The only good thing to come out of me having to go to Auckland this weekend for the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival is . . .
Well, no, there are a few good things. I get to have lunch on Friday with Kevin Ireland and Bernard Brown. Later that night, or maybe Saturday, I get to air-kiss the Listener lovelies Sarah Sandley (publisher) and Pamela Stirling (editor). I also get to go to an exclusive party with William Dalrymple, Rick Gegoski, Thomas Keneally, David Levithan, Yiyun Li, Lionel Shriver, Sarah Thornton and Colm Toibin plus a couple of locals. Yes, I know. Why me?
The host of the party is John Freeman, the editor of Granta. John and I are to do a one-hour session on Sunday about his excellent book Shrinking the World about how email is ruining our lives. Amusingly, or possibly ironically (what would Alanis say?), he does not respond to my emails attempting to find out how he would like the session to go. I’d quite like to know how I am supposed to spend an hour on stage with a total stranger. Ian Rankin wasn’t like this. Nor were Sarah Dunant, Jeffrey Deaver, Harlan Coben or Mark Billingham. It’s a good thing I’m a musician and used to busking it. So, no pressure.
Anyway, apart from that the only good thing to come out of me having to go to Auckland this weekend for the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival is that, because my wife is away too, her parents are coming up from Feilding to look after the children. And because it is duck-shooting season they will bring a duck. A dead duck. A cleaned and gutted dead duck, fortunately.
I have no idea what to do with a dead duck – I have cooked all sorts of strange things including kangaroo, but never a duck – but on Sunday night I will fire up the last barbie of the year and deal to it. An orange up its bum and whack it on the grill? All suggestions are welcome, especially if your name is Lauraine, Ray or Annabel.
What fun you shall have (I am speaking of the party, not the duck). Do let me know if you have any free time.
ReplyDeleteWill do.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about dead ducks but here is a song about dead skunks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqTSev-_lQ
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that Loudon Wainwright, for it is he, had a hard time coming to terms with his son Rufus being gay. But, I mean, look at him.
He also looks a bit like Hugh Laurie around the time of Blackadder. Which is really weird.
Don't barbie it, mate. I'd slow roast it. Whatever. Yennyhoo wine recommendation - nice gamey Central Otago Pinot. Bon appetit
ReplyDeleteI'm with Phil, move away from the barbie!! Fine for farmed duck, but with wild critters you can't count the teeth to see how old they are. If you've time, a slow roast, with quartered orange, some redcurrent jelly, a red onion and some of that pinot. Then rest the duck while making the pot remnants into gravy, shred meat into gravy, and you'll have lots of flavour to go with wickedly mashed potato. Mind the shotgun pellets!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sp8y. You'd know about duck-wrangling, but it was your uncle who provided the duck and your aunt, who as you know can cook a bit, reckoned that slow cooking is for the farmed birds, which are fatty and wild ones aren't. The uncle said he didn't know about cooking ducks: "I don't like eating them, I just like shooting them."
ReplyDeleteBut I found a recipe for wild duck in David Burton's "200 Years of NZ Food and Cookery" and it is similar to yours, three hours at 300F. It has the orange but not the pinot, which wasn't so widely available in colonial times. I think we can update the recipe by adding some pinot to the dish and also to the cook.