Cooking is all about making mistakes. Sometimes you have to test recipes a few times before you get the desired result. Sometimes you just aren’t thinking straight. Over the weekend, that was me.

It has been nice and warm here in Atlanta lately — time to start firing up the grill. Eric and I were in the mood for coconut shrimp so I figured, hey, how hard could it be? I’ve made them before in the oven with great success so I just followed the same recipe.

Welp, I didn’t think about how coating shrimp in flake coconut might not be the best idea on the grill. About 30 seconds after I put the skewers on the grill, most of the coconut had fallen off the shrimp and was beginning to catch on fire. Not good. Luckily, I was able to control the flames and still salvage the shrimp. They were tasty, just not coconutty — and with a bit of a sweet char.

Next time I want to do coconut shrimp on the grill, I think I will marinade the shrimp in coconut milk for an hour or so before putting them on the grill. I think that will be met with a much higher success rate.

But not everything has been a failure! I have finally figured out the perfect way to cook quinoa — and I have The Kitchn to thank for that. I’ve used this method a few times and every time it results in the perfect, fluffy batch of quinoa. Quinoa is so much better when cooked properly, by the way.

I still owe you a recap of our eating adventures in Charleston. Spoiler alert: everything was amazing. We are heading to Las Vegas tomorrow for our anniversary trip — where we will also be eating quite a bit — so I will have a combined eating recap when we return.