Since it’s been so long since I posted on this blog page, I thought it was time to refresh it with something fun that is both BOOK and FOOD related.
I’ve belonged to a fabulous Book Club for about 20 years and every month, we take turns choosing the book and hosting the meetings with appropriate goodies that correspond to the book we’ve just read. Now these are smart, creative women, and the bar is high, believe me.
Last night it was my turn to host, and the book I’d chosen was Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt.
It’s about a woman named Tova working at an aquarium who becomes friends with a Giant Pacific Octopus/escape artist named Marcellus. Marcellus serves as one of the narrators of the book (I LOVED the audiobook and the narration of the octopus by Michael Urie), and helps Tova unravel the mystery of her son’s death in the sea thirty years earlier.
We all agreed that we loved the book, and gave it 4 out of 5 stars, withholding only one star due to some plot twists that pushed the willing suspension of disbelief a tad too far.
I racked my brain trying to come up with Book Club munchies that would be more creative than just, say, Marcellus’s favorite seafood treats or (God forbid) noshing on octopus itself. (How could anyone ever eat octopus after reading this book or Soul of the Octopus or watching My Octopus Teacher and Secrets of the Octopus?!?)
And so, I scanned the Internet and found surprisingly few options, other than hot dogs sliced into octopus bodies (not particularly appetizing), but finally discovered a creation that made me smile. Hence: Marcellus the Octopus as a vessel for crab dip, with his body a bread bowl from Panera, legs make of Pillsbury bread sticks and suckers of black olive slices.
Not an original idea, and I know that technically the tentacles are upside-down, but it made everybody laugh, so I call it a success. Feel free to steal.
or 
cal armistead 