DUCK!

I went grocery shopping in February and have no intention of going again until September. Except for milk and eggs. I suppose I could manage with powdered milk, but unless I clear a sizeable portion of the OK Bay bush for a chook run, eggs are a problem.

Actually I tell a lie. I admit to a mid siege toilet paper re-stock. It is after all rather difficult to store 7 months’ worth of the essential tissue. (Mind you, I did vacuum seal 6 dozen rolls for the Tonga sailing trip. They reduce to about 1/8th volume, a fact of which you may have previously been unaware. You pay for an awful lot of air in a dunny roll.)

So now in month six of my shopping embargo, I’m at the “interesting” stage of the weekly freezer forage to see what’s on offer for the coming culinary week. Bags labelled “prawn shells”, “leftover Christmas ham”, or worse, “liver” seem all too prevalent. I decide it’s time to liberate the duck from its icy grave. He is christened Donald and placed in the fridge for two days to thaw. I ignore the fact that Donald might be a Daffy and doubt that he/she will be offended if I got it wrong.

Saturday. Duck Day. Being a duck-cooking virgin, dealing with Donald requires research. I plough through a score of cookbooks and 35 years accumulated recipe cuttings. My, how one’s tastes have changed since the 70’s! I get side-tracked wondering how the hell I ever thought Boston Sausage (a bright orange casserole of boiled sausages, carrots and curry powder, cooked in a tin of Watties condensed tomato soup) was a dish worthy of repetition.

As it would be glutinous (I’m thinking that should be gluttinous?) to roast a whole duck just for one, and being unwilling to let friends witness what could be Duck Disaster, I conclude that Donald’s breasts (that just sounds all wrong doesn’t it?) are best suited to pan frying, and the legs to a slower method of cooking. I’ll make duck soup from the leftover bits, not to mention all the fabulous duck fat I’ll have for roasting potatoes at a later date.

It seems that confit legs are the way to go, but as this apparently involves simmering them in an obscene amount (like half a kilo) of fat for 3 hours, I decide that Braised Duck Legs with Pears and Spinach will be a little less scary. I also like the sound of Pan-Fried Duck Breasts with a Berry Sauce, “the sharpness of the berries offsetting the richness of the duck”. I choose Mat Follas’ berry sauce recipe, which involves only blackberries, redcurrants, rowanberries and a wee bit of sugar (noting that one should “err on the side of tartness”). I also note that I haven’t got any redcurrants and doubt that we even grow rowanberries in NZ, but plenty of frozen blackberries (foraged by my boss and swapped for a jar of my tamarillo chutney), strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.

I wonder if a strawberry and blackberry sauce would be just too weird? The strawberries would sweeten up the blackberries which, being wild, are bound to be on the sharpish side, but would the strawberry perfume overpower? I Google “duck + strawberry” and get 177,000 hits, so decide to run with it, disappointed that I haven’t invented a new culinary sensation.

Donald is lying on his back on the chopping board, legs vulgarly splayed, looking a lot less like a chicken than I would prefer. I reckon I could joint a chicken with my eyes closed, and even bone one out completely with just the odd peek, but the duck breast/leg demarcation doesn’t seem very pronounced as I nervously raise the knife. The end result looks a bit butchered, and I don’t mean in a skilled craftsman kind of way. There’s a hell of a lot of Donald left over, an inordinate quantity of frame, fat and skin.

I decide to roast off the large leftover bits/bones ready for making soup. I don’t know why I decided to do that instead of just boiling them up. Maybe I saw it on TV? The smaller bits I throw in a hot frying pan with a view to rendering the precious fat.

The oven is now spitting in a 2-cans-of-Mr-Muscles-will-be-required-to-clean-it kind of way, bits of Donald are leaping out of an exploding frying pan and the smoke alarm has gone off twice before I decide I should Google “how to render duck fat”. It seems the best way is to boil it up and scrape the fat off when it’s set the next day. Ooops. However you can do it in a frypan if you cut the duck into very little pieces (ooops) and continually drain the fat off (ooops) as it forms, leaving you with very tasty duck “scratchings” which of course I most certainly will not eat. Numm, numm, numm.

