Home for the Holiday

The in-laws came Downeast for the extended Thanksgiving weekend. The past couple years my father-in-law, Ken, and I have hunted deer together at Thanksgiving, sort of continuing the tradition my dad and I began when I was a pup. My dad gave up hunting a few years ago, so our tradition now is for me to call him after I get in from deer hunting.


Thursday morning was crispy, upper 20s firming up the rain of the preceding day. I dropped Ken off in the dark to walk to his tree stand, then continued on to my parking spot. I had a quick half mile walk to where I'd left my climber attached to an oak looking over a fairly open side hill. The deer and bears had been feeding on acorns.


The bark of the tree was slick with an icy film, causing me to be extra careful and deliberate ascending to my perch. An hour into my sit, I was wondering when I'd be able to get out for a duck hunt... a flicker of white off to the left got my attention. Within a minute I saw it again. Through the developing fog I could make out the form of a deer facing me, head down nibbling acorns about 100 yards away, the tail occasionally twitching a flash of white. Cranked the scope to 7 power; when the head came up I could see antlers. Small antlers. This time of year, yearling head gear is first choice for choice eating... if you even have a choice. In my 8-10 hours of hunting this year, this was the first deer I'd seen, buck or doe. Around here, with a deer density well below 10 deer per square mile, it's always bucks-only hunting.


The buck was slowly heading in my direction, munching acorns. He drifted a little downslope, but still advancing in my general direction. Then he drifted into a beech thicket, and soon I lost sight of him. Then I couldn't hear foot steps. After 10 minutes of not seeing or hearing "my" buck, I started to worry he'd simply walked away. Or bedded down? I pulled out my trusty Primos "canned heat" doe bleat can. Baaa baaa. Immediately I heard foot steps, but my eyes straining through the fog failed to locate the source. Then I saw him.... walking away. Another bleat, and he's no longer walking away, now he's running away!

A year ago I used the same call to bring in (*almost* for a shot) a mature buck not 200 yards from this location. This year's buck most certainly was not high in the pecking order in these parts. A deer trotted through an opening 80 yards downslope, but I could not see antlers. Through another opening at 85 yards... I saw antlers. I was ready when the buck stopped in an opening at 90 yards. It disappeared at the shot. I kept the scope trained on the spot; 30 seconds later I saw a brief flicker of white, and began descending the tree. The buck lay dead where I shot him, the bullet entering the chest high behind the shoulder, breaking the spine. Not the preferred neck shot, but the carcasse damage wasn't too bad. And the tag was filled, duck/bird hunting opportunities awaited, no longer constrained by the concern to put deer meat in the freezer.

Propped up for draining.

Slid easily on oak leaves.

Yearling 3-point, field dressed 103. I gave dad a call, told him the story.



We arrived home for lunch to an enthusiastic reception.

Ken watched a large cow moose Thursday morning, and a doe the next. Angela hunted deer for the first time Friday morning. In 5 hours she saw no deer but plenty of sign. Seems eager to try again.

Saturday night we had a meal that needs mentioning. The whole holiday weekend was more or less a game feed, with woodcock and fresh deer tenderloin on the menu Saturday. I prepared the woodcock according to Pete's blog entry of October 08. Rave reviews from all -- the legs were especially liked by the women and boys, the breasts being craved by the men and the boys. So far I'm on the good side of the dog spirits.

The deer was delectible as well.

Spider/Black Lake Woodcock

My sister lives around the corner from the restaurant March. I haven't been there for years, as our last bill for four was around $500 and my brother-in-law graciously offered to bail me out. Embarrassment aside, Wayne Nish, the chef/owner, knows how to cook wild game (as opposed to farm raised). He published the following recipe for woodcock, memorable in that it not only uses those tiny legs, but it elevates them to the level of culinary centerpiece.

Four woodcock - legs in skin, breasts w/or w/o skin
2 cups upland bird stock
1 shallot, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 TBSP coriander seed
2 bay leaves
1 TBSP fresh thyme
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp sea salt

The legs (prepare these first - roughly 1-2 hrs)
Put legs in saucepan with 1.5 cups stock, shallot, garlic, coriander seeds, bay leavs, thyme, peppercorns and salt. Bring to boil, then back down heat, simmer for 1 to 2 hrs (check occasionally to see if more stock is needed).

The breasts (cook when legs are essentially done)
This is the straight forward Tantillo/Weik method (let's call it the Kate method): season breasts with pepper and salt, light dusting of flour for texture, sautee in hot olive oil (smoking) to sear exterior, leaving interior bright enough to scare away those with PETA inclinations. I like to add a bit o' chopped garlic so that the breasts stand up to the legs (I think that is in keeping with the Kate method too). Cook breasts primarily on one side, so that a good crisp skin develops, to contrast with the succulent interior. Do not flip them too early. If you overcook them, the ghost of every good woodcock dog will haunt you until the next time you prepare this recipe, when you will undoubtedly cook them properly.

