Squid learns accounting from the Del Monte Manor school of frozen assets.

MANOR MATTERS… Oh, Del Monte Manor. Squid wishes Squid could quit you. And after a new board of directors took over the embattled Seaside low-income housing project last month (a coup that culminated with former property manager Dorene Matthews reaching toward a police officer’s gun), Squid thought quitting time was just around the corner, that all would finally be well at the Manor.

Squid should’ve known better. The former board and management – which nearly drove the property into bankruptcy by failing to obtain federal subsidy payments – isn’t going to let Squid look away.

Former DMM board president Norah Saffold and former vice president Andy Yoshiyama sent letters to the four banks where DMM has accounts, advising that only they are authorized to access DMM funds. They’ve even succeeded in freezing an account the new board set up at Rabobank in wake of the coup. Meanwhile, people still need to get paid, lights must be kept on and water must flow from the taps.

Good news is that Rabobank has allowed new management to set up an emergency fund to pay those bills. Neither Saffold nor Yoshiyama returned Squid’s calls, so Squid has no idea what’s in their heads. Given the two voted for DMM to sue the federal government (as opposed to filing subsidy paperwork correctly), maybe it’s not such a surprise after all.

BALLS AND BEANS… Squid loves Monday night dinner at Cachagua General Store, feasting on everything but the ceviche, which hits a little too close to home for this cephalopod.

Chef Mike Jones is well-acquainted with pushing gastronomic frontiers, but upon perusing Jones’ Facebook page, Squid learned some things are too weird even for him. Last week, Jones overheard a conversation at Ichi Riki between two business types planning a $50-a-head jellybean-wine pairing. Even to Squid’s palate, that sounds like a terrible (and overpriced) idea.

Not so pricey, though, as a giant military vehicle from Kuwait, recently acquired by Del Rey Oaks PD thanks to a $100k donation from philanthropist Jim Hill (see story, p. 24). In a 2005 post on his blog, Jones recounts catering an affair weirder than jellybeans and wine. He’d been hired for a castration fest at Hill’s El Sur Ranch.

“The day of the big event was rainy and cold. I thought that no way was anyone from Pebble Beach going to drive all the way the hell to Big Sur on a Sunday morning in the rain and watch a bunch of cattle get branded and castrated in the mud,” Jones recounts. “Turns out I had no idea the draw of fresh testicles.”

Following the muddy, bloody mess of castrating a whole herd, Jones fried ’em up into something presumably delectable, which is more than even he can do with jellybeans.