Why a Duck?

I should have been warned when the Marx Brothers took on ducks. I have been trying all day to make confit de canard, that delicious dish from Southwest France. All was going as planned until I removed the duck legs from the warm duck fat in which they had been cooking and saw rows of tiny white fence posts lined across the skin. It turns out they are pin feathers, and since I missed the chance to zip-wax them away before they were cooked, I'm now standing in the kitchen with tweezers and pulling them out one by one. The French must have some secret they haven't shared about how to deal with this and still look chic.

Too hot to cook

Summer's here, and it's too hot to cook. Too hot to grill. Too hot to make coffee. I'm trading in my Garland's BTUs for the blender I was given as a graduation present years ago. And with it will whirrrr my way through the summer. Fruit smoothies. Cold soups. Frozen drinks. I wonder what a cabernet slushy would taste like? I will be in my kitchen lab all summer, so tune in to read about the slurpy results. Feel free to share your own successes (or failures). We'll get through global warming together.