This week, in the Talk of the Town department of The New Yorker, I have a story about the jumbo squid "invasion" of Orange County. Details not contained in the story: how I forgot a change of clothes and—crucially—shoes, and drove home barefoot, teeth chattering, at two in the morning, having thrown out my squid-juice-soaked sneakers in a bin on an abandoned street in Newport Beach. The other thing I threw out: the squid steaks given to me by some of the fishermen I met. Why? Because, the following morning, someone was looking at my car to consider buying it, and squid have a powerful fragrance. But I had fried calamari, from teeny little six-inch restaurant-friendly squid, at Bottega Louie last night, and they were delicious.