What’s THAT stuff?!

Calamari = squid.

The body can be stuffed whole, cut into flat pieces or sliced into rings. The arms, tentacles and ink are edible; the only parts of the squid that are not eaten are its beak and gladius (cartilage). I’ve seen it battered and fried like onion rings. It’s supposed to taste sweet.

I’ve eaten rabbit before, and it is sweet, so squids and rodents taste similar?

Groans.

You can hardly find a stuffed mushroom in a restaurant, anymore, except those with squid squirted into them. That’s just wrong.

However, there was a time when my brother took us all out to eat al fresco, on a breezy summer’s eve, to a lovely place near his home just outside Jeff City, Missouri. We ordered the stuffed mushrooms as an appetizer and I became so enamored with this dish.

They were creamy and savory and warm and I’d never eaten anything I liked so much that wasn’t sweet.*

I mean, I wanted to eat everyone’s serving.

I mean, I had to remind myself to behave.

However, there on a flagstone patio, noshing over a wrought iron table, I began analyzing.

And I never stopped until last year, when I figured I knew how to make those mushrooms.

And today, I publish my recipe for the first time, ever, over at Dining with Debbie.

Go there.

You’ll be glad.