Thinking calamari? Smoke it

photo © 2008 Robin | more info (via: Wylio)

What you might find interesting about this calamari recipe from Michael Sargent is the grill.

There are a growing number of people who are buying the Big Green Egg for their backyard grilling and becoming fanatical about its qualities. Sargent often gives cooking demonstrations using the Big Green Egg at Foster’s Grill Store on Eastern Avenue.

Calamari is the Italian name for squid, and the squid is a mollusk that is related to cuttlefish and octopus. They range in size from an inch or so up to 80 feet, but the most common size for eating is less than 12 inches. The meat is white and firm with a mild, sweet and what some describe as a nutty flavor. Although you can eat the tentacles, the main body is the prime section of meat. It can be stuffed whole, cut into flat pieces, or sliced crosswise into perfect rings. Here only the main body part is used.

This is a simple recipe that takes no time to prep or cook. The thin slices look wonderful as they curl atop a bed of spring mix greens. And the flavor of the delicate calamari comes through without being overpowered by the usual ingredients or preparations, drowning the creature in bread crumbs and hot oil, or smothering it in peppers.

Click here for the Grilled Calamari recipe.

Squid Studies: Scientists Seeking and Savoring Squid

William Gilly, a professor of biology at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon. This is his second blog post about the trip.

By William Gilly

SEA OF CORTEZ— As we moved up the Gulf towards Guaymas, we continued to prepare our equipment. Actually, this will be a never-ending focus for the next two weeks. A research cruise in most cases is a creation in progress, and ‘equipment’ in our case ranges from Brad Seibel’s industrial-scale plumbing system for keeping big squid alive during experiments to our collection of fishing gear to catch squid. Everything will need constant, meticulous attention.

We arrived in Guaymas mid-afternoon and collected the rest of our party by 7 pm and immediately headed out to deep water about 10 miles offshore for our first exploratory squid jigging session. We arrived around 10:00 pm at the chosen site where a finger-like canyon poked back toward Guaymas. We immediately began to catch squid, and this had a predictable effect. We believe that catching a squid automatically triggers joyful exuberance. We have seen this phenomenon hundreds of times over the last decade. If there is photo of someone frowning while holding up a squid for the camera, we would like to see it. We doubt such an image exits.

Within an hour or so we collected our target sample of 20 to 30 squid. They were lined up sequentially on deck, measured, weighed, sexed and assessed for stage of maturity. This is information is simple but vital for two main reasons.

First, it is necessary to confirm the size of animals being sampled by the scientific sonar system on board that is being used by the Oregon State group. Acoustic data collected shows the depth where the squid and their prey are, and it can also be used to calculate numbers of squid or biomass – but only if you know how large the squid are that are being sampled acoustically. This is standard fare for acoustic assessment of fin-fish fisheries around the world, but use of such methods with squid is much less widespread. Kelly Benoit-Bird’s team from Oregon State is doing pioneering work in this area, and her insights and creativity were recognized with a MacArthur award in 2010.

Read the rest at Scientific American.

Fishermen end strike, net bountiful harvests of market squid

Local Flavor: About half of the dozen boats fishing squid in Monterey Bay this spring are residents of the Monterey and Moss Landing harbors, according to Monterey Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer. Above, fresh catch at Monterey Fish Company.

Glowing boats bob in the night off Pacific Grove’s coast, their lights luring lusty Loligo opalescens from the depths.

The romantic sight marks the return of Monterey Bay’s 150-year-old market squid fishery after an unofficial fishermen’s strike threatened to delay this year’s harvest.

When the squid season began April 1, local fishermen held back in hopes of pressuring processors to bump the price of calamari from $500 to $600 per ton, according to David Haworth, vice president of the California Wetfish Producers Association.

Blame it on gas prices: Boat captains, who aren’t unionized, negotiated with the four local squid processors in hopes of recovering some of their increased fuel costs. But the processors, who ship squid to Europe and China, are feeling the squeeze too.

“Our costs are up because of ocean freight being higher,” says Sal Tringali of the Salinas-based Monterey Fish Company. “The fuel’s killing us.”

Fishermen and processors were still at an impasse in early May. But some of the captains couldn’t pass up a good squid year, even at $500 per ton. Once they’d broken the liquid picket line, Haworth says, the other boats resumed fishing too.

The catch has been good: Royal Seafood founder Joe Pennisi says his son, Gino, recently unloaded 200 tons in a single evening.

“When there’s quantity,” he says, “you don’t worry about the price so much.”

Read the rest in the Monterey County Weekly.

Anybody With a Boat Want To Visit 130 West, 44 North?

By Danna Staaf

While last year’s market squid bounty continues into the 2011 fishing season, the market squid’s larger cousin is playing hard to get. The Humboldt or jumbo squid–you remember, our hungry friends that grow up to five feet long and eat everything they can wrap their arms around–makes a habit out of making headlines, whether it’s invading or invisible. This year, it’s the latter.

“Catches of jumbo squid in 2009-2010 seemed limitless,” reports Frank Hartzell of the Mendocino Beacon. But they’ve been conspicuously absent in 2011.

Read the rest here.

Mineo brothers grateful for bountiful squid season

By Robert Walch • January 14, 2011

The Californian (Salinas)

Squid are poured into bins on Wharf No. 2 in Monterey from the Mineo brothers' boat in November. (ROBERT WALCH of The Californian)

Third-generation Monterey fishermen Frank Mineo and his older brother, Sal, hope that they will be able to make it to the end of their working lives in the family business. Whether there will be another generation of Mineo men fishing on Monterey Bay remains to be seen.

With new regulations, closed fisheries and the fickleness of the fish population, fishing on the Central Coast has always been a feast-or-famine proposition.

Frank Mineo, a Fisherman’s Flats resident, said there have been a few years recently when taking the Mineo Bros.’ 58-foot Alaskan Limit Seiner out into the bay was a money-losing proposition. But this year has been different. Very different!

“It has been up and down for years because of weather, nutrient upwelling, water temperature and other things,” Mineo said. “Over the last decade, our biggest season was 2003, but this year will be the best we have had in 20 years of fishing.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Squid A Day: Fishing for Future Generations

I know, I know, I won’t shut up about squid fishing. But the Salinas Californian has a neat human-interest article about the closure of the market squid fishery, bringing the message home to Homo sapiens:

Third-generation Monterey fishermen Frank Mineo and his older brother, Sal, hope that they will be able to make it to the end of their working lives in the family business. Whether there will be another generation of Mineo men fishing on Monterey Bay remains to be seen.

Read more here.

Biologically inexplicable boom highlights uncertainty about management

BIG INK: Julie Stewart, a graduate student at Hopkins Marine Station, sits next to a rendering of a Humboldt squid printed in its own ink. Photo by Nic Coury

By Danna Staaf

On Dec. 17, 2010, the California market squid-fishing season was closed for the first time in history. The statewide catch hit the harvest limit of 118,000 tons, with 20,000 tons caught in Monterey Bay and 98,000 tons in Southern California, bringing in a total of $59 million.

Read the rest of the story here.