Fresh seafood has long been a weakness of mine. For a real treat while I was growing up, my parents would take me to a local seafood restaurant, where the scallops were my favorite dish. So buttery. So perfect. So fortunate that they weren’t from the nearest body of water.

I just can’t resist good seafood, particularly high quality crab cakes. Same with smoked salmon appetizers, toothsome Korean fish cakes, New England lobster rolls, briny raw oysters, spider rolls at sushi restaurants — you get the idea.

So when Martha Stewart Living had a close-up of mafaldine pasta with shrimp and lemon in the magazine, there was no question about making it. What looked incredibly easy, as is often the case with glossy magazine recipes, turned out to be slightly more difficult. Especially a few glasses of wine into the process.