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.