duck

One of the wings was clipped, the other one wasn't. Carelessness, or what? Trussed to force the breast upward on the other side, once the body is inverted breast-side up. Otherwise the body splays out flatly.  Much like young females gamely pop up their perky firm little breasts by thrusting back their shoulders. What? Look, I have two sisters, ah'ight? I've seen them in action. They taught me, by observation, much of what I know. 

Not shown: bacon cut into pieces and rendered for its fat, which come to think of it seems kind of odd considering the duck is releasing its own delicious and useful fat by the cup while this is going on. The bacon is held separately and the fat used to cook the cleaned collard greens which were trimmed of their central rib individually.  A small amount of water was added to the pot, approximately 1/2 cup, and the lid placed on the pot, which happened to be a pressure cooker. Not necessary, but it does work admirably to soften the resistant greens. The cooker is cooled and opened, and used again for the Brussels sprouts, also otherwise somewhat recalcitrant. 

The thing about pressure cookers is that it allows water to get much hotter than its limitation at sea level, which is even more severe at altitude. Putting water to pressure with heat is like boiling water at 17,000 ft. below sea level, over three miles. Isn't that fun? 

So it only takes a minute to put on some serious damage. 

The seeds are beaten out of the pomegranate. That's fun too. See all the splatter marks on the bowl. The pomegranate half is held over the bowl and it is struck on its backside repeatedly with a wooden spoon until all the seeds come flying out with not a small amount of force. 

Charles Dickens put me in the mood for goose. I never cooked a goose before. The frozen geese at the market are presently priced at $60.00 a pop. Right next to them are ducks priced at $16.00. The geese are larger than the ducks, yes, but they are not 4 X larger. Frankly, I do not understand the difference between them. Maybe the difference is significant and  sufficient to justify the cost. I do not know. I thought it best for now to practice with a duck. 

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Canadian geese used to land by the thousands at a small lake directly behind my parents home at the foothills of the Colorado Rockies, God's own country. They call them foothills here, piedmonts everywhere else, the same thing different language.

My brother had my German Shepherd with him on a hike out there beyond the lake. The dog, always up for a good run, was perhaps one of the most interactive companion K-9s a boy could ever ask, if not always the most reliably obedient. The dog raced ahead of my brother and sent up an entire flock of Canadian Geese by the hundreds all at once. Some are slower to flight than others. Pilots will tell you getting airborne at altitude is different than at sea level because the air is less dense, and you do need air flowing over and under the wing to get up. It is especially difficult on hot days during periods of low pressure. Birds, of course, experience something similar to airplanes. They can flap their asses off and get nowhere if the air is insufficiently dense to lift themselves off the ground. In the least it is more difficult. You see where this is going. 

The dog leapt into the air spectacularly and pulled down a goose by the foot and triumphantly killed it. My brother nearly pissed himself and they sped home, terrified the dog had done something regretfully illegal for which there would be consequence but unabashedly proud of the dog's remarkable athletic eclat. The dog, always happy no matter what, could not comprehend why we wouldn't keep the prize, and thinking back on it, neither do I.  

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