Wanderlust and a refreshing, lusty salad

Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves is a little bit like Eat, Pray, Love but with more sex and less meditation.  Sounds good, right?  The book documents Eaves passion for travel, which starts when she takes a school trip to Europe when she in high school. Her obsession with travel is sparked by a boy she meets on the plane, and throughout "Wanderlust" it is apparent that her desire to travel to new places and keep moving is inextricably linked to her relationship with men and sex, which is also defined by her desire to keep moving and seek out new experiences and partners.  The book is a great combination of relationship confessional and travelogue.  Eaves is undoubtedly a bit irresponsible in the way she treats some of the men in her life, but she owns up to that fact and candidly explores why she treats people the way she does.  My favorite parts of Eat, Pray, Love were the travel parts, and to be honest I suffered through the soul searching.  In Wanderlust, you have all the great explorations of far off lands, with some navel gazing, but I found the Eaves' navel gazing much more interesting and tolerable.  The beautiful salad above has no direct link to the book, but I came upon the recipe when I was searching for something kinda sexy and exotic.  The salad is a great anecdote to some of the heavier eating we are doing these days without giving up any pleasure.  It was easy and so delicious and will definitely become part of my regular rotation.

Wanderlust is a candid account of the time Elisabeth Eaves spent wandering the globe.  I have not read anything by Elisabeth Eaves before and I believe I found out about this book through Vanity Fair.  Eaves is a journalist who who wrote a well known book about her time as an exotic dancer(I will have to order that from Amazon next!).  I bought the book thinking it would be a great escapist read about interesting and exotic places, and it has some of that, but also a lot more about Eaves and her relationships and an exploration of why she makes the choices she makes.  She seems to make random choices both about the places she goes and towards the people in her life.  She starts a relationship of sorts with that boy she met on the plane - the classic sexy wandering traveler type and while she suffers through the end of high school she lives vicariously through his travels.  She spends a summer as an au pair in Spain, has a torrid affair with a local boy.  Her junior year of college instead of heading to Florence or Paris to study art history and drink, she heads to Cairo, a difficult place for a young American woman.  Another summer in college she does an internship at the American embassy in Karachi, Pakistan.  What drives her from place to place does not appear, to me at least, to be a love of the Middle East in particular but more just this desire to experience something on the edge, something unexpected, something new.  In college (in Seattle) she starts a relationship with Stu, after her time in Pakistan she settles down with him in Seattle, which she clearly hates, and they buy a house together.  She seems so obviously trapped and miserable in this domestic situation but lets it continue until, on the eve of their wedding, she splits.  She travels to Australia, settles in a beach bum town, starts another not quiet right relationship, travels to Papua New Guinea and survives hiking through the densest possible jungle.  She goes to New Zealand, she moves to New York, moves to London.  All along the way there are relationships that seem to always end in a fraught manner, Eaves is not careful with other peoples feelings. You would think she would then be an unlikable narrator, but that is not the case.  Her honesty in acknowledging when she acted like a jerk makes her likable.  The book is not really about travel or about Eaves' relationships but her journey to figure out who she is and what she wants.  It is definitely worth your time to take that journey with her.

Grapefruit, Avocado and Shrimp Salad (printable recipe)
Adapted from Tracy Des Jardin Recipe in Food and Wine, found here:http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/shrimp-and-avocado-salad

Ingredients:
1/4 cup raw pepitas/pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 large grapefruit
1 avocado, cut into thin wedges
3/4 pound peeled and cleaned shrimp
1 head Boston lettuce torn into pieces
salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Toast the pumpkin seeds in a 400 degree oven for about 5 minutes till browned.  Let cool.
2. In a large bowl, toss 3 tablespoons of oil with lime juice, shallots and cilantro.
3. Using a very sharp knife, peel the grapefruit, then "supreme" it, by running the knife down the sides of each segment, removing the segment from the pith.  Do this while holding the grapefruit over the bowl with the dressing so the juices are captured.  Let the supremes fall in the big bowl.  Squeeze the remaining grapefruit pith so that the juices fall into the bowl.
4. Gently fold in the avocado and add salt and pepper to taste.
5. In a medium skillet heat the remaining olive oil over medium heat.  Add the shrimp and cook till pink and curled, about 3 - 5 minutes total (I used frozen shrimp and it took about 3 minutes longer than this).
6. Arrange lettuce on a plate, spoon the grapefruit mixture over, add some shrimp on top, spoon more of the dressing on top of that.