Day Three of Three

I spent much of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday making mole. I'd never even attempted it before, but I've been craving the cheap, good Mexican food I used to get in Hell's Kitchen (at La Paloma, a little burrito shop at Ninth Avenue and 45th Street, and at two taquerias over on Tenth Avenue in the 40s, if anyone's keeping track), much of which featured surprisingly decent mole rojo, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I picked a recipe from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, guajalote en mole teloloapense, braised turkey in Teloloapan red mole (use Amazon's search feature to find the recipe if you too would like to wear out your blender and sieve and permanently stain a few utensils bright orange).

I love making Mexican food like this because there are so many weird cooking techniques I'm not used to. For example, most of the ingredients for the mole were fried in a half inch of lard before being ground up and strained: you fry the dried chiles (after first taking out and saving the seeds to grind with the other spices), nuts, pepitas, garlic, onion, tomatoes, tomatillos, bread, corn tortillas, even the raisins were fried (the raisins puffed up and turned golden brown as they cooked, then reverted to normal raisin shape and color as they cooled). The spice mixture I started out with (Saturday) smelled like nothing I'd ever smelled before: sesame seeds, avocado leaf, bay leaves, cinnamon, black pepper, thyme, oregano, cloves, and grated avocado pit, which indeed turned bright fluorescent orange when it oxidized.

Sunday: Here are all the fried nuts, seeds, bread, and spices before they were pulverized in a blender.

Monday: I made classic white rice from the Bayless book, which was great too: you sauté the rice in oil with onion, then add salt and water, bring to a boil, cover and bake until it's done, then fluff it up and fold in cilantro.

The recipe specifies anchos and guajillos, but I just used all the chiles I had (a few chiles de arbol for heat, a bag of pasilla, and a bag of New Mexico chiles—if I'm remembering correctly), plus another half-pound of unidentified ones from Kroger (I think they were anchos and guajillos, actually). Monday morning the sauce was seeming a little bitter, but it had mellowed and become more subtle by suppertime. Before I stuck the turkey in the sauce in a large Dutch oven, I scooped out about six cups of mole and put it in containers to freeze; it'll be nice to have it on hand to braise chicken or whatever, or make enchiladas. So all the work—I mean, play—yielded a nice huge Monday-night supper, plus the main part of a few more meals. Not so bad.

Invisible Zipper

The elder Chalmerses are going out tomorrow night; that is, we'll be out in public after dark. I kind of want to wear something nice, so this morning I started making a skirt. I'd finished it—hand-sewn hem and all—by the time the bug woke up from her morning nap at 10:30. (I'll probably redo the hem so it isn't so obvious, and maybe shorten it an inch or so, but for now it's basically done.) I used McCall's 3341, a very simple A-line pattern I'd used many times before—it's easy to change the shape of the bottom, add flounces or ruffles, make it longer or shorter, add a waistband, add vent(s), whatever. This one is in a charcoal two-way knit; it fits snugly at the top and kind of swings at the bottom.

One time I went to buy a zipper in the Garment District in New York and could only find invisible ones, not the regular ones. I asked the old Russian guy if he had any regular ones, and he said nobody uses them anymore and told me I should ask the girls in my sewing circle to show me how to insert an invisible zipper. I said I wasn't in a sewing circle and I didn't have an invisible-zipper presser foot anyway. He sighed loudly, then proceeded to teach me how to do it with a regular presser foot. I've now done this a dozen times or so, and though I don't claim to be an expert zipper installer I thought I'd give a little tutorial here, because nine times out of ten the zipper comes out looking great—that is, you can't see it. So here we go. (I hope you can make out what's going on in the pictures. I tried to get them as clear as possible, but it was difficult with black on charcoal, and the moiré effect I kept getting with the wrong side of the knit material.)

Do not sew the garment opening closed as you would when inserting a regular zipper; leave it open. Open the zipper, lay it out face down, and press the teeth flat (toward the center) with a warm iron. You should be able to see two rows of stitching right next to the edge of the teeth.

Pin the right side of the zipper to the right side of the garment opening, with the top of the tape at the top of the opening and the teeth at the 5/8-inch seam line.

Using a regular presser foot, sew the zipper to the garment, stitching as close to the teeth as you can without piercing them.

Stop when the foot rams into the slider. Backtack and cut the thread.

Pin the other side of the zipper to the other side of the garment opening, right sides together.

Sew it just like you sewed the first side (this time it'll be going under the presser foot backwards, but that's okay).

Stop when the foot hits the slider, backtack, cut thread.

Close the zipper. Pin the rest of the garment seam, right sides together, below the zipper, letting the bottoms of the zipper tape stick out the seam so they don't get caught.

Here's where it gets a little tricky. Place the presser foot as close as possible to the backtacking at the end of where you sewed the zipper onto the lefthand (when it's inside out) garment piece. Set the needle to the farthest position to the right. Sew the seam.

Press the seam open and the zipper flat. I didn't have to do it this time, but you may have to take a few stitches by hand to close up the space between where you sewed the zipper on and where you started the rest of the seam.

Turn the garment right side out and press. Invisible zipper installed.

