I started thinking about them at the Dekalb Farmer's Market when I took Gavin on our usual loop through the seafood department to look at all the fish and ice (he's equally fascinated by both). Encased in ice chips, squid tubes glimmered like slimy pearl sculptures and I was reminded of the house mother on my study abroad trip to Spain in college, who one day showed me how to take a squid tube and slice, dredge through flour, and fry it into calamari. The steps had seemed astonishingly simple.
"I couldn't deal with the tube," my mom said now from the other end of my cell phone, as I described the cooking process, and I had to admit it seemed a little gross.
"I'll take one pound of the pre-cut stuff," I told the vender. I left the facility proudly, assuming I had just paved the way for a quick-yet-refined dinner free of complications. (I didn't even have to cut the tube!)
I'm still wondering what went wrong.
Maybe I should have taken my first oopsie as a warning. Before beginning my gourmet dinner project, I decided to refill our olive oil dispenser from the larger container, a heavy, barrel-like canister with an awkward opening. Although I attempted this over the sink, I still managed to pour oil all down the side of the dispenser and my shirt.
Nonplussed, I forged ahead, distracting Gavin with various kitchen appliances, toys, and eventually Nemo, while I powdered squid rings with a flour and spice mixture I'd blended earlier. This proved to be more time consuming than I'd anticipated; I hadn't counted on the tedious nature of tending to an entire pound of squid rings (my house mother had only fried up a few).
I had just heated the oil in a sautee pan and submerged several rings when Gavin ran out of his I-can-be-entertained-by-things-that-aren't-Mom steam, so I did what I normally do in that scenario: stood perpendicular to the stove with Gavin held away on one hip, working one-handed. If all went to plan, I would really only need one hand to direct the tongs and transport calamari from plate to pan to new plate. And, flashing back to haunting memories of watching TV shows like Rescue 911 where children got showered with pans of scalding oil left carelessly on stovetops, my primary awareness was on Gavin's location in proximity to the oil in order to keep him away from it. So it all still seemed possible. And calamari fries up in a handful of minutes so even though the cooking process now included protecting a toddler I held out hope that things would go smoothly.
Except that the squid rings were sticking together. And the oil started spitting and the spitting turned into lightly erupting as I held Gavin away and waved the tongs in defense. I lowered the heat slightly and stood as far away as I could, with Gavin almost behind me, and stubbornly continued.
"Bub-ble!" Gavin exclaimed over and over, trying to point around me at the quivering sautee pan that looked ready to blast off like a shuttle into space.
"Stay behind me, honey. These are dangerous bubbles." At this point, I was sweating and still had half the batch left to fry. I was so distracted I failed to notice the plastic garlic powder container which was off to the side, but not far enough away from the heat to avoid withering like a raisin while I toiled away over the volcanic oil, selecting squid rings one by one and gently, then insistently, shaking them free of their peers, releasing them into their bubble bath, simultaneously keeping Gavin at bay.
When I finally rescued the last calamari, I sighed in relief. Anyone able to witness the scene from afar would have beheld an obviously sweating, wild-eyed mom with an oil stain on her shirt the size of a Caribbean island, holding her curious toddler before a plate of fried calamari ranging from wet-noodle soggy to crisp, with oil puddled over her stove top and surrounding floor, various nests of crumpled, oil-soaked paper towels, and a warped garlic powder container off to the side.
It was like I was on the warpath...except I wasn't angry or hostile.
And it wasn't over. Less than one minute after Jon stepped in from work and whisked Gavin into a hug I poured too much liquid into the food processor; we watched as a would-be soup mixture flowed freely from the food processor's confines and all over the counter, our mail, and phone chargers.
"Didn't you see this?" Jon pointed to a faint line etched in the side of the food processor, after he'd rushed the heavy device to the sink. "The limit mark?"
"I see it now," I said sullenly. We stared at each other, then burst out laughing.
"I'm firing myself," I announced wearily, retreating to the living room with Gavin while Jon, without my asking, cleaned up the disaster I'd left in my wake. Other than posing a handful of gently-phrased but unhelpful questions like, "Why didn't you use a bigger pot?" and "Did you melt the garlic powder?", my wonderful husband did not act perturbed about having been thrown into disaster relief mode upon entering the house, which I will always remember and be grateful for.
However, I think I'll be taking it easy on the culinary front for awhile. Peanut butter sandwich, anyone?
We get those squid tubes semi-regularly. They're actually great grilled, I make a little marinade of soy/sesame oil/scallions. They'll curl up unless you score them some fancy Japanese way. Go try the grilled squid at Nakato to see what I mean. Too much hassle for me, so we just eat 'em curled. Grill on some aluminum foil and save the juice for a sauce over rice. They don't take long, will get rubbery if you overdo 'em. But this way is a lot quicker/easier than breading and frying, methinks.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bret, that marinade sounds delicious. I might have to try it your way when my calamari-making hiatus is up.
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