Put your finger in the squid's black hole and it'll smell fishy.		With its black eyeball as large as a Simon game, it'll never blink when its 35-foot-long tentacles jet out and grasp you. After you're in its clutches, you're headed toward the beak that will snap you in half like a cable. This giant squid has reportedly never been seen in the wild. On this finite planet, you'd think we'd seen it all, but deep in the oceans at perhaps 1,000-2,000 feet down, there's a potential enemy for Godzilla. With only 200 beat-up specimens that have been pulled onto boats, taken out of sperm whale stomachs, or found washed up on shore, these mollusks are an enigma. Squid have been known to battle with sperm whales, at times drowning young pups. In novels, these rumored 60-footers are known to sink submarines. In fact, one allegedly attacked a 15,000-ton ship only to get thrashed in the rudders. A marine zoologist for the Smithsonian, Dr. Clyde Roper, is a zoology freak who has put a camera on a sperm whale to get footage of a live giant squid. Although he didn't get any footage, he once tried to eat some giant squid and reported that it tasted like ill ammonia. The largest invertebrate in the world is not good for eating, although it will eat you in a second. Anyway, it's easier to pick on the giant squid's little cousins.

From top: The Thai BBQ squid. Fried fish chunks and tartar sauce will lube your bowel. Craig lubing his bowel.

The Squid Festival in Monterey, California, is a place to sample some of the ways to eat the mullusk. But these aren't the gigantic variety, these are the one-footers that were once used primarily as bait for tuna and swordfish. The eating variety has a short life span of about a year and is harvested heavily in Japan, Russia, and Canada. With ten tentacles, they can make a great meal. Most call it calamari. Because Monterey houses the greatest marine aquarium in the world, I figured the squid fest would be huge. I imagined seeing booths peddling squid from around the world. Perhaps someone would have a sample of the terrible-tasting giant squid. Maybe I'd witness some new cooking methods. With some cash in my pocket, there was something to investigate. The King of Shrimp would be a great food tester and so would an ailing cousin. There's a $7 entry fee to cover the promoter's ass in case the food blows, but even before that it's $6 to park (unless you want to walk a couple of miles). Stepping into the fairground entry, everyone is met with crafts, Wonder Mops, candy, and bogus booths of clothing. After a few paces and a trip to the shitter to clear space for more sea critters, we reached the ugly fair booths. Side-by-side, almost every booth sold calamari-the cheapest breaded fried version of the mollusk at $6 a small plate. It was written in the local freebie paper that the squid fest would feature squid cooked every way imaginable. The 10 booths all featured vats of oil and floating chunks of battered squid, except for two who featured it Thai-style, barbecued. Among the fried oiliness that's good for three ass zits a bite, the BBQ squid on skewers cooked with cayenne pepper proved to be the best-tasting plate. After sampling calamari with lime, calamari with spicy pepper, and calamari mixed with vegetables, everything started to taste the same. The musical entertainment that consisted of a bad cover band playing Thompson Twins songs wasn't cutting it, and suddenly everyone started to look fat, including us. Waist sizes of 42-up, even on little kids, were the norm (not that there's anything wrong with that!). Everyone on the fairgrounds held a plate with their heads hunched over, slurping up the oil. It was time to get out. The port-a-potties were about to burst. Festivals that celebrate food are cool, especially when they're for a relatively unknown seafood. But when it comes to squid, calamari is good once. The creativity shouldn't end there. Fortunately, the Asian brothers and sisters around the world have created more ways to eat squid. Spicy Salt Squid (Pete's mom's recipe) 1 lb. squid (de-skinned, de-shelled, cleaned, but not dried/absorb remaining drained water) salt pepper corn starch all-purpose flour 2 red chiles 2 green chiles ginger garlic 2 stalks green onions MSG, you pick which kind, or omit oil Here's what to do with it: 1. De-skin and clean squid and cut into bite-sized pieces, but do not absorb remaining water from squid. 2. In a bowl, marinade squid in 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. 3. In a bowl, mix 3 tbsp cornstarch and 1 tblsp flour. Coat squid in this mixture. 4. Deep-fry squid in oil, 370 degrees-hot as hell. Divide the frying pieces in 4 parts. Don't fry the squid all at once or else you'll make a mess. Fry until golden brown. 5. Chop the red and green chiles. 6. Smash about 1 tbsp each of garlic and ginger. 7. Chop up some green onions 8. In a bowl, stir together 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp MSG. 9. In a wok/frying pan, (this part should take a few minutes) sautŽ garlic and ginger. 10. Add squid into the pan and stir. 11. Sprinkle the salt/sugar/MSG mixture onto squid as you add them into the frying pan. Keep stirring. 12. Add chopped chiles and stir. 13. Add green onions last. Stir and serve with rice or eat alone. "The longer the chiles are cooking in the pan, the spicier the squid will be." Here's a few more ways to check out squid. Dried squid: Go to the local Asian market if you have one, and check out a bag of dried squid. It's shredded, chewy, and tasty. Heat this sucker up on a stove and your house might smell along with your breath, but you'll live. Sauteed squid: Just about every country has this, and it's not breaded and deep-fried. But for some reason, they didn't have it at the squid fest. Sometimes it's mixed with snow peas, sometimes with just green onion, or just plain. Meat from the head or legs are used and this can be done many ways. Deep-fried: Not like tempura, but Hong Kong style. It's got a different breading. Oily, but good. BBQ squid: Like the Thai vendor style, this is easy. Put it on the grill not on the glass. Pick your sauce and pour it on. Raw squid sushi: Ika is creamy, thick, and a little chewy. Don't make this at home.

There are two spots (La Esperanza on E. Lake and Tepa Sahuayo on W. Riverside) for shrimp cocktail in Watsonville, California, and the King of Shrimp (GR4) frequents both of them when he's not making his own. That's all you need, since shrimp cocktail only comes in two different ways. It's either watery and minimal (which is a broth- or sauce-based cocktail, focused on the flavor of the soup) or the opposite (a schooner filled to the top with shrimp, fish, crab, octopus, and maybe even oyster). The sauce plays a smaller role in the latter type of cocktail. At the store near Daylight Market, there's a little shop that has the watery style. With some cucumber bits and about 10 decent-sized shrimp, this is a good-tasting cocktail. Of course, if the sauce is too watery, you'll have to add a ton of catsup, Tapatio hot sauce, and some lime. It's a good deal for about $7. The next stop is across townŠa whopping 5 minutes away. The funky hat-shaped shop is a tiny place, and the cocktails are filled to the top. I added some Tapatio and the King of Shrimp told me that it's good to go with no catsup. So I scarfed the whole thing down and got to the real crab meat at the bottom. A lot of places go fakie, so beware of the fish cake. On the other hand, the juice is too fishy. Imagine eating great chunks of seafood and then gargling it down with sea water.