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Today’s post was going to be a mushy, gushy Valentine cooking post. A step by step of me making my husband’s all time favorite pasta –  fra diavolo.  Shrimp, bay scallops and squid. I was going to talk about my favorite shortcut. Rao’s tomato sauce. It’s $9 a jar – and yes, making real sauce is easy and it costs $2 – what’s your point? I was going to tell you not to be scared of shortcuts, or squid. That it’s no biggie. I’ve done it before. It cooks in a couple of seconds and people are impressed.  And I had pictures…tons of freaking pictures. I was going to show you how brave I am. Buying, cleaning, chopping squid like it was my business. I’ve done it before. No big thaang.  But then something happened.  (if you are my husband, for the love of god, stop reading this).

As I cleaned the squid…I found….gulp….a little baby fish inside!! 

Hold me.

After I stared at it for a few minutes and the nausea had worn off, I washed my hands and did what all smart people faced with oddities do – I YouTubed it, and googled it, and Wiki’d it, and Web MD’d it (just in case).  The people of the internet told me it’s normal. Happens all the time. Feed it to my cat, etc. But even now, hours later, I shiver when I think of it. Maybe the squid had a last meal and didn’t have time to finish, maybe it was the thing they used to lure the squid. Alls I know is, it ended up in my kitchen.

I’ve been changed people. Some sort of gross seafood cherry has been popped. I had to come to terms with it quickly. My kids or my hubby could not/should not ever see this.  You don’t understand. My husband, I love him, but he’s no adventurous foodie.  He gets really grossed out really quickly. And I couldn’t let my kids see it – the horror the horror!

So like every good mother and wife, I got rid of the evidence and pretended all was good.

Now, safe in my bed, I can finally come to terms with it.

Here’s what I went through folks. Happy f’ing Valentine’s day…

I’ll start with the harmless ones first.  Prepare yourselves. Here’s the shrimp/sauce/squid.  I forgot to take pictures of the scallops because – did I mention – I found food inside the food!! It’s like a bad M.Night Shyamalan plot twist. Back to my sordid story.

Please note that my cutting board is…well..it’s all cut-up. These are not just props people. This stuff gets used!

Here’s the fresh squid. Yes, it looks slimy but there’s no smell and it handles easily. It also easily cuts into the calamari ringlets.

And then, as I clean it. I notice this little guy or gal or it. Do you want to hurl like me?

I want my mommy.

Reason number 8,222,329 to be a vegetarian: I’ve never found a carrot in the middle of my bagel. Or an almond in my banana. I’ll stop now.