disaster

Well, last night I had one of my biggest culinary disasters for a long time. I could not even manage to fry a few squid rings successfully. I did, however, find what looked very much like the claw from a langoustine inside the whole squid that I also prepared. This reminded me of the time I found a small red mullet in a squid that I was gutting and cleaning. I am not sure, but I think I might have an unhealthy obsession with squid, octopus and cuttlefish. I know my enthusiasm for salamanders has long been the source of some condiderable consternation. I remember at primary school, we had to give a five-minute talk on a subject of our choice. Whilst most of my contemporaries picked such topics as:"My best friend" or "Our holiday to Torremolinos"; I picked "Cephalapods" as my topic. And I wasn't just trying to impress. I simply picked something that I was very interested in at the time.
Anyway, last night I learnt at least 3 things. The first one among them, was that squid are partial to a langoustine. I don't know what the proper, scientific name for that animal is. Dublin Bay prawn? scampi, or I suppose scampo in the singular. I can feel a digression coming along here. Paninis, what are you talking about? The word panini is already plural. Anyway, I seem to remember working with a chap, who knew the chap, who had invented the word - scampi - apparently a derivation of the word - scampolo -. Panini, by the way, was also an Indian grammarian. Who knew? 
Anyway, the second thing I learnt last night was, that if you put seasoned flour onto your squid rings, you had better make sure the oil is plenty hot enough. Failure to do this, just leads to an unpleasant farinaceous sludge. I am not even sure that there is such a word as farinaceous, but if there isn't - there should be. 
And the third thing I learnt was, that if you are trying to invent something, you should, at least, have a head full of good, established cooking principles before you begin. Last night I tried to stuff a whole squid with paella rice, chorizo and some lightly fried spring onions. The problem was, that once stuffed, there was not really enough room for the savoury mixture of chicken stock and white wine that I had prepared. A fourth thing I discovered,Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6" Display, Graphite - Latest GenerationKindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6" Display, Graphite - Latest Generation was that the taste of charred squid, which has been in the oven for too long is deeply unpleasant. I have been undone by culinary hubris. Oh, the shame of it. I even went a long way towards wrecking a simple dessert of chocolate, egg yolks and cream, but some diligent and timely stirring and cooling rescued it from the brink of being binned. The bin had already given a welcome to the stuffed squid. However, in the end, the dessert worked. It was a variation on a recipe from the fragrant Miss Sophie Dahl. I shall give both the recipe and full credit to the toothsome Miss Dahl in due course. Tomorrow I intend to ramble on about cooking with Sherry. A bottle of Booth's finest Amontillado is in the fridge even as I write. If there is any difference between it, and Tio Pepe (Uncle Joe) La Concha, then my palate is not refined enough to detect that difference. I suspect collusion.