The plate (serves 4)
Symmetry is nice, keeping legs and breasts separate. These morsels are worth more than their weight in gold, so serving only one leg/breast per plate offers a warranted tease/lesson. A toast point can be used to soak the delicious braising liquid from the legs.

Steelhead Conversion

Happy New Year grousers! I had a minor conversion last Sunday. That's right, I went fishing on Elk Creek, a tributary of Lake Erie that is loaded with steelhead. The water was perfect, and the spawning fish were everywhere. I really enjoyed being able to see the two to three foot fish in the narrow confines of the creek. Sight fishing, if that is what it is called, is a lot like hunting. In the words of my son, "My likes it." I'm convinced that I would have been better off with a fly rod than my spinning combination, but I can't deny being handicapped by my own limited skills. I lost quite a few fish and managed to land my one trophy in the waning minutes of the day: a beautiful 25" male who has been reduced to two fat filets, curing in sea salt, sugar, pepper and coriander seed. He'll be absorbing applewood smoke in a few hours, when I return from chasing grouse in last night's fresh snow. What a great way to start the new year. May your new year be filled with all that brings meaning to this world: family, career, hunting, fishing and gravlox (append or rearrange this list to fit your own aspirations)!

PS, I clipped the picture off of a random internet site (alas I had no camera on Sunday), but the fish and background aren't far from what I experienced.

A rare duck indeed

So it was my turn to don the mantle of "The Reluctant Gourmet" in the conspicuous absence of the Great Gourmet and Grand Gourmand, our own Peter Kleinman. And we had killed more than a few ducks on our opening day at Black Lake, 2006. ( I hope those stories are forthcoming.)


The menu was hoped to be elegant yet simple. Pan-seared duck and wild rice, a nice Finger Lakes wine, and a mixed greens salad with viniagrette. After a misfire with the finicky gas stove at "our" lodge over looking the Narrows of Black Lake, called Lakewood, I was off and cooking. Things went right and dinner was served...or at least that was how it could have been.

For the record, and in my defense, naturally, I felt I would do my good comrades in arms some small service in at least providing justification for my culinary choices, said choices having been foisted upon two unlucky comrades at least one other time.

According to L. P. De Gouy, author of the Bible of wild fish and game culinary artistry The Derrydale Cook Book of Fish and Game (1937), "The different methods of preparation of all the wild ducks including mallard, canvasback, and ruddy ducks, may be applied to the teal duck. Without exception, wild ducks should be cooked and served rare" (p.113). De Gouy goes on to say, "I have no apostolic (should we say academic instead) avocation, but if I had been a missionary instead of a chef, it would have been most certainly my irresistable duty to convert the culinary barbarism, the vandals, who under the pretense of enjoying a duck, be it wild or domestic, begin to bleed completely this delicious bird. They most certainly do not know that the duck. above all its excellent gifts in cookery, is a philosopher (my emphasis) and as such never worries, never frets, and never loses its presence of mind, having a sort of knowledge that it was born to end in a pot for the enjoyment of the human species. Then why throw away (or cook away) what is best, what is most precious in it--its blood?"(p. 126).

Irma Rombauer, the author of the bible of all cooking, The Joy of Cooking (I have the 1995 version) echoes the sentiment above when she writes "...most dark fowl is cooked vert-cuit or saignant, that is, roasted brown on the outside under high heat, but still rare and running with juice and blood within" (p. 436).

So I didn’t break any rules. No breech in culinary tradition, cultural norms or mores. But Taste, Taste is a finicky thing. There is of course the way food tastes. That kind of taste is comprised of five primary senses detected on the palate. They are salt, sour, sweet, bitter, and "umami"-a Japanese word describing a savory essence. All foods exhibit one or more of these components. Then there is Taste.

Taste (according to Wikipedia) refers to appreciation for aesthetic quality, significantly applying the purely physical term to an intellectual quality. In such contexts Taste begins to be used in a metaphorical sense to refer to certain degrees of cultural competence, closely related to the concept of discrimination; it can set distinctions between "tasteful" and "tasteless" or the embodiments of "good taste" or "bad taste", thus providing categories for social division and reinforcing cultural hierarchy.

So, Taste came into play at Duck Camp. Put simply, no matter what culinary luminaries like De Gouy and Rombauer have to say about internal temperatures of duck breast, the Band of Brothers at Black Lake Duck Camp insisted that red inside was tantamount to cultural incompetence and in bad taste, thus reinforcing a social hierarchy, in which I, the cook, was commanded to return to my post immediately and remedy the transgression post haste, which I dutifully did. I did my best to salvage the duck meal, but felt the sting of having been besmirched. Worse, this was a repeat performance, as I had served rare duck once before, with similar reviews, as I mentioned earlier. And of course, we are now dealing with the specter of Avian Bird Flu, complicating the Duck tar-tar issue considerably.

So here it is, my mea culpa. I am guilty of the aforementioned breech of taste, at least that of the Black Lake Band of Brothers, for which I humbly repent. I promise I will never burden my friends with bloody duck breasts again, so help me God.