The plan, in my head anyway, was to get a fat roast beast of some sort - beef, of course.

Except on Friday, Hubby calls me with the news that a buddy of his at work (EXTREME RIGHT republican, loves hunting, hunts for duck whenever it's allowed) has come through with 6 - count 'em, SIX - ducks. For Hubby. Oh, my.

I worried about freezer space - but more about that later.
So I scuttled the plans for BEEF and decided to wing the ducks (pun intended. Please laugh here.). Even managed to pick out a recipe from the book included (though the duck packages were, amazingly, very small. No freezer worries, after all, unfortunately.).

The book said that teal ducks were tasty morsels. (Basically if you open your mouth REAL wide, you can fit a whole, cleaned teal duck inside. Um. Anyway.)

So yesterday I worked, even though I was still half-shell-shocked from working two shifts on Thursday - 10-5, and then 9:30pm to 2:40am Friday, doing markdowns. I worked 11-5 on Saturday, ran to Christmas Eve dinner at Jeff & Jodi's house (the reason we came to Simi to begin with) and it was of course wonderful. Came home to Champagne and Annie, my new guitar, so that, too was wonderful.

This morning we had a good time with stockings and presents and Zaphod tackled every bit of paper that flew his way. But this evening's dinner of Teal Duck in a Shallot Reduction sauce will remain in my memory for a very long time.

I used two ducks for boullion (brown sauce)-did you know when you hunt waterfowl in the U.S. you have to save one wing, so the Fish & Game Dept. can tell what it was you caught and if you're in the limit? Anyway, after I cut off the one wing left, I made boullion from two of the birds. The rest I saved for dinner.

Um. Well. Perhaps the recipe meant European Teal Ducks and not the plain ol' U.S. variety. Even with the tiny birds cut in half, they didn't get cooked all the way through (it SAID 5 minutes per side!). Well, some of it did, and some of it didn't. The hubby said parts of his bird were excellent - but the Shallot Reduction sauce (made from duck boullion) was especially wonderful. Which it was. The highlight of the meal.

Luckily none of us are immense eaters. All the veggies got eaten as usual, but perhaps faster than normal. And dessert is even now being consumed.

But duck for dinner, to be exact TEAL DUCK for dinner? Hm. Perhaps not any time soon. It'll probably end up in a boullion first.

Hope your Christmas had less fowl in it!