Maggie's Farm

Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas (h/t, reader).

An annual re-post, for our readers with game in their freezers:

A few more Maggie's Farm favorites, but first, remember: always salt and pepper your meat before cooking, never over-cook game, and keep a good supply of gibier sauce in your freezer.

For venison, elk and moose

The filets - tie them up tight, and cook as you do a beef filet mignon

The steaks - marinated overnight in olive oil, garlic, thyme, a little wine, and grilled rare

The stew meat (which is most of it) - Our favorite is to make a Bourguignon, but a Navarin is also excellent. I call these two recipes "savory meats."

Pheasant, duck and goose legs

Our habit, with duck, goose and pheasant, is to cook the breasts and to confit the legs and thighs. When you confit them, the tendons melt and they are a great accompaniment for a salad. A container of confit in the fridge will last for months. Just take 'em out and warm them in the oven and let the duck fat from the confit drip off, and either pick the meat off and toss it with the greens, or just put the warmed leg with thigh on top of the salad. Good idea to mix some warm gibier sauce in with the oil and vinegar dressing.

Pheasant

We like pheasant breast sauteed to pink in the middle, in butter and olive oil, on a bed of red cabbage (braised with bacon, a little vinegar, port), with wild mushrooms and braised and sauteed root vegetables - or mashed potato, on the side. You splash some reduced gibier sauce on top.

Woodcock

We treat the delectable but tiny woodcock with special care. We don't do it like the French (a sauce from all of its guts, and served with a toothpick to eat the brain with). Sautee the tiny breasts for a number of seconds on each side in hot butter and some truffle oil, and place on toast. Squish the livers into the butter and oil to make a sauce with a splash of brandy or something, and pour on top. Amazing first course.

Or, even better: woodcock ravioli. Chop very finely, then sautee shallot, carrot, and a little garlic. Very quickly sautee the woodcock breasts, then cut into small pieces. Mix above together with some truffle oil and spoon into your ravioli pasta or wontons. Serve splashed with gibier sauce with a couple of sauteed porcinis. A nice touch: shave some black truffle over the raviolis on the plate.

Ruffed Grouse

Grouse hunters are a special breed of human - bull-headed and foolish - and the Ruffed Grouse is a special kind of food. Every grouse hunter has his favorite way of preparing this subtle but delicious breast meat, like a dry chicken, but a chicken that has been raised on juniper berries and raspberries and mushrooms and aspen buds and fern fronds. One way we like is to brown the breasts quickly, then wrap in bacon and bake until the middle is pink. Serve on a bed of lentils with chopped shallots and carrots in them, with a splash of gibier sauce on top, root vegetables maybe on the side.

Canada Goose

Pests? Not on your life. They are great food. Marinate those dark meat, steak-like breasts overnight. Some love 'em on the grill, like steak. That's fine, but also good is to sautee them in oil and butter to your degree of done-ness, then serve thinly sliced with a gibier sauce.

Wild Duck

We have more favorite ways of cooking wild duck than I can list here. It's a subject for another day, but I will say three things: in Yankeeland, duck doesn't mean Mallard - it means all sorts of ducks, including the delicious and livery Bluebill. Second: we gave up on cooking the whole bird, stuffed or otherwise. It does not do justice to the bird. We just do happy things with the breasts, and confit the legs and thighs. Third, a piece of orange should never get near a wild duck. Domestic duck, ok, if that's what you like, but not the wild ones - it's criminal.

Is the Hillary Clinton campaign the Black Knight? It's not over yet, because she can bite.

Freudian slip? I have heard the tape several times since Bill Clinton said that yesterday.

Sheesh. What is going on here?

Put the youngest Bird Dog pup on the plane to Charlotte very early this morning for the Junior Olympics Tournament. (She does Foil - elegant, but millions of rules. It's like physical Chess.) Gave myself a little treat by taking the Queens-Midtown Tunnel from LaGuardia airport into Manhattan, and grabbed a bag of fresh hot bagels and some good coffee before heading back north to the serenity of Yankeeland. I do love NYC. Who doesn't? It is vitality, even at 6 AM.

On a Saturday morning at 6 AM you can drive up Manhattan to the 96th St. entrance to the FDR quite enjoyably, despite having to dodge wacko, reckless, seemingly insane or drunk guys in wheelchairs in the middle of 3rd Ave, disregarding the street signals. Had camera, but too dark.

Fencing demands a lot from your legs, your brain, and your spirit. The young 'uns all come back with some good purple bruises, so it's a wonder that the goo-goos haven't banned this "violent" game yet. In pitiful Euroland, at least.

Bruises = Life.

Well, this pup of mine is good at finding her way around new places - a handy life skill - having done Europe a couple of times more or less independently. When she goes to a Fencing tournament, I say "Return with your shield, or on it," or sometimes "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."

I want to see blood on her foil.

The Jimmy Bruno Quartet in April, 2007. "Loverman" (forgive his promotionals - it's good marketing):

Large birds of prey lay their eggs early. A nest at Blackwater Refuge in Maryland already has two eggs. The Live Eagle Cam is here.

A friend of a friend took this photo of eaglets in the Adirondacks two springs ago:

Evil is like a shadow—it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.

Shakti Gawain (h/t, Flares)

Playing this instrument looks like sign language.

This gal can play the Theremin, at David Thompson.

We already posted a Valentine's Day piece, but one more won't hurt.

