andiesenji

By the way, and OT, I also do jugged hare, which is quite similar to duck confit in the method of preparation. As are so many of my recipes, this was my great-grandmother's and we had it often when I was a child. We had a great many unusual foods simply because both she and my grandfather as well as my grandmother loved the foods of an earlier era.

Thanks for the info on the Rouen or Rhone ducks. I found more information once I used the Rhone designation. I have one thawing in the refrigerator now, it should be thawed by Saturday and I can decide what to do with most of the bird. I am going to use the usual method for confit with the legs, as I have a lot of duck fat from renderning the fat from the birds that had to be evicted from my big freezer last fall to make room for half a steer. This duck also looks like it has a lot of fat on it and the legs are huge compared to other ducks I have prepared, but I guess they are in proportion to the size and weight of the bird. Conversely the wings are quite small. Obviously these birds were many generations away from being able to fly. They are so different from the wild birds I so often prepare that they might be a completely different species.

One of the reasons I began buying bulk foods and large sizes at places such as Smart & Final and repackaging, is because consumer packages misinformed people. For some items, such as ice cream, it is a problem when one expects to get so many portions from a package and ends up short. For caterers who are handling small jobs where commercial packaging is not optimal, this can be a very costly proposition. I began making my own ice cream simply because I was unhappy with some of the odd ingredients I noted had been added to some products, in particular aspartame to which I have a severe reaction. As far as coffee is concerned, I would rather buy bulk beans by the pound and grind them myself, rather than pay for less in a can of pre-ground, which loses its flavor soon after opening. There has been some local media attention to the subject of lessening the amounts in "standard" packages (while maintaining the size of the outer package), but not so much in the national news. I believe Dateline did a piece on the subject a couple of years ago but there needs to be more reaction by consumers, such as a refusal to be treated as dummies, which seems to be the case. When people complain about the cost of some of the "premium" coffee beans sold by the pound, I point out that if they figured out the cost of one of the canned brands, particularly the one that weighs only 11 ounces (in a regular sized can), it actually cost more per pound than the "premium" coffee. One lady with whom I had such a conversation was standing in the coffee aisle, looking at cans and comparing prices and announcing in a very loud voice, "what a rip-off this is!" The plain fact is that a lot of people do not pay attention unless they are shown where to look to see the information.

Last night I cooked up a batch of my grain/seed mixture. This morning I put some in a container and brought it to work with me. I had intended to heat it with some milk (or half & half) but sadly, there was none in the refrigerator and will be none until one of the other employees comes in about 10. However there was an unopened container of eggnog, sell-by date 01/10, still good. To my one cup of cooked cereal I added 1/2 cup of eggnog, heated it in the microwave for 3 minutes. (Then had to wait more than 10 minutes to taste as it was now approximately the temp of molton lava, or seemed so to me ) It is delicious! I never thought of this combination before, but how appropriate. I have topped unsweetened cereal with butter and a poached egg in the past, but this is something new and very , very good. I must make a note to try this on some folks who love hot cereal and are always looking for new twists on an old subject. I must add that it is a pudding-like consistency.

For your pantry door have you considered a pocket door? When my friends remodeled their kitchen/laundry room and 1/2 bath off the laundry room, they changed the bathroom door to a pocket door which is quite narrow but since there is no hinge offset or frame bumper, the entire doorway is available. It works beautifully and looks nice and there is absolutely no dead space for the door to swing.

I think Joey wins. Back in the 50s, when I lived in Wisconsin for a few years, I did get to try some very old cheeses that were stored at the cheese factory outside of town, (Campbellsport), including some provolone that was hung in 4 foot long forms, (can't call them wheels, but don't know how else to describe them.) Also some gorgonzola and an aged fontina which was the best I have ever tasted - wish I had some now. It was very crumbly and had tiny white specks in it which I associate with very good aged cheddar. The factory manager was a friend and patient of my stepdad and we always had very good cheese. The factory was on my way home from school so I sometimes was instructed to stop and pick up something my stepdad or mom had ordered. We used a lot of their products in my mom's bakery, including whey which was used in one of the breads, sort of like a salt-rising bread that had a very "cheesy" taste. I have bought most of the aged cheeses I have at Bristol Farms markets, here in the L.A. area. More recently I have bought cheeses from The Ideal Chees shop in NYC and from the Gourmet store as they sell some cheeses in full wheels. For Wisconsin cheeses I order from a couple of vendors. This vendor has some lovely cheeses. Some cheeses do not have to be aged and I love Brick cheese which is virtually impossible to find outside of Wisconsin. Theirs is particularly good.