The cooking process is interrupted when I realise it’s getting cold and dark and I’d better bring the washing in. I put a pair of wool trousers in to soak, hoping that Napisan will remove duck fat.



The blackberries, strawberries and raspberries (what the hell, at least I drew the line at blueberries) go into a frying pan that I really should have cleaned more thoroughly after last night’s Po Kor Curry. The smell and look of the berries is heavenly (despite a faint curry overtone) and I somehow refrain from adding anything else, following Mat Follas’ recipe religiously (well, apart from omitting two-thirds of the ingredients). I push the berries through a strainer and think the pulp will go nicely in next week’s banana smoothies. The sauce I could bury my face in, it’s so utterly divine.

A phone call from Mother, a visit from Betty, and I’m starting to get mighty hungry. What would go well with Donald Breast and Berry Sauce? I think a potato or parsnip mash, or maybe cauliflower puree? The problem is they’re all so white and look rather sad on a white plate, which is all I’ve got. But maybe some green beans with butter, lemon juice and zest will save the day?

By now the best part of a bottle of wine has been used in the cooking process (and I don’t mean as an ingredient), a sauvalanche warning is imminent and things are slightly losing shape. I put the potatoes on to boil, noting that there are only 2 left, none growing and no prospect of producing any until Christmas, which is a shame now that I’ve got all that lovely duck fat and nothing to roast in it. I could buy some spuds I suppose . . . .

Donald’s breasts are seasoned and scored, fried skin side down for 5 minutes, finished in the oven for a few minutes and left to rest. Unlike chicken, the flesh should be pink. I put the potatoes through a ricer (it really does make good mash), mix with hot (yes, it matters!) milk and butter, overcook the beans dreadfully and serve up something that doesn’t look very attractive at all.

It was delicious though. A lot better than prawn shells or liver. And despite setting a new World and Olympic record for Most Number Of Dirty Dishes Produced By One Person, I’m officially a duck convert.

GETTING STARTED

Sunday afternoon, and it’s bitterly cold. Despite having the heater on (unusual for Ms Frugality), long johns, track pants, 2 pairs of socks, thermal shirt, sweatshirt, polar fleece and beanie, I’m still freezing.

The last of the rat poison has just been distributed into the ceiling and “call exterminators” noted on Monday’s To Do list. I can hear Elvis, Janis, Michael (and friends I think) cavorting around up there and I’m throwing the towel in. Time to get a man in.

So, a couple of hours to spare before the next scheduled task. What to write about? Nothing springs to mind. But they say when you’ve got writers’ block you just need to start.

Waiting . . . .

Hmmm . . . .

Ummm . . . .

Have a coffee . . . .

OK, OK, I’m doing it . . . .

Betty from 3 doors down called in yesterday. She often stops by on her daily walk and being a keen gardener herself we swap drought/flood/snail stories. More often than not she catches me engaged in some ridiculous activity (this time threading toilet roll inners over the leeks, it’s supposed to help produce nice white stems), which I suspect is the real reason she interrupts her constitutional.

Betty: “I got rid of him last week, you know”

Me: “Who?”

(Worried. After the unfortunate experience of finding my other neighbour dead in his garden last year, I’m alert to anything suspicious.)

Betty: “My partner. “We’ve been together 11 years but he’s impossible so I kicked him out”.

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that”.

Betty: “He’s probably not going to change is he?”

Me: “Well . . .

Betty: “He’s 81”

Me: “Possibly not”.

I showed Betty “Trouser Carrot”, my mutant vegetable of the week.

It’s a shame she never saw “Loch Ness Kumara”, which has been my most spectacularly deformed vegetable to date, even better than “Hard-on Tomato”.

