I just got back from a lovely lunch with my new editor, Lindsey, who obviously has exceptionally good taste and is the most awesome girl ever and puts on cool off off Broadway theater in her spare time. We went to this Italian place uptown a bit and I ordered the special mixed green salad with baby octopus and the special fish of the day, which was swordfish with red sauce, olives and capers. I was, however, shocked and appalled when the salad arrived, as I hadn't expected an ENTIRE OCTOPUS to be lying charred atop a pile of greens. It was like a crime scene! That little round head and the dangling legs! It looked like a balloon that I should release into air! The weird eyeless bare head made it look deranged and untoward, like perhaps not a crime scene victim but an evil murderer, the kind that would populate a Greek myth. But then, after fainting delicately onto the ground and reviving myself naturally, and after realizing it might be rood to cry out "ewww" and gag with disgust when out on a lunch date for which you are not paying, I bravely steeled myself and proceeded to lop off the head and pop it in my mouth. And it was good! I then demurely sliced into a limb and ate that, and then, well. I went on to consume the entire thing, and all the greens, too. My fish, as I'm sure you were wondering, was also delectable, as was the slice of grape pie we split for dessert. And the wine, which our waiter grudgingly served me in the hue of red.

Speaking of octopi, as one does, the most manly, virile thing I've ever witnessed involved yours truly, a studly non-English-speaking gold-chain-and-bikini-wearing-bazouki-playing-weight-lifting Greek fisherman named Billis, and said fisherman diving into the water off a speedboat in the Aegean Sea and emerging with an octopus in his BARE HANDS. Which we then cooked up over a fire and ate for dinner.

Sigh.