Eating Alone for 6

I'm sitting here while my dinner is simmering, Odie & Popie watching me, and I want to get the recipe down quickly, which is why I'm typing erraticly. And my spelling is off. I'm listening to Neil Young..."You are like a hurricane...I wanna love you but I'm getting blown away...before that moment you touched my lips that perfect moment when time just slips away..."
and it's a perfect September night, a few nights past the Harvest Moon. I have a feeling I might eat alone. But this is a beautiful dish, and it should be shared. What are you doing? come on down. I swear, we'll just eat, and we'll just be friends.

I'm making an Italian Fish Stew and typing in between..

Ingredients
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
5 Hot Turkey Sausage links, cut into bite sized pieces, organic
1/2 sweet onion, chopped & peeled
4 chopped nice red tomatoes
1/2 can of Jersey Fresh tomatoes chopped from Whole foods
1 jar expensive italian jarred sauce from Whole Foods (I love Daves Gourmet - DG - Red heirloon)
1/2 lb calamari tubes, fresh, sliced into rings
1/2 lb scallops, cut in half
1 piece firm white fish on sale (this week I'm using Skate - which was on sale and it's firm - buy enough to feel a small piece to how many people are eating and cut it into that many pieces)
1/4 lb cleaned and cooked shrimp
small jar crab meat, cooked
organic green pitted olives
basonigal (basil)
olive oil
sea salt
ground pepper


ok, first pour about 3/4c olive oil into a hot deep skillet, and when that heats up, add the garlic, until browned. Then add the sausage, and cook until 3/4 way done. Then add the onion, cook that until almost translucent, and its browned and smells great, then add the chopped up tomatoes, cook those until soft, then add the chopped tomatoes in the can, and the jarred sauce and simmer until the sausage is almost done - a while. It's great already. You could eat this and be done with it. But we're not. Then add the calamari, and cook that about 5 minutes, add the olives, then the scallops - another five minutes, folding the mixture around easily in between additions. Keep the flame at a medium pace. THEN, if it's too thick add a little water...then taste the calamari, it should be nice and soft, and not too rubbery, then place the pieces of fish right on top of the whole concoction, and spoon a little sauce over it, put the shrimp in the pan, making sure it's covered, and THEN add your basil pushing it into the sauce, and cover the pan so that it simmers slowly over a very low heat. Then come and write something to someone. Or dream about your love for a while. Set the table, light the candles. Smoke a joint. You're almost there. I better go check the food....

So the whole thing is delish...I just checked it, added my sea salt and ground pepper, and very gently stirred it with a teaspoon, avoiding the pieces of fish so they don't break -- maybe you shouldn't be stoned for this! That's the deal, is to cook all of the unbreakable foods first, starting with what needs the most cooking first. So, that means sausage, which in a dish like this you can't cook too long, and ending with the white fish.

And THEN, when it's all ready to go, and you are about to heat up the frozen rice that I am addicted to and you get a nice bag of it at whole foods, which takes 8 minutes to cook...so you're cooking your rice, and you make a nice round spot in the middle of your stew, and take the drained can of crabmeat, and put right in the middle, spooning a little sauce over it, to heat it up. It's already cooked.

Voila! Table's set, make sure you have some nice italian bread, some Italian soda, which I love, or wine which I cannot drank (damn!) and you're ready to go. Oh, some candles.

I'm all alone...
this is so sad. But alas, tomorrow I will take the huge amount of leftover's to my mom's house and we'll have it for lunch. And then I'll have it for dinner tomorrow night. And by then others will discover it...This is what I like, food over and over....

..and maybe I'll freeze some.

You know where to find me. Come eat...

Mangia! Ciao!