Nothing says love like potatoes, whitefish, and dairy.

Dinner was a cooperative venture in both concept and execution. But it went pretty well, so I thought I'd put it here. If you don't eat dairy, fish, or shellfish, this will probably not be of much interest.

Peel and chop golden potatoes and Bartlett pears. Chop artichoke hearts. Skin and chop whitefish. Crack crab. Chop up pieces that are too big to eat. Chop scallops. Peel garlic and cut the funny bits off.

In a big pot, melt butter. Add potatoes, cayenne, sage, black pepper. Press in garlic. Cook. Add white wine. Cook. Put in pears and artichoke hearts. Cook. Put in veggie broth or chicken broth, fish, scallops, crab. Cook some more. Dump in milk and cream. Keep cooking. Decide that it is chowder now. Serve. If there is enough cayenne (do not skimp on the cayenne, unless you have a papersky or similar entity, in which case get a slightly different set of ingredients and use saffron instead, on which do not skimp either) you should not have to serve it with red pepper flakes at the table to add.

This would have been better if I'd had the time and energy to make rye buns, or even some other kind of bread, but it was still pretty nice without.