lunch buffets. Some of the dinner time was planned, but we could also use any of the restaurants and get a partial dinner credit on our bill.

My primary impression of the Cerromar Beach was formed the next morning over breakfast. The hotel's outdoor Swan Cafe drove the food delivery of this self-contained resort and clearly operated on the principle that more was more. An endless line of tables were laden with half a dozen varieties of juice, a dozen varieties of fruit, hot and cold cereals, pancakes, scrambled eggs, fish, bacon, sausage, ham, yogurt, dozens of breadstuffs (rolls, pastries, bagels, croissants) and cheeses. In addition to the billions of calories on display, there was a menu from which to order anything from a steak to eggs Benedict or waffles. Ironically, a posted sign read ''Do not feed the birds.'' It probably would not have occurred to me to share a cherry Danish with the bold black birds. I tried to resist the idea.

The premises of the Cerromar and the Dorado seemed to contain more sports facilities than a guest could use in a week. Guests at one hotel had access to facilities at the other. Four Robert Trent Jones golf courses (the two at the Dorado Beach were considered among the finest he designed); 21 all-weather tennis courts, bicycling on a meandering two-mile path between the hotels, snorkeling, pool volleyball, Ping-Pong, and the health club.

It wasn't the kind of place for people who wanted a small hotel on a distant island. But, it was remote. We could see a vast panorama of nothingness except for the bluest blue skies and the blue-turquoise-green ribbons of Atlantic Ocean. And the yellowish glare of unobstructed sunshine over the grounds.

The pool was the biggest rectangle I had ever seen, just ahead of a crescent-shaped beach with water in the 90 degree F. range. Tea was served free in the lobby of the Cerromar in the afternoon. But, I didn't get to participate in much of these amenities until my "education" had been completed.

On the other hand, Mark was free to do anything he wanted, so long as he did it alone. He passed on the daily shopping jaunts back into San Juan and waited until the men at the conference were free for golf. Which didn't happen until the last day. But, it did happen; and he could later say he played a Robert Trent Jones course in Puerto Rico.

Our last night at the Cerromar, we skipped the "schedule" where we were supposed to go to a conference dinner and schmooze. We ate at one of the Cerromar restaurants -- I think it was named something like "Costa de Oro." Which would translate to something like "Gold Coast." So, that would fit.

As I usually did whenever we ate anywhere in the world, I turned my entire menu attention to the seafood choices. As he usually did whenever we ate anywhere in the world, Mark turned his entire menu attention to the beef choices. I gave him the "when in Rome" speech, but he would not be moved. He had already consumed enough fruit and seafood that week to last what he thought most certainly represented a lifetime, and he was ready for meat and starch. On the other hand, I had almost made myself sick on the sweetest pineapple I had ever eaten - before or since (and, that includes Hawaii) - but I was ready for more.

I ordered the prawns and a couple of other sides and ensured that more pineapple and strawberries would be coming my way. He ordered filet mignon with a baked potato and choked down a salad to avoid my scolding about no vegetables on his entree.

When the entree plates arrived, I thought I was really in trouble. We hadn't spent much of our own money on the trip, and I knew that we had a dinner credit to apply. But, it seemed that our waiter had mistaken my request for prawns with lobster. Not only that, they had steamed more than one. LOBSTER(S). As I gazed upon the offering of beautiful white seafood on my plate, I was just horrified to think what it was going to cost us.

Looking back on it, it's hard to imagine that I was ever so naive in the culinary department. I've made significant progress since then. I looked pitifully up at the waiter and meekly remarked that I had ordered the prawns.

He replied in a gentle voice and, I thought, a hint of amusement toward his stupid Modified American Plan patron, "....missy, those ARE the prawns!"

Well, they completely filled the plate. All three of them. Perfectly steamed, they had been splayed open and left in the shell. And, the three of them together looked like a bucket of lobsters to me.

It wasn't my world. But, I was welcome to it. Likely, the most delicious prawns -- shrimp -- I would ever eat.

That has proved to be true. And, I don't expect to be going back to a place like that any time soon. Something to do with Government Efficiency, an oxymoron like Cruel Kindness and Jumbo Shrimp.