Saying Goodbye... with an awesome fish stew

Lots of changes going on at my workplace: one dear friend is moving to NYC; another has gone on maternity leave with her first baby. Both departures happened within the same week.
We decided to celebrate such exciting life changes by getting together at the mom-to-be's brand spanking new house out in a more rural area of MA. The three of us are unabashed foodies and loved the idea, on such a cold January day, of making a hearty Brazilian fish stew.
The image at the left is of me and L. adding the shrimp to the ceviche-like thing going on in the pan- cod was already marinating in a lime juice/pepper/garlic/salt mixture. What you can't see is the hilarity going on in the scene: everything was all slippery and gross and we just kept tucking shrimp into the spaces we could find underneath the fish. Hm, one would probably have to be there for this to be funny. Anyway, the photo above shows some of the process. The other part of the process involved chopping up a ton of veg.
It's a true one-pot meal: it invoves making beautiful layers of bright, beautiful vegetables: "
Put tomatoes in bottom of a wide 5- to 6-quart heavy pot. Top with onion and remaining tablespoon garlic, then sprinkle with bell peppers. Place plantains on top of vegetables. Sprinkle evenly with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Arrange fish in 1 layer on top of plantain. Sprinkle cilantro and parsley over fish, then arrange shrimp in 1 layer over herbs, reserving marinade. Pour oil and marinade evenly over mixture in pot."
After that, you clap the lip on the pot and set it on the stove and listen to the happy noises going on inside it for twenty minutes. When at last you lift it off, you can see that all of those vegetables make this really wonderful rich broth and you have a lovely stew.
Of course, it's from Epicurious. Here's the link: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/238413.
We made the polenta, but it really wasn't necessary. Just have some good crusty bread to sop up the juices and free-flowing wine- Malbec seemed to do the trick for us- and a good time will be had by all.

Tony and the Bearded Clams: A New Year's Eve Tale

New Year's Eve this year was a true gastronomic adventure: it started out delightfully classy at a friend's house, where they had prepared some dumplings (being fried on the stove there, steaming up all sumptious-like), some spring rolls chock full of shrimp and greens and mint and many other good things besides, and a notable cocktail to start the evening: a bellini-like drink made up ginger simple syrup and prosecco, dolled up with a crystallized ginger candy at the bottom of the glass. (The rest of the gastronomic adventure of the memorable evening included using Smartfood to "cleanse our palates" at the wine tasting we went to next, and the food adventure finished up around one a.m. with me deliriously and frantically stuffing the remains of a pu pu platter into my mouth.)
Our own contribution to the first part of the evening was Spicy Thai Steamed Mussels, a recipe derived from- as so many of our meals are- Epicurious (originally in Gourmet). It makes a LOT of mussels, which seemed like a good idea: calls for 5 pounds (fortunately, as they come in 2 lb bags, I sensibly bought only two bags), 3 limes, a can of unsweetened coconut milk, 1/3 c of dry white wine, 1.5 tbsp of Thai red curry paste (frankly, I say go nuts: 2 full tbsp), 1.5 tbsp minced garlic, 1 tbsp of fish sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar, and a buttload of cilantro: 2 full cups! Tony and I both winced a little at this last- cilantro scares us a bit.
Anyway, the title of the post comes from the job I gave Tony of scrubbing the beards off the mussels, which led me to make numerous sophomoric jokes (actually, just the same sophomoric joke over and over) and then cackle.
After you deal with the bearded clams, you: Squeeze enough juice from limes to measure 1/3 cup. In an 8-quart kettle boil lime juice, coconut milk, wine, curry paste, garlic, fish sauce, and sugar over high heat, stirring, 2 minutes. Add mussels, tossing to combine. Cook mussels, covered, stirring occasionally, until opened, about 5 to 8 minutes. Chop cilantro and toss with mussels.
Super easy, but damn, was it tasty. Had we not been in polite company I'd've slurped the spicy coconutty broth up by the ladle.