It cooled off after a pretty perfect Holiday weekend, and rain is coming. Good news for the basil seedlings I put in the ground today, and a welcome excuse to get all comforty with the cooking. Yesterday’s smoked sable got our smokerphilia fully engaged, so when asked about any dinner-related desires, the wife quickly pulled some duck breasts from the freezer and nodded expectantly at the porch. Luckily, on our trip to Vermont I had…
Category: Duck
I have not been feeling it in the kitchen- and by extension, here- at all lately; it’s pretty much the norm when I have momentum in the studio (and I have a lot right now.) So on Saturday I ground gears pretty badly trying to get from studio mind to kitchen mind in time to make dinner for Liz and Duncan. It all came together, which was kind of a surprise given the haphazard approach…
We kept it very simple this year, with no travel and no guests. It’s a pretty nice way to do it, actually, especially given the weather-related mayhem all over the place. Yesterday Milo and I walked into town to see Santa arrive, and then came home in time for me to finish dinner. Sous-vide is genius for this, because I was able to leave the meat in the bath while we were out with no…
So our water heater decided not to die, but to continue producing hot water per normal while quietly leaking for an unknown length of time so that we wouldn’t notice anything until the heat stopped working, by which time all the water had done some unknown amount of damage to the subfloor and the downstairs heat crapped out entirely. I only discovered it because the plumber didn’t fix the heat, so I went down into…
Until last night, I was an avowed Obama voter. I felt passionately that the amoral cabal currently in power are the worst thing ever to happen to this country, and that they have truly pried open the gates of hell, lubed the tracks, and cut the brake lines in order to get us there as fast as possible, all the while pillaging the astonishing wealth of this nation so that their corrupt, greedy comrades can…
We spent the long weekend in Vermont, and Sirkka and Nissa joined us for a couple of nights. Though the last two days were crystalline late-summer perfection, the beginning of our stay was gray and a little muggy- though it didn’t actually rain more than a few drops. So we let the kids do their thing, and between what we brought from home and what we picked up at the farmers’ market, we did all…
Jeff and Eve came to visit, and we had pulled a duck out of the freezer in anticipation. I lit the smoker, and in addition to smoking the duck (on a mixture of maple, apple, and grape vines- all from our yard) I also smoked the bacon that had been patiently curing in back of the fridge for so long (more on that later.) In addition, I made polenta, green mash, caramelized turnips (they’ve gotten…
I found a partially cooked duck breast from an earlier meal in the back of the fridge tonight while figuring out what to make for dinner. Problem solved. Milo helped me season and oil the fingerling potatoes- with lots of whole garlic cloves thrown in- prior to roasting them in the oven. I sliced and sautéed the duck in a bit of duck fat to brown it, then tossed in shredded kale and daikon to…
Liz had her annual holiday party, and it was as wonderful as ever. The food, wine, and company were outstanding. The guys even played a few tunes; Liz has a piano, Chris brought his bass, and Billy played a saucepan with a spoon. Highlights included Gerard’s togarashi roasted halibut, Liz’s artichoke pizza, and my now-traditional duck sushi on black rice with cranberry-wine reduction and pickled black radish. Wines included a 1992 Sirius “Doomed Vines” Petite…
It’s like Thanksgiving leftovers, but nothing on the plate is actually from that meal except the cranberry-wine reduction. The rest of it is a duck breast, seared in a pan, along with zucchini “latkes” and brown rice with kale cooked in the rendered fat (this is actually a zucchini picked AGES ago- before the first frost- and stored in the bottom of the fridge; I’ve slowly been using it up.) Meat juices and some of…