When I was about Sally's size, my mother used to call me her puddle duck. I had no idea that this was a real term until the other day, when I started researching duck hunting.

(Photo courtesy Chris Benesh)
It's duck hunting season, and that up there is a black duck, a type of puddle duck. Puddle ducks are also called dabbling ducks, and they spend most of their time feeding in shallow water. They're also local hunters' favorite, because they're the best ducks for eating. 
The other kind of ducks you can hunt around here are sea ducks. Hunters don't like these as much. Why? They're divers, which means they eat lots of fish, and so their meat tastes fishy. My friend Dave Townsend, who's been hunting and eating ducks around here for years, says he's ruined a lot of perfectly good spices and herbs and sauces trying to mask the taste, and the sea birds just aren't worth cooking.
Not everyone agrees. Some people say they don't mind the taste of sea ducks. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that they shot the duck and therefore feel compelled to come up with a tasty way to eat it, but hey, I understand. Unsurprisingly, most sea duck recipes come from hunting websites (there are some good-looking ones over here and one hilariously titled Keith's Practically Edible Sea Duck over here), or chatrooms where experienced cooks and hunters share their tips (this thread on Chowhound is especially good).
When it comes to the better-tasting ducks—puddle ducks like blacks or mallards—the recipes sound much more appealing. Dave says he would soak his black duck breasts in milk before pan-searing them, which seems to be a common technique. Hank Shaw of Hunter/Angler/Gardener/Cook has a great basic tutorial for how to cook wild duck breasts, which you can find over here. 
But the best-looking recipe I've found is for duck breasts with orange sauce. Duck and orange are a traditional pairing—think Duck a 'lOrange from the sixties—and this recipe from ducks.org for Duck Breasts with Grand Marnier Sauce seems in line with the recommendations I've read. Most people who've cooked wild duck say to add plenty of fat (note the 3/4 cup butter) and to not to over-cook the meat (this recipe says to sear it medium rare). 
I've never shot a duck, but Alex has his license, and every year, he says he's going to go hunting. Shotgun season is over for the year—you can find the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife regulations for migratory bird hunting over here—but falconry season goes until February 9th. Maybe, just maybe, one of these days he and Fisher will bring home a bird.

I have finally put together a recipe archive for you. My sister has been urging me to do this for months, maybe even years, and at long last, it's here. You get there via the tab up top that says Recipe Archive, all the way to the right.


I discovered a few strange things along the way. Apparently, I have a serious thing for roasted beet salads. Also, I noticed I don't post many seafood recipes, even though we eat a lot of seafood! This is probably because Alex is so good at these that I often let him do the fish cooking. I'll try to work on that. Lastly, I make an absurd amount of dessert. But who am I kidding? That's been going on since I was at least twelve. 
At any rate, I hope you'll find this new archive useful. It's there for you, after all. Happy cooking!

A few weeks ago, my friend Tracy gave me three dozen eggs and a tart pan. Today I repaid her the best way I know how: with a Breton Buckwheat Cake baked with six of her eggs in my brand new pan.


The cake is a stunner. I made my first one a few days ago in an effort to work my way through some of the buckwheat flour in our freezer from last year's grain CSA, and it certainly did the trick. We worked through our cake FAST. The fact that it was only vaguely sweet and very eggy and moist and made with whole grain flour meant that we justified a little sliver after breakfast and two more in the wake of dinner and lunch. 
The recipe comes from David Lebovitz, via 101cookbooks. I believe it is French. If it's not, it's everything French cakes tend to be—not overly sugary, simple to make, and deeply satisfying without being too rich. There's also no frosting—it feels very much like an every day peasant cake.
The excitement is in the sea salt that you sprinkle into the batter and then on the top just before you bake. It brings out all the nuances of the flavors that go into the cake—the undertones of dark rum, a hint of vanilla, the toothsome, earthy taste of buckwheat. I used light brown sugar in place of granulated, which I think gave it even more depth. 