My refrigerators are still stuffed. I spent yesterday making oxtail stew/soup and cooking a tongue. I have a fresh leg of pork in brine (apple juice and cider based brine) which I will cook this evening. Some is for a birthday celebration - a neighbor's granddaughter is turning 15 and they make it a very big deal, sort of like a debut into society. Lots of family and friends, eating, dancing and etc.... Late last night I cooked up a big batch of lemon curd to make little tarts. I fill the baked tarts with the lemon curd, then beat some of the curd half and half with whipped cream to which I add a little lemon zest, for a topping which is sort of like a mousse or bisque. In any event, it is very tasty this way.

We had one of the original GE Toast-R-Ovens in our kitchen in KC, and I remember it rather fondly. I believe Black & Decker still makes this model or a lookalike successor to it. Compared to what else is out there, like that Panasonic gizmo, it's very simple and bare-bones, but it does the job for small stuff. It also does the one thing I think everyone should have a toaster oven for well: make oven-buttered toast. ← The GE Automatic Toast-R-Oven was the best ever made, and still is to this day because it shut off automatically. I was told, when I inquired of Black and Decker, that when GE sold their patents to Black & Decker, they did not include the patents for this appliance and it was no longer produced. I have three, two I bought new, the first one in the late 60s and the second in the mid 70s and the third I picked up at a Goodwill store a few years ago, for a back up. I have all of them rewired for safety by a great appliance shop that does great work. Apparently a lot of people are hanging onto them for dear life because one rarely sees them on ebay when others are quite common. One of the doctors in our office discovered one at a different appliance repair place and since he liked the one I had in the office, he bought it for his home. Like me, he wonders why this is no longer produced as it is fast, neat, has a small footprint and with the little pan that can be used for cooking drippy stuff, it is great for little English muffin pizzas and open-faced melted sandwiches and etc. Since the pans have parted company with some appliances over the years, it is nice to know that the small disposable "biscuit" and "grill" pans made of aluminum foil fit this appliance nicely. When it was first introduced, it was very expensive, far more than the usual toaster ovens, because it was automatic and had variable temperature controls that worked. It was the culmination of several years of GE experimenting and evolving toaster ovens and it was a gem. If you can find one in good condition for a reasonable price, get it and have it rewired by a professional who will also check the rheostat. I guarantee that you will be pleased with it.

I have several whole wheels of cheeses in my cheese fridge (50-55 degrees F constant) that I am experimenting with extended aging. I have taken core samples at long intervals to check if they are still good and if the aging is doing anything. The oldest is an 8 kilo wheel of Bra Duro, an Italian cheese made from cow's milk. It was 2 years old when I bought it in April 1998, so it will be 9 years old in April this year. I checked my notes on tasting it last April and noted the following: Sample slightly crumbly, no change in color in center - deep beige, darker near the rind. Taste very tangy, flavor of walnuts with a hint of butter, perhaps sharper than last tasting. Grated remaining sample to within 1/4 inch of rind. Excellent flavor, better than the 3-year Parmigiano-Reggiano and much better than the 4-year Pecorino Toscano.

I don't think I have ever considered that there could be such a thing as "extra" or "left-over" foie gras. When I prepare it, I am lucky to get it to the table without someone sneaking a bit and if you blink, you missed it.......

I have been following this thread with interest. Just prior to leaving on vacation, one of the pilots from Edwards brought me 6 frozen duck carcasses from someplace he had been on a "mission". Each one has a lable stapled to a foot that says "Rouen Duck" and the weights in pounds and ounces. I assume that since the weights are not metric, these are domestic ducks, however I am unfamilar with this type of duck. They weigh from 9 pounds 2 ounces to 10 pound 4 ounces which is quite large. Actually, they are huge, the size of a goose but with a more compact body and with a very deep and heavy, enlongated breast as well as good-sized legs and the feet are very bright orange, sort of a pumpkin color. If anyone is familiar with this type of duck, I would appreciate some information before I thaw one out and start working on it.

Check with the Mexican carnicerias. This morning I got some beautiful meaty beef neck bones and also other bones very cheap. They will get veal bones on request. I also get goat meat and the bones which make a lovely stock, much more delicate than lamb. They still do their own meat cutting so I can also get round-bone roasts from them, if I ask a few days ahead of time. (I am a good, regular customer so they try to please if at all possible.)

This recipe sounds wonderful. I have already put the pork leg in brine which I cooked up last night as I had planned on getting a couple of full loins but I think this leg will be better for my purpose. I will be joining my neighbors for a celebration dinner on Friday. It is the 15th birthday of one of their granddaughters and they mark that as a big milestone. With just their family and the immediate neighbors, who always take part, there will be 60+ people.

