I ate squid ink last night and loved it — though it did give me a bit of a goth girl look.

“It looks like you have on black lipstick,” my husband pointed out discreetly in the midst of our meal at L’Explorateur in Indianapolis last night.

Sure enough, when I blotted my lips on the white cloth napkin there was a lip imprint, for all the world like I’d put on black lipstick to seal a letter to my boyfriend with a gothic kiss.

My lipstick shades tends to have names like “merlot” and “berry blush,” so my inky lips were certainly out of character. But who cares? The food was fantastic.

The dish, created by chef/owner Neal Brown, was called What is Black and White and Red All Over? Three scallops cooked three different ways, one on a red pepper puree, one in a puddle of creme fraiche and another on a bed of tagliatelle pasta with squid ink and capers.

My husband had the lamb chops, and it was all he could do not to pick up the bones to get the last bits of the tender, juicy chops.

Brown is doing very cool stuff at his three-month-old Broad Ripple restaurant, where the menu changes every two weeks. He’s making up these new dishes on the fly and his menu suggests a quirky sense of humor that should keep customers coming back to see what he’s up to.

But don’t worry that the inky pasta scallop is gone forever. He tells me the scallops have been so popular that the dish will likely show up on a greatest hits menu in the future.

Let’s hope his mint sorbet — topped with butter “noodles” — reappears too.

Since I started writing the Five in a Fix recipe column in the Indianapolis Star’s weekly food section–called Taste–I’ve found some great recipes. They all have to be quick and, for space reasons, fairly short, which makes them great for foodiemoms and foodiedads facing that what’s-for-dinner question. This week I was testing salmon on the grill, minted lamb burgers, a very quick shrimp recipe, a paella and a fajita–all proved great for an easy weeknight meal.  I’ll start posting my favorites soon.

Among that batch, the lamb burgers were the big hit with the kids–who would’ve thought?

What a summer it’s been–and it’s only August.

So what have I been up to here at Foodiemom Central? Well, a few days after my last post, we closed on a new house–then our daughter broke her leg. So surgery and a bright pink full-leg cast slowed us all down for a while. But happily we’re all up and running again. 

Took a couple months to actually get into the new (well, new to us–built in 1925) house; we tore out the old kitchen, reconfigured a few things and then put it back together with a cool new five-burner stove and double oven–our big splurge.

Still lots to do, but I’ve got a great office–the new home of Foodiemom.com–and I look forward to posting more regularly.

Especially once school starts!