Fairy-tale romances in the WSJ

Want an office romance? Sign the contract first.

Marriage: It's only going to get worse. (h/t, Dr. Sanity)

Need testosterone? Go shooting.

Is settling for Mr. Good Enough really Good Enough? Dr. Helen

Marriage pros and cons. Kim

Proposed on Imus today, a new book: "What Did I Do Now? A Men's Guide to Menopause."

And, finally, Bird Dog's 5-cent marriage advice: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Interesting computer problem today. Every indication of a hard drive failure. Replaced hard drive after a quick run to Staples ($189.). Same problem after reloading drive from external drive. Computer expert thinks it must be a motherboard problem. Then he says "Hmm, I've never seen a BIOS problem in 20 years but let's try asking BIOS to heal itself, just for the heck of it."

Instantly repaired. "Holy f-," says he. "This is a first for me: BIOS never fails."

I think this might be a fake website, alas:  Felonspy. I found some bad guys I did not know about, but none of my friends. If it were genuine, some of my pals would show up there, for sure. 

They do not guarantee accuracy - read the disclaimer.

This story of Sinatra begins like this:

Frank Sinatra, the greatest vocalist in the history of American music, elevated popular song to an art. He was a dominant power in the entertainment industries—radio, records, movies, gambling—and a symbol of the Mafia’s reach into American public life. More profoundly than any figure excepting perhaps Elvis Presley, Sinatra changed the style and popular culture of the American Century.

Read the whole thing at The Atlantic while listening to one of his masterpieces below (music, no video):

I refer to Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, which I have just finished. It ain't littercher, but it's an absorbing read. He is a master storyteller and permits no let-up of tension.

It's in the historical fiction genre, set during the Civil War of 1139-1153. That war of succession was prompted, you may recall, by the foundering of the White Ship with William, the only legitimate son of Henry l, on board.

The book does a good job of putting you in a time and place. The gravitational center of the book is the building of cathedrals during the time when pointed arches and ribbed ceilings were first used, and when it was realized that pillars could support the weight of the buildings without relying on thick walls, thus permitting large windows.

Has mankind ever built anything to match the grace and artistry and grandeur of a gothic cathedral?

As I was reading the book, I kept wishing I could find our copy of David Macaulay's Cathedral. It's here somewhere...

Yesterday's snowy evening in Yankeeland. We love our snowfalls.

Personal weapons are the mark of a free man or woman. Guns are not about hunting: they are about the fundamental human right of self-defence. I have been held up twice and burglarized twice. Never again, because I was neither raised, nor made, to be a passive victim of low-life scumbags.

The wealthy and powerful have bodyguards, but it is up to regular folks to be our own bodyguards and the guards of our families. In the old days, it was a club, or a spear, or a sword, or a dagger. Shooting sports are secondary: great fun, but secondary.

(h/t to Theo for the video)

From our archives:

At the last minute (today), decided to do a little supper for 20 next weekend, and I have decided to do something simple and American with the pheasants: Pheasant smothered in sour cream. Talk about old-fashioned comfort food - a casserole. (This is a famous old "guy cookin'" recipe for Ruffed Grouse.) I'll quarter the peasants, not halve them like grouse.

I like to serve recipes like this on the wide (1") Italian noodles.

Yes, I have some Beach Plum Jelly in the pantry. What old Cape Codder would not? Plus I now grow them myself. The worse the soil, the better the plums.

I was considering a duck salad like this as the first course. One wild duck breast per serving, with the breast cooked rare and sliced thin.

Image: Picking ripe wild Beach Plums, Prunus maritima.

Suze Rotolo is writing a book about her life.

She says Bob has "an uncanny ability to complicate the obvious and sanctify the banal..."

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny."

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?"

"When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]."

"It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!"

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." 

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." 

An oldie from our cousin

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think that they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country - if they could find the time - and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. The Tideland News is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.

Photo: Why a person needs to buy a newspaper occasionally

Stevie Wonder:

Stormy afternoon house cleaning yesterday after church and Lenten Group study, including putting away some Christmas stuff. Decided to pick up and re-order the CD mess - hundreds scattered everywhere and many loose, homeless orphans separated from their jewel cases.

I wondered whether anybody still buys, or uses, CDs very much. I still like them, because I have three quite high-end sound systems around the place (including my precious Legacy speakers) which I enjoy more than computer speaker sound.

Anyway, I collected every CD in the house and put them all back in their cases, and made stacks. To Keep it Simple, Stupid, I made five categories: Pop (incl. rock), Classical, Roots (eg folk, blues, country - including every Emmy Lou - , Jazz, Irish, etc) and Misc (religious, Christmas music, Broadway, Cole Porter, Shakespeare plays, random home-made mixes, etc) and, finally, a Dylan stack.

The Pop, Classical, Dylan, and Roots stacks (many stacks of each so they wouldn't topple) were about the same height. How did the Dylan stack get so high? Because the Dylanologist has given me so many CDs of live performances (on top of all of his production recordings), which are far more interesting than the commercial CDs despite the iffy sound quality.

Creating order out of chaos is both mindless and satisfying, like doing the wash. I did find a Highway 61 Revisited in a Schubert case. I did end up with about 20 loose CDs without cases, and about ten cases without their CDs, which ain't bad.

I have enough Creedence. I need more Schubert, though.

Reading Dean's plea for funds reminds me that I've never yet heard a Democrat say that there is hardly any difference between John McCain and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

John Hinderaker