One of the best TV cooking shows ever made was Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home with Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. I have the DVDs and love watching them. The series was originally on in 1994 and 1995. Julia was 83 years old, starting to show her age a bit, but still a great cook and very funny. Jacques was always the gentleman, doing most of the heavy work, but never in a condescending way. Just always there, anticipating what Julia might need and covering up for her if she happened to get forgetful. The premise of the show was that they would both prepare the same main ingredient in their own style. Watching the shows I feel like I'm sitting in a friend's kitchen, listening to the banter about whose dish is better, excitement over learning a new technique and enjoying the good-natured teasing. Oh yeah, and their recipes are fantastic!! 
My companion book to the series, autographed by Jacques:
I love duck but this is only my second attempt at cooking one. The first was 39 years ago! My brother Steve & I were huge fans of the Foxfire books and decided we were going to be homesteaders in Alaska - I was 16 and he was 14. We were going to build our own log home, grow our own vegetables, make our own clothes, our own soap .. it was the 70's.. you get the picture. If we were going to be self-sufficient we were going to have to learn how to raise and butcher our own meat, so Steve built a cement pond in our back yard and raised two ducks. When the day came for us to kill the ducks we called in backup help. My boyfriend was a hunter so he came over to instruct us on how to chop off the duck's head with an axe, remove the feathers and other duck stuff. My father was appalled, called us cannibals and told us to call him at a friend's house when we were finished with our duck dinner. I don't remember how the duck tasted, but I do remember that my mom cooked it for dinner for our family that night, minus dad of course. It might have been the tough task of plucking out all the duck feathers or it might have been that we grew up and had to enter the real world, but my brother and I never made it to Alaska to build our log cabin. But we sure did have fun planning and dreaming!
My companion book to the series, autographed by Jacques:I love duck but this is only my second attempt at cooking one. The first was 39 years ago! My brother Steve & I were huge fans of the Foxfire books and decided we were going to be homesteaders in Alaska - I was 16 and he was 14. We were going to build our own log home, grow our own vegetables, make our own clothes, our own soap .. it was the 70's.. you get the picture. If we were going to be self-sufficient we were going to have to learn how to raise and butcher our own meat, so Steve built a cement pond in our back yard and raised two ducks. When the day came for us to kill the ducks we called in backup help. My boyfriend was a hunter so he came over to instruct us on how to chop off the duck's head with an axe, remove the feathers and other duck stuff. My father was appalled, called us cannibals and told us to call him at a friend's house when we were finished with our duck dinner. I don't remember how the duck tasted, but I do remember that my mom cooked it for dinner for our family that night, minus dad of course. It might have been the tough task of plucking out all the duck feathers or it might have been that we grew up and had to enter the real world, but my brother and I never made it to Alaska to build our log cabin. But we sure did have fun planning and dreaming!So back to 2009 and I'm ready, with Jacques & Julia's help, to cook a duck:
I cut the duck into pieces:
Rendered the fat from around the neck in a skillet and added the duck pieces (seasoned with salt and pepper), skin side down, in a large pan. Cooked, uncovered, for about 25 minutes. I turned the pieces over and put in shallots, garlic, bay leaf and fresh thyme:
Next, I covered the pan and cooked for another 30 minutes. I removed the duck from the pan, poured off (and saved to use in another recipe) the fat. Added some water to scrape up the crispy bits and poured over the duck.
I also sauteed some baby beet greens we had bought at the Farmer's Market in a little olive oil and garlic:
As Jacques and Julia would say Happy Cooking and Bon Appetit!!
The duck was delicious and what great memories of my Foxfire days it brought back.
The duck was delicious and what great memories of my Foxfire days it brought back.
1 comment:
This is a great story about you and your brother. Something tells me your political views have changed.
Post a Comment