I am home today. With the Grapevine (I-5) closed (until a short time ago) there were hundreds of trucks on the 14 early this morning and after spending an hour to get from Lancaster to Palmdale I got off the freeway and came home on surface streets. Heavy ground fog in places here in the Antelope Valley too. At 9:30 I tried again, still too much truck traffic, at times taking up all three lanes of the freeway which really annoyed me.... So I got off the freeway again and on my way home stopped at Vallarta, the Mexican supermarket. Wow! Fresh whole leg of pork on sale for 99 cents a pound. I got a nice one for $12.03, a real bargain. Now I have to decide what to do with it. Everything is still out in the van because it is colder outside than in my refrigerator. I also bought some nice oxtails, beef neck bones with lots of meat, a bag of beef bones and a beef tongue as well as some fresh fatback and a big batch of leaf lard which is going to be rendered into lard shortly. Soup is the order of the day. I have a celery root, celery, parsnips, potatoes and if my gardener shows up today, will see if he can dig up some carrots and rutabaga for me. They are deeply mulched with straw and keep in the ground quite well. The tongue is going to be cooked today for later use. My neighbor from Durango, Mexico gave me a recipe I have been wanting to try. Empanadas made with spiced tongue. Almost like a mincemeat the way she makes them.

I have the same cooker, as well as the "neuro fuzzy" one. I use the brown rice setting. On the "neuro" I use the "mixed porridge" setting. If I happen to use one of the others I have, (if these are in use for something else), I just add twice the amount of water (or other liquid) as is called for in regular rice. For the savory version I learned a "trick" - I put frozen butter in the bottom of the cooker, add the rice or grains, then add room temp liquids. The result is a buttery "crust" on the bottom something like that which forms when cooking rice in the Lebanese manner (AKA "Armenian style"). It isn't really crusty, but I like the effect when the mass is turned out of the cooker pan in one mound.

The reason I began to use a rice cooker is that it takes so long to cook on the stovetop and had to be constantly stirred and when I began having trouble with arthritis it was too much. I experimented with microwaving and it wasn't too bad in the micro-rice cooker but still not the way I wanted, so I tried the rice cooker and it worked perfectly. It is especially helpful when using milk, coconut milk or stock with the grains as there is no possibility of scorching, which, with milk, produces an awful tarry taste that permeates the entire mass.

This is the recipe I have used for several years. It has been modified several times from the original which I think came from an old, out of print phamplet on using up game meat. I have used the same recipe to make turkey sausage with leg and thigh meat and also to make sausage from ostrich, venison, elk and boar. It is a good and simple basic recipe. If you wish you can add dried fruits to part of the mixture. I have added cranberries, cherries, apricots, apple and various combinations as well as various nuts. DUCK SAUSAGE 2 pounds ground duck meat 4 ounces ground duck, turkey or chicken fat 2 tablespoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon red chilli flakes 1 tablespoon coriander seed 1/2 teaspoon cumin seed 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (Mix the spices together and toast in a dry iron skillet. 1 tablespoon sugar (granulated maple sugar is best, if you can get it) 1 tablespoon minced garlic 1/4 cup dark carmelized onions 1/2 cup finely ground bread crumbs (whole wheat is best) 1/4 cup port plus 2 tablespoons brandy. Combine all ingredients and knead until completely mixed. Chill for at least 3 hours. Using the medium die and small stuffer, stuff small casings with the mixture, tying off at 6-inch intervals. Refrigerate immediately and cook within a day or freeze. For smoked sausage, have smoker ready, hang sausages in middle of smoker and hot smoke until temperature probe in center of sausage reaches 145 degrees. Keep refrigerated and use within a week, otherwise freeze in airtight package, vacuum seal if possible, Will keep in freezer for 3 months.

I have to add a caveat. Creating sausage recipes can become quite addicting and one can go a bit overboard and begin dredging for things to add to the sausage in various stores and run up some major charges. One of my neighbors is now on an allowance as he got a bit out of hand after buying a new smoker and discovering the joys of home-smoked sausage. He found a local source for buffalo and ostrich and spent a bundle on meat for sausage. His wife was furious when she found that some of the holiday pastries she had in their big freezer had been transferred to the smaller one in their refrigerator to make room for his sausage-making ingredients.

Get an inexpensive electric grinder/stuffer, you will save yourself a great deal of time and have a much better result in the end. Rival makes a couple of small ones that are great. I get my supplies from this vendor. I think they are very good to deal with for a novice. This little Rival with the sausage stuffing attachment, is perfectly adequate for normal home use. In fact, I would venture to guess that you could find one local to you at a discount store for the same price. I doubt that you could burn it out working alone and making sausage for personal consumption. I have a large grinder made by Northern Industrial Tools because I do a lot of meat grinding and need one that handle large amounts but my situation is rather unusual, only because I process game for hunters who don't have their own equipment. I have made some fantastic sausage from venison, elk, boar, and especially duck and goose. Duck sausage is a category all its own and is absolutely wonderful. If you make it you will be hooked for life and will not want to part with your meat grinder and sausage stuffer.

