Really, really good.

It was also very good for anyone’s budget, regardless of how small: The squid was $6.95 per pound, and I brought home enough for both of us for $6.

We couldn’t decide whether the seafood or the vegetable part of this meal was more delicious; they both were pretty awesome, so we called it a draw.

We enjoy squid regardless of how it’s prepared. This time I decided to work it on top of the stove, mostly because I didn’t want a hot oven to add to the discomfort of a warm, humid evening, even if it would be on for only a few minutes.

 

The accompaniment to the cephalopods became something of a salmagundi, because I didn’t have a sufficient amount of any one vegetable to serve alone.

It  started with a modest bulb of fennel (which cost about half what the squid had, and it came with stems for an easy crudité, and fronds for a garnish).

• cleaned Squid, bodies and tentacles, from Blue Moon Fish, marinaded for half an hour in a mixture of zest and juice from one organic Whole Foods Market lemon; sliced garlic from Keith’s Farm; olive oil; dried Sicilian oregano; part of a dried golden/orange habanada; part of a small Calabrian medium hot cherry pepper, chopped, from Alewife Farm; salt, and pepper, drained, then pan grilled, turning once, arranged on the plates, drizzled with more lemon, finished with chopped parsley from S. & S.O. Farm and chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm
• one fennel bulb, from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, cut as wedges on the radius of its core, sautéed inside a large, high-sided tin-lined copper pan with a couple tablespoons of olive oil until beginning to color, then one thickly-sliced clove of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm, chopped pieces of that same small Calabrian medium hot cherry pepper from Alewife Farm, and some dried Sicilian fennel seeds from Buon Italia added and stirred until the garlic had softened and the mix had become pungent, followed by the addition of a handful of halved ripe orange cherry tomatoes from Berried Treasures, which were stirred in and briefly heated before the pan was removed from the burner, then some of the more tender fennel fronds, chopped, also stirred in, the vegetables served on the plates with a sprinkling of more fennel fronds
• there were slices of ’12 Grain & Seed bread’ (organic wheat and whole wheat with 12 cracked grains and seeds) from the Bread Alone stand in the Union Square Greenmarket, to ensure that none of the juices from the squid or the fennel dish would be wasted
• the wine was an Italian (Sicily), Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Bianco 2016, from Garnet Wines & Liquors
• the music was Mozart’s Violin Concerto in A Major, K. 219, and Henri Vieuxtemps’Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 31, Hilary Hahn, Violin, with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, conducted by Paavo Järvi