OF BOOKS AND CEPHALOPODS

OF BOOKS AND CEPHALOPODS

Octopi are not the only eight-armed creatures out there. There are books! This weekend was the spring book sale in Ithaca. I don’t usually go to the spring sale because it is smaller than the one in October, but Saturday morning at 4:55 my eyes popped open. It was a warm night. I thought, what excuse have you got? What? I got out of bed, had breakfast and drove downtown to join the line that had begun forming on Friday evening. I was the 115^th person there. Two hours later they let us in. I always go hoping to find that one great unexpected book. There about 200 other people with the same vain hope entering simultaneously. Many of them are book dealers, but many are not. On line we discuss the great finds of the past. Inside everyone is silent, efficient. Into the bag went the books: a 3 volume hardcover edition of Dryden, Berryman’s Dream Songs, the Everyman edition of Rosetti’s poems and translations of Dante and other Italian poets, a pristine hardcover collected Emily Dickenson, A Gaelic Lexicon of Finnegans Wake (a real find; it retails for 45 bucks, and I paid $4.50), a bunch of novels by China Mieville and Colson Whitehead, Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cooking and More Classing Italian Cooking bound in a clean, single volume hardcover (to replace the beautiful, patinated, beat up paperbacks that have filled my kitchen with aromas and friends since the mid-eighties), and Mark Bittman’s book of cooking seafood. I have wanted a fish cookbook for many years now. I hadn’t taken the plunge however until Saturday when there were several choices. Now, I judge a fish cookbook by a single criterion:  does it have a recipe for octopus? Bittman’s had several. Boom, sold, for $4.50. It was the first of my considerable catch that I sat down to read, because friends were coming to dinner. Saturday was about perfect. It was Hawaii in the Finger Lakes! 78 degrees and sunny. M had just finished putting in a stone patio next to our vegetable garden. She had set up a table with an umbrella and chairs. The sour cherry tree was in full bloom, as were the peach and pear trees. I ask you, what could gild this lily? Why, a plate of grilled octopus!

Dinner for 9: bruschetta, bread, smoked sausage, fresh grapes and grilled octopus, with rosé wine. Pollock baked with tomato sauce flavoured with some oregano, a salad, and spaghetti. What could be easier?

Marinated grilled octopus is easy. I used Bittman as a guide but did not follow exactly his recipe. Here’s what you do:

1 thawed Octopus (mine was 2 lbs; I should have bought 2!)

2 bay leaves

Boiling water to cover

Place the whole octopus in a pot of boiling water with salt and bay leaves. (You can put some lemon, peppercorns, onion and garlic in the water too). When it returns to the boil lower the heat, cover, and let it simmer for an hour. If it’s smaller it might be done sooner, if it’s larger it will take longer. It is done when it is easily pierced with a knife. Cut off a little piece and chew it. It should be chewy but not tough, not like an eraser. When the octopus is done remove the gelatinous stuff and some of the purple skin from the tentacles and from where the tentacles meet the body, being careful not to remove meat. Cut into large, grillable pieces (like, the tentacles cut in two, and the head sliced).

The Marinade:

Juice of two or three lemons

¼ cup chopped garlic

a good pinch of rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

½ cup of olive oil

Whisk this together and toss the octopus piece in the marinade. It can marinate on the counter while you prepare the rest of dinner. CAUTION: keep out of reach of dogs. Stir occasionally.

Grilling the Octopus

Heat a grill VERY hot. I used a vegetable/seafood grill plate with small holes so it would not fall through the grate. When the grill is blazing hot, toss on the octopus pieces. A great fire will consume them briefly as the olive oil ignites. After a few minutes, when the pieces have charred slightly, turn them and baste with the marinade. Another great conflagration will ensue. Be brave and patient! After the fires have died back, turn and baste until the pieces are nicely charred, not blackened, but with a brown crust and slightly black edges. You know, perfect. Plate and serve with bread, smoked sausages and bruschetta. Get out the rosé, close your eyes and pretend you are in Greece, or Portugal. Or Hawaii!