After we devoured ours I made it again and delivered it to Tracy, still warm in a greasy paper sack. Thank you Tracy, again.
BRETON BUCKWHEAT CAKE WITH FLEUR DE SEL


adapted from David Lebovitz, The Sweet Life in Paris


We got buckwheat last year with our grain CSA, and I milled it all into flour. For reasons I don't fully understand it is much lighter than most buckwheat flours—in color at least—but otherwise, it seems the same. Either way, it's delicious in this cake, which is moist, eggy, and only a little bit sweet. Think of it as a snacking cake.
for the cake:
1 scant cup buckwheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon plus 1/3 teaspoon fleur de sel
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons dark rum 


for the glaze:
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon milk


Grease a 9- or 10-inch tart pan. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
In a small bowl, whisk together the buckwheat flour, the all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the cinnamon.
Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until smooth. Beat in the egg yolks one by one and then add the whole egg. Add the vanilla and rum in a slow dribble, beating the whole time. Beat on high speed until the mixture is very airy.
Finally, mix in the dry ingredients until the batter just comes together. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top as flat as possible (it is a thick dough so this takes a few swipes).
Make the glaze by whisking together the egg yolk and milk in a small cup. Brush it generously across the top, then take a fork and rake it across the batter to create three parallel lines in one direction and three in another to make a criss-cross pattern. Sprinkle the remaining 1/3 teaspoon of salt over the cake. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the inside of the cake is still moist. 


Note: be careful not to overcook, as the cake seems like the type to dry out.

Remember that cookbook Anna was going to get you for Christmas? Whole Grains Every Day Every Way, the one I recommended? Did it ever come in? I hope so—I just used it to make a top-notch pilaf recipe.

I think you have your share of the grain CSA by now—Joe piled it into the back of his pick-up when he was Maine-bound the other day—and I wanted to tell you that I tried an oat recipe. I don't know if you've had a chance to read the CSA handout yet, but the oats this year are different—they're called live oats, and they're hull-less. Apparently they grow without hulls, which means they're easier for the farmers to harvest and easier for us to cook with and clean. Yay!
We tried them in a pilaf recipe yesterday. We had friends coming over and an engagement and a pregnancy to celebrate, and I wanted to make a side that would go nicely with salad and fish. Some people say oat berries cook up similarly to rice, so I figured I'd look them up in the index of the Lorna Sass book and give whatever I found a try. What I found was on page 206: oat pilaf with carrots and thyme. It was delicious! Alex added some extra butter and salt (surprise!) and it needed a slightly longer cooking time than called for, but otherwise we didn't change anything. 
I know you always plan out dinner in the morning, so you probably won't cook this tonight. But I think you'd love it, and Papa would too. Let me know if you give it a try.

Sally says coo, and we miss you.
OAT PILAF WITH CARROTS AND THYME
This makes a nice side dish with fish and salad. We've adapted it slightly from Lorna's version—hers calls for only 1 tablespoon of butter, and we didn't think that was quite enough. 
While we're on the subject of butter—what kind do you buy? We were able to get it through our milk coop for a while, but they stopped making it because they were throwing too much buttermilk away. So then we bought Kate's of Maine, but when I got pregnant I got very careful about eating butter that was pastured. So these days we're buying the Organic Valley pasture butter, which they sell at Whole Foods. It's the best balance I've been able to find between local and healthy, which has become more and more the question I'm asking these days. I'd love to hear what you think.
Back to pilaf! Okay.
3 tablespoons butter, divided1 cup finely diced onions1 cup finely diced carrots1/2 cup finely diced celery1 and 1/2 cups whole oat groats, rinsed2 cups boiling water2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme1 teaspoon sea salt, or more to tastefreshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and put a kettle of water on to boil.
Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and sauté until soft, about five minutes. Add the oats and stir until they are coated with butter, then pour the boiling water over top. Add the salt and stir well. 
Cover the Dutch oven and put it in the oven for 35 minutes. Lorna's recipe says the oats should be cooked at this point, but ours weren't. They needed another 10-15 minutes. So just keep checking after this point, adding more boiling water as needed, and pull the pot when they're done. Now stir in the fresh thyme, the remaining butter, and season with more salt and pepper to taste. 
If you're not going to eat right away, toss the pilaf with a fork just like you would rice. Enjoy warm, if not hot.

Good morning. We are just back from a trip to Richmond, Virginia. We took Sally there to meet her great-grandmother. Here's three months looking at ninety-three:


It was pretty neat. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Logan parking garage last night we had a flat tire, and we got home very late. I don't have a recipe for you, much less a clean pair of pants or an unpacked suitcase. I'm sorry. But we did manage a trip to the farmers' market last week and a stop at Whole Foods last night, so we'll see you soon, with eats.
xo