Words come in handy so often, we’ve decided to stock up. At breakfast, we click the vocabulary app. At dinner, we hand out points for usage. It’s the sort of project that can fritter away the whole week.
It started mildly, with soporific. Everyone rubbed bleary eyes, thinking about the sleep-inducing charms of rainy Monday, good book and warm bed. Hastily, we poured mugs of hot anti-soporific, with cream. By Tuesday, we’d moved on to profuse, and its plentiful, abundant, copious alternatives.
Everyone quickly grasped deracinate. It worked neatly into the Wednesday schedule, right along with profuse, weeds and despair.
On any given Thursday, our household census counts one teenager and one preteen. Surly needed no explanation.
But tarradiddle? It sounds like pretentious nonsense. And means pretentious nonsense. That, or fib. We cast suspicious glares at the word app — was it entirely trustworthy?
Saturday we came across callipygous, apparently an actual word that actually celebrates the shapely rear. Splicing that one into the dinner hour, with teen and preteen, yielded profuse tarradiddle.
Which we enjoyed with calamari, the polite form of squid. And artichoke, the edible form of thistle. Crisped into the fritter, the refined form of fried. Followed by ice cream, known to ease surly and enhance callipygous appeal.
Calamari fritter
Prep: 30 minutes
Marinate: 1 hour
Cook: 10 minutes
Serves: 4 as a first course
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Ingredients:
1/2 pound fresh artichoke bottoms, see note below
1/2 pound calamari, cleaned
Lemon vinaigrette, see recipe
3 tablespoons flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
Butter lettuce
Canola oil, for frying
Marinate:
Thinly slice artichoke bottoms. Halve calamari tubes the long way, then slice tubes and tentacles thinly crosswise. Settle artichokes and calamari in a medium bowl. Douse with half the vinaigrette. Cover and chill 1 hour or more.
Mix:
Stir beaten egg and flour into calamari mixture.
Dress:
Arrange a few lettuce leaves on each of 4 plates. Drizzle with remaining vinaigrette.
Fry:
Heat a thin film of canola oil over medium-high heat in an 8-inch cast-iron pan. When hot, scoop in half the calamari mixture. Flatten with a metal spatula. Crisp until the underside is golden, about 5 minutes. Slide fritter onto a plate. Cover with another plate. Flip. Slide fritter back into skillet, crisp side up. Sizzle second side until golden, about 5 minutes. Slip fritter onto a cutting board. Repeat with remaining batter, adding more oil if needed.
Serve:
Slice each fritter into 4 wedges. Arrange 2 wedges on each plate. Enjoy warm.
Provenance:
Adapted from Vice Versa restaurant in Manhattan.
Lemon vinaigrette
Whisk zest of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 4 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley, 1 finely chopped garlic clove and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Note: Buy two big artichokes. Trim away stem and top prickles. Pull away all leaves. Scrape out fuzzy choke. Or buy canned artichoke bottoms packed in water or frozen artichoke bottoms. Rinse or defrost. Pat dry.
Leah Eskin is a Tribune special contributor e-mail her at [email protected]