Table Talk
Craving Cioppino
What do you crave? No, I don't mean things like chocolate or potato chips. What meals do you sit and think about and long for? What dishes propel you to the grocery store for ingredients or to a favorite restaurant or to your mom's house? One of mine is Cioppino, the San Francisco seafood stew. I have been thinking about it a lot lately, and wondering when I would be able to satisfy this craving. After all, Cioppino, while a simple stew, is an expensive stew. It is full of a variety of fish and shellfish, and is most fun eaten with a crowd. In fact, we used to know some folks who served Cioppino on Christmas Eve, inviting anyone to show up and share. The only requirement was to bring one pound of seafood to add to the pot. I wasn't looking to host a large party necessarily, and the usual suspects, who are invited over regularly for dinner, are mostly not big seafood fans. However, our friends, the Richeys, are not only seafood fans, but huge Cioppino fans. It was a natural. They brought King crab legs, and mussels, I chose mahi mahi and shrimp. I'd made a terrific soup base earlier in the day, in which we added the seafood, let it cook for 5 minutes or so, and dinner was ready. We ate it with sourdough bread, of course, and a roasted beet salad with gorgonzola. Spectacular. Scrumptious. Hugely satisfying. And there's one more serving left for dinner...