I took Loch Ness Kumara to work to show the girls, but not before torturing them with a week-long build up to The Big Reveal. With daily clues such as “It Took Patience and Commitment” and “It’s Been a Long Time Coming”, some rather unkind guesses were made as to the subject, namely that I had been asked out on a date, and crueller, that I had had sex. Needless to say they were bitterly disappointed when LNK was revealed.

Betty went on to tell me that her dream house at OK Bay had become too much for her to handle, and she was selling up and moving to a unit in Orewa. And that she would miss my antics. Uh oh. Just how much has she witnessed?

I know she knows about the snail hotel because she caught me feeding lettuce leaves and spring onions to a large plastic bin tastefully decorated with rotting wood, dirt, a lid punched with airholes and occupied by a dozen of the largest late night harvested snails.

Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . . ?“

(she’s forgotten my name but too many years chatting have elapsed to enlighten her without causing embarrassment. I once cleared the letterbox while we were talking and held a letter with my name on it as strategically as possible, to no avail).

Me: “We’re having a snail race at work on Melbourne Cup Day”.

Betty: “I see”.

I don’t think she did though. I should have invited her down a week later when I was attaching race numbers to the shells, then she might have got it.

Then of course there was the Mrs McKee (a scarecrow I made for the vege garden 2 houses ago) incident.

Complete with wig, beret, handbag and matronly op shop clothes over a stuffed double-F sized bra (an embarrassing item to purchase even if it was from a clearance bin) she really was rather lifelike. Unfortunately Mrs McKee’s neck was broken during the move to OK Bay, so I had her laid out on the deck and was removing her cardigan, blouse and bra, with a view to effecting repairs, when Betty stopped by.

Betty: “What are you doing now, um . . .?“

Me: “Trying to fix Mrs McKee’s broken neck”

Betty: “I see”

Which of course she didn’t, the whole scene not improved by Fluffy playing toss-and-chase with the double-F.

I know Betty’s also seen me washing my car in the dark, working on the roof in a sunfrock, gumboots and a builders apron, constructing a coconut bra, blow drying a stuffed buffalo, disguising a cow as a reindeer, not to mention walking past her house every Boxing Day with my extended family variously attired as (for example) Tarzan, Speedy Gonzales, Caesar, Athena the Greek Goddess, Heidi, Pania of the South Seas, and a Geisha Girl, on our way to the beach for the OK Bay Olympics.

However I sincerely hope she didn’t witness the Undy ‘n Apples 500 trial-on-the-deck run. A new event for the OK Bay Olympics must of course be tested for suitability before being unleashed. Especially one that involves sprinting in a pair of men’s white waist-high 4XL Jockey Y-fronts with two large apples shoved down the front. Objective: cover the course as fast as possible whilst retaining the apples in the gusset region.

It was dark on my deck. I hope. And as you can see from the photo, despite a practice run, success on the day is not guaranteed.

So there you have it. It’s true, you just have to make a start and before you know it you’ve achieved the written equivalent of verbal diarrhoea . . .

ELVIS

Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Elvis has not left the building. He’s in my ceiling. A rat.

When I first heard him a couple of months ago he sounded like a mouse, but he’s put on a awful lot of weight. Next he’ll be starring in crap Hollywood movies and performing in Vegas.

I could live with Elvis when he was younger, but the late night partying and anti-social behaviour has become intolerable. And now he’s got a girlfriend. Janis.

Why didn’t I deal with him when he was a mouse? Too busy. Getting the death-trap-ladder out of the garage and into the house, sticking my head up the manhole and lobbing poison around never made it to the top of the infinite Weekend List. Plus I have a problem with animals suffering. I don’t mind eating them, but they must have led a reasonably happy life and be dispatched quickly and humanely. One of the worst things about owning a cat (Fluffy, RIP) was having to rescue the birds, skinks and mice she tormented, assess their likelihood of survival if liberated, and finish them off if necessary. A truly hideous task.