Steel cut oats (also knows as "pinhead" oats) are raw oat grains cut into two or three pieces and have a texture much like kasha, or a well-cooked brown rice. It takes quite a bit longer for the oats to absorb water this way as they have not been steamed and rolled like the flakes. The texture is quite different and, in my opinion, much more pleasant and I believe it has more flavor. You have to try it - you may like it or may not, but you will see how different it is. I have a local health food store that carries them in bulk, but you can buy packaged steel-cut oats from Bob's Red Mill products carried in many stores. There is both the steel cut and the Scottish oat meal, which is a finer grind. Then there is the Irish variety from McCann's Irish Oatmeal (Steel Cut Oats). more expensive. This place carries the traditional Alford Scottish oatmeal as well as their own product. both are excellent.

I don't mind "veggies" or even "veg" because sometimes it is so much easier to abbreviate a long word in either speech or writing. The term foodie is not difficult to understand and certainly describes me to a "T". "Amuse" does not amuse me - I prefer "starters" to the other terms as it makes me feel as if my palate is being primed for the later courses. I don't like servers grabbing my plate or whatever while I am still holding my fork. I prefer to have my salad with my dinner rather than before, sometimes after. It is annoying to request that the server return my salad to the table, or, in one recent case, get me a new one because he set a bowl in the salad before picking up both of them. I also will no longer give my credit card to a server. My boss went to a well known place near his home in Calabasas and a day after giving his card to his server someone tried to order 3000.+ worth of sound equipment on his AMEX card. Fortunately we have a hold on anything over a certain amount that requires AMEX get a verbal authorization from either me or the boss. We complained to the restaurant, the only place he had used the card in a several week period, and later learned a server had been arrested for using a pocket scanner in order to clone cards. I leave a cash tip on the table and carry my check to the cashier for processing. I will not accept service from a server (usually female) who has very long fingernails as I believe they are unsanitary and virtually impossible to keep clean in the short time they have available for hand-washing.

This happened to me many times when I was married to a corporate type back in the early 60s. I was expected to produce a complete dinner and entertain the "visiting firemen" and often their wives, with very little advance notice. Fortunately I learned to be prepared and always had things on hand that I could prepare on fairly short notice. Since many of the guests were European or Brits, they did not expect dinner until fairly late, usually after 9:00 so, while it made for a long day for me, it was at least do-able. After a few years of this I finally decided I was not cut out to be a corp-wife type, particularly after being hit on by one of the biggies who was really obnoxious and even hinted that my husband's job might depend on how "nice" I was to him. I suggested that he consider whether his behavior would stand scrutiny by HIS bosses and he backed off but I was not going to put up with that any longer. It was an amiciable divorce.

I go to the Mexican markets for oxtail, much cheaper and usually much better quality. I haven't bought any lately but have to stop at Vallarta this afternoon on my way home to pick up some cream so will check then. Oxtail soup sounds really good as I view the torrents of rain falling outside the window.

When I was little we were given porridge made with steel-cut oats or cracked wheat and corn mush or grits, all home grown and home ground. With our bowl of porridge we got a small dish of a mixture we called "scumble" which was soft butter, sorghum molasses and heavy cream, warmed and mixed together. We ate what we were served and I can't recall not liking any breakfast cereal, hot or cold. The first time I was presented with a bowl of "regular" oatmeal I couldn't eat it. Later, when I was in the Army, I learned to doctor it with lots of butter, sugar and cream but still didn't care for it. I did enjoy Cream of Wheat, Wheatena, Malt-O-Meal and their various kin as I became acquainted with them. Now my hot cereal for breakfast (and for other purposes, side dish, part of stuffing, etc.,) consists of a mixture of grains, seeds and nuts which I combine myself and cook in a rice cooker with water or milk or with stock, when I want a savory result. I have a grain mill so grind the various grains very coarsely and add the seeds and chopped nuts. This is stored in the freezer so it will not turn rancid.

My final tally, after returning home and finding several boxes left at my neighbor's house, in addition to the things previously mentioned: A gift certificate to Bristol Farms market for $50. an 18 quart copper stockpot and a 6 quart copper stewpot, both with SS lining, Mauviel pro line (2.5). An enormous copper/SS frypan bought in France with a copper-bound glass lid - the card with it says it is 38 centimeters in diameter (15 inches) and 10 cm deep. I don't know the maker and the friend who gave it to me doesn't recall. She bought it in Marseille last fall. I can't read French so can't interpret the remainder of the text. It has a fairly long cast iron handle and a helper handle with really big rivets. Very, very heavy. The "Mitford" cookbook and kitchen reader by Jan Karon. The Curry Club Book of Indian Cuisine : The Best 250 Recipes by PAT CHAPMAN Bouchon by Thomas Keller Dessert University : More Than 300 Spectacular Recipes and Essential Lessons from White House Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier and Foie Gras: A Passion by Michael A. Ginor I also got a gift certificate for $35.00 for the Outback steak house.