Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was thinking about Brian’s Calimari post. Specifically, your Maximum Leader was noticing the recipe called for calimari rings. One imagines that this is a prepackaged precut calimari deal. Frankly, the prepackaged way is probably easiest and best. But it did remind your Maximum Leader of a short story.

Your Maximum Leader was having some people over for dinner once upon a time. He decided to impress them all with a fully home cooked feast. He wanted to have some calimari as an appetizer. So he actually bought some full fledged squid at a fishmongers. He had studied how to cut and prepare the calimari from a cookbook, but it took a few squid before he got it more or less right in practice.

Dinner went off without a hitch. Calimari were fine. The next day the dinner guests invited your Maximum Leader to go out fishing with them. Your Maximum Leader is very fond of fishing, and he gladly accepted the offer. Well, we were out on the Cheasapeake Bay going for Bluefish. The friends mentioned as we headed out that they had bought some high-class bait to entice the Blues to bite since we were getting off to a late start.

After a little cruise we reached the appropriate spot and decided to set our lines to start trying to catch some fish. Your Maximum Leader volunteered to cut some bait. He opened up the fish/bait cooler (as opposed to the beer/food cooler) and what should be sitting on ice waiting to be cut… A whole load of squid that looked almost exactly like the stuff he’d cut up and fried the night before. Indeed, before your knew it your Maximum Leader was cutting and dressing the squid as though he was going to be cooking it for himself. The friends even noticed that the squid was cut up awfully “pretty” just to be put on the end of a hook.

By the way… Blues love squid.

Carry on.