I can live with killing slugs, snails, white cabbage butterflies and a gazillion other bugs if we’re competing for my vege crop, although finding a suitable murder method has been problematic. I’ve tried the bucket of salt water, but watching snails attempting dog-paddle is way too upsetting. Likewise throwing them on the road. Ditto over the neighbours fence, their shells shattering on impact. The only acceptable solution is to squash them dead instantly, which turns my stomach but at least it’s quick. Of course since starting Chef School I don’t have a whole lot of energy for midnight snail-raids, so I’ve taken to planting way more than I need. The gastropods and I share the spoils.

So although poisoning is not really an acceptable solution, discharging my air rifle in the ceiling would undoubtedly put my life at risk. Apparently the “drugs” I’ve solicited for Elvis and Janis will make them rather thirsty and they’ll leave the building in search of water. What happens after that I do not want to know. This is assuming they “come to the party” which so far they haven’t. Obviously the random toss of a handful of large blue pills in the general direction isn’t sufficient. This weekend I’ll have to actually crawl over to their hideout and somehow make the deal look more attractive. Maybe a credit card, a $100 bill and a glass coffee table will do the trick?

Elvis’ favourite playground is directly above my bed, in the most inaccessible part of the ceiling. Until last week he stayed outside until about 2:00 a.m. when he’d scuttle along the corrugated iron roof, find an ingress (which I’m loathe to block up, even if I could find it, until he’s definitely left the building), party up large for an hour or so, no doubt snacking on ceiling insulation and electrical cables, before leaving via the same route, possibly back to his wife.

Banging on the wall with my fist and the ceiling with a broomstick used to shut him up until I got back to sleep, but now I think he takes it as encouragement, kind of like the band warming up, or a sound test. Twice last night I rolled out of bed in a Bruce Willis style dodge-the-bullets manoeuvre, certain that Elvis was coming through the flimsy ¼” ceiling tiles. I do NOT want to be showered in rat shit, nor have a furry creature spread-eagled on my face in the style of Daniel Boone’s coonskin cap worn back to front.

Speaking of rat shit, and still clutching onto the hope that it was a mouse, a possum, or the neighbours’ cat, I consulted a male friend after I’d been up the manhole and surveyed the debris:

Me: “What does ratshit look like?”

Friend: “You on a Saturday morning”

Me: “Thanks. I mean rat shit”

Friend: “Like mouse shit, but bigger”

Me: “Shit”.

Even I know that possum shit looks more like sheep shit, and we all know what cat shit looks like. And it sure as hell was bigger than any mouse shit I’ve ever seen, bugger it.

No offence intended to the real Elvis by naming my rat after him. Nor Janis for that matter. I’m a huge Elvis fan, and remember exactly the day he died. I was emptying the rubbish after school, into a paper Kleensak, and the rubbish was wrapped in newspaper. (Stop! I feel myself getting started on another topic i.e. do we really think plastics are progress?) when the news came over the radio. I was wearing powder blue hipster bell bottoms with a desert scene painted on the legs, a yellow/orange tie-dyed grandpa shirt (no doubt purchased from Cook St Market and not made in China. Oops, there I go again!), topped off with a very trendy “shaggy” haircut, achieved through the liberal use of the Comet 4-in-1 razor comb.

Anyway, I was devastated. Only a couple of weeks prior I’d won an Elvis book via a competition on the radio. Can’t remember what the question was, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever won other than the odd chook raffle and meat tray at the pub.

But undying love notwithstanding, I really want Elvis to leave the building, and ultimately my “visitors” will meet the same fate as their namesakes, given their outrageous lifestyles.

To Elvis’ (the rat’s) credit, he’s highlighted the need to remove an old unproductive plum tree scraping against the roof, get rid of piles of rotting vegetation lying around the place, install ceiling insulation (having finally stuck my head up the manhole and discovered there is none), and he actually woke me up in time for the NZ v Italy FIFA football match when I forgot to set my alarm.

During a girlie weekend at Orua Bay a couple of years ago we spotted a sign at one of the classic Kiwi baches: “This parking space is reserved for Elvis”. Priceless. Unfortunately this parking space is not.

Long live Elvis. Just somewhere else please?