Too Many Chefs

Wow. Are you sure you don't want to move back here - say... next door so I can come over for a barbecue every evening?

Barrett, I think you need to move next door to ME, if you want to experience great fish on the grill every evening. I never managed to work out where to buy fish in the Chicago area, aside from the frozen food section...

Campeche on Lincoln is pretty good and the Fulton street area has some good fish places open to the public. The best stuff gets snarfed up by the restaurants, of course, and Campeche is a hike, so I usually end up paying through the nose at Whole Foods.

I still think you'd do better to move here if it's fish you want! Did Treasure Island have a food section? I don't remember seeing it, but I was a little afraid of cooking fish (due to inexperience) all those years ago.

The squid looks great. I'm a huge squid fan, but I never think of grilling them. I must give this a try.

My only advice is to get the grill nice and hot before you start grilling them. I think that the more quickly you cook them the more tender they are. Also, the crispy bits are more fun to eat!

Barrett, you just need to move to Seattle! I left Chicago in 1999 and never looked back. The abundance of fresh seafood (you must try Yukon King and Coppper River) in Seattle(sustainable crops, organic fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs, flowers, honey, etc.) is truly non-pareil. Not to mention the restaurant scene, one of the most vibrant and exciting in the country.

Meg, your squid story has made me very curious about grilling squid whole. Will look this babies up at the market tomorrow and report back.

I traveled extensively in Italy in '02 and never found calamari cooked any other way but grilled.

Teree - thanks for the input. It's funny that fried calamari is so standard in Italian restaurants outside Italy; maybe it's because the squid gets rubbery regardless of how well it is cooked so you can't tell whether it's fresh? Anyway, I love the fact that it's much less rubbery on the grill!