spooky!

zoë comes home from work
"i had this weird feeling we won £ 1,000,000 at the lottery and i was spending it already!"
i startle
"actually, i bought a ticket last week"
"did you?"
i produce a wrinkled ticket from the dark depths of my wallet
"you better check it then"
"yeah, whatever"
still, i check it here.
the web page congratulates me for being a winner.
my legs tremble.
i check again.
my ticket matches three numbers: i've won the grand total of £10.

i tell the website to bugger off. then i tell zoë that she was right, we had won the lottery but unfortunately she had wrongly guessed the number of zeroes. i politely request her to fine tune her female intuition.

the only way out is food. nice, simple and comforting food. nothing fancy, a classic like seppioline con i piselli.

this dish is at its best whit tiny little baby squids. i only have two medium sized one so i cut them into rings.
i sweat some red onions until soft with chopped garlic and coriander roots, then i add the squid rings and a glass of wine to the pot. another glass of wine goes to comfort the cook. when the wine is evaporated from the pot, in goes some tomato passata.
squid doesn't like half measures. cook it either for a few seconds or for an hour and you'll eat a lovely tender fish. anything in between and you'll end up with hardened chewing gum.
when its almost ready i add some tiny peas straight from the freezer, from the same bag i used not so long ago to soothe my aching back (frozen peas, aren't they magic?).

i should serve it with polenta, or potato mash but i opt for cous cous instead because its quicker, and looks better.