According to the Washington Post, our friends at the Neighborhood Restaurant Group are featuring octopus specials at two of their restaurants this week, Tallula/Eat Bar (Arlington) and Birch and Barley (14th and Rhode Island Ave NW in DC).

Diners ordering the specials get a copy of Nancy Tringali Piho’s new book, My Two Year Old Eats Octopus. I haven’t looked at the book yet, but I thought it was kind of an interesting cross-marketing strategy. (The author is the principle at Nancy Tringali Associates, a marketing firm specializing in the food and beverage industry). I wonder what it’s like to represent the American Diabetes Association and the American Sugar Association?

The Wall Street Journal has a short video on their site about how sea urchins get from the sea to your plate.

Sea urchin diving doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me.

One of blogger Very Good Taste blogger Andrew Sullivan’s coworkers brought hákarl, an Icelandic “delicacy,” to the office to share. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

“What’s hákarl,” you ask? Let Andrew tell you:

Hákarl is shark meat, a festive delicacy from a country so cold, dark and barren that the natives have had to take an extremely innovative approach to food. In this case they’ve decided to eat something so poisonous that it makes people vomit blood - but don’t worry, they’ve devised a way to make it ’safe’ to eat. They gut and clean the shark, bury it in gravel and leave it to soften and putrefy for a few months. Once the meat is thoroughly rancid, they hang it in a shed to dry in the wind for a few more months, and then it’s ready. They don’t need to put up any netting to protect it, because even carrion eaters won’t go near it.

The result is glossy, rubbery meat that looks a little like mature earwax mined from the deepest recesses of an old crone’s noggin (or a sweaty and overexposed Gruyère, if you’re feeling more generous). It quivers and threatens in its little plastic tub.

Go read the whole post, there’s even a picture. I tried to find some pictures to share on flickr but couldn’t get permission to use any of the ones I wanted to and gave up rather quickly. The meatblog needs a photo editor who isn’t lazy.

When Samer, Eric and I were in Reykjavík a few years ago, we never got around to trying Hákarl. I don’t believe we tried very hard in the first place. That’s not lazy, that’s just sane.

Incidentally - you should remember that Hákarl is not the same thing as lutefisk. This will be on the final exam, so you should write it down. For extra credit, you can read “The Power of Lutefisk”, Clay Shirky’s 1994 ode to the dish which still makes us laugh until we cry. (Thanks for re-sending me the link, Samer).

My recent bacon eating seems to have involved seafood of various types.  The pattern finally emerged last evening while having dinner with my husband and father-in-law.  We were at a famed New York City seafood establishment.  Despite all of the delectable appetizers from which to choose, I was immediately drawn to the clams casino.  Their version:  nothing but clams, bacon, and some seasoned butter.

Just a few days prior I was out for brunch with a friend at our regular place.  She’d been ordering this particular sandwich for some time now, but seeing as I don’t eat bread, I never tried the sandwich, even though it sounded delectable.  Get this: lobster, avocado, and BACON.  Rather than deny myself any longer, I ordered the sandwich sans bread.  Oh my lord, I think I made a trip to heaven that day.  I mean, bacon and avocado is heavenly in it’s own right, but add in one perfectly cooked fresh lobster tail.  Almost too much to take!  In addition to the sandwich, we shared not one, but two side orders of bacon with our unlimited champagne.  Just to make sure we ate enough bacon.

Having made this connection, it is obvious, at least to me, that I must make myself some bacon-wrapped shrimp for dinner.  The seafood+bacon equation is thus fully proven!

Not only have I forgotten who sent me this, I also forgot to post it right away. Great name for a seafood company: Meat Without Feet