Wisteria

The woods behind our house are full of wisteria, tangled in the giant privet bushes and climbing all the way up to the tops of the trees. It smells wonderful, especially in the evening. We weren't living here last year at this time, so we didn't know there would be so much wisteria (the vines themselves get sort of lost in the underbrush after the blossoms are gone). Wild, crazy wisteria like this isn't at all uncommon around here, but it's a special treat for me because it reminds me of my folks' old house in Virginia, where the wisteria completely covered the front porch and the arbor over the back deck in spring.




The bug and I saw Mr. Chalmers off this morning—he'll be gone until Sunday, so us girls are going to occupy ourselves doing girl stuff like maybe going to the Georgia Museum of Art and planting the herbs I started from seed a month or so ago. Sorry about the lack of knitting and cooking content. I haven't made anything that great lately, or at least haven't been up to taking pictures and whatnot. I am reading a novel (!) that I'm very much enjoying, if only because it's fiction and I'm actually managing to read it: Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris, which is basically about office life, something I sometimes, occasionally, rarely miss.

Happy Birthday, Bug!

The bug turned one year old on Wednesday. Here she is on her birthday, helping me sand down some old chairs:

The next day we spent a lot of time outside digging trenches for the fifty asparagus crowns I ordered in a moment of optimism and high energy. Two twenty-five-foot-long, twelve-inch-deep trenches down, one to go. The bug enjoyed crawling around in the Georgia clay. When we took a break and retired to the quilt I'd set out on the ground for lounging, she took her first steps, two or three at a time! I was so excited I took her inside to try it on a more solid, level surface, and she would walk up to six steps at a time before diving into my lap. So she's walking, in spurts. March 22. I'm a little bit sad about it.

This was taken about fifteen minutes before her first steps.

That evening we had cake, a dense, rich carrot cake, with—in a nod to the bug's Florida beginnings—orange juice and zest in the cake and cream cheese frosting. For the cake I used this recipe. I made up the frosting as I went along; it was a bit soft, but nice and tangy with the orange and sour cream and just a little butter and powdered sugar.

We let her have at it, and she just went to town. She looked like she could not believe her good fortune. Cake!

We tried to put party hats on the dogs, but they were having none of it.

Thalia

The bug had her first haircut on March 9. We sat her in a chair outside while some meat was smoking and cut her some bangs. It was hard to get them straight, but I think it looks cute a little uneven. And I think she can see better now. She'll be one year old on Wednesday, March 21, the first day of spring.

She loves the walker wagon her grandma in New York gave her for Christmas. She's not walking unassisted yet, but she's close!

The bug signed "train" for the first time a few days ago when she heard one going by, and she does it pretty much every time we hear a train now. And I swear she said, out loud, "dog" the same day when she spotted the neighbor's dog roaming around nearby.

Even though they came up early and I was worried they'd freeze off, the Narcissus "Thalia" I planted in the front yard are blooming. They have a mild nutty fragrance. I cut some and put them on the fireplace mantel in the bug's room.

There are lots more blooming since I took this picture a week ago.

And finally, finally, believe it or not, yesterday we got our dining room table and bench! They were made, very slowly, by Jimmy Poss in Carlton. I think he did a nice job and it was worth the wait. He'll have to come back in a few weeks to attach the table top after it's had time to warp and shrink or expand or whatever wood does. It's a bit wider than I'd expected, but we have a large room to fill up, so what the hell.

In context, from the kitchen door.

In this picture you can just barely see the three holes in the top, which are where the ceiling beams were attached to the wall boards with large bolts. The skirt pieces are made of floorboards supposedly from the Crawford Long family house in Banks County.

Dirt, Fire, Meat

We had a cowboy cookout on Saturday, St. Patrick's Day, don't ask me why. It just seemed like it would be fun to cook a bunch of stuff outside, even though it turned cold and windy, like it was fall. Our meal was not really cowboy-authentic, but it sure was good.

Mr. Chalmers smoked huge, thick chuck roasts he rubbed with his special combination of salt, salt, salt, cayenne, dried oregano, and sliced garlic. I think he cooked them with hickory for about three and a half hours, and they were nice and tender, juicy, spicy, meaty. Chuck really is an excellent cut of meat for smoking, and I'm surprised more people don't use it instead of the more expensive brisket. The only trick is slicing it across the grain, which tends to go every which way. We've even smoked thinner chuck "steaks" with great results.

Here they are, about an inch and a half thick, maybe an hour after they went into the smoker.

In the oven, in a (cowboy?) bain marie, we baked a simple corn pudding with roasted poblano peppers: corn, peppers, milk, heavy cream, melted butter, fresh eggs from the lady down the road, et cetera.

The night before, I soaked two pounds of Great Northern beans in water. Early the next morning, I simmered the beans in fresh water for about an hour, drained them, and added new water, some molasses, dry mustard, a little ketchup, a lot of bacon, and one and a half chopped onions. I dug a hole and started a big fire in it, and let it burn down to embers. It was cold outside, and had just begun to get light. With the Mister's help I set the Dutch oven full of beans, along with a few potatoes brushed with butter, seasoned with fresh herbs, and wrapped in foil, down in the coals and we shoveled some of the coals on top, then covered the whole thing with dirt until we couldn't see any smoke rising from the ground. I think the fire probably died when we covered it with dirt, because when we dug the pot up five hours later it was barely warm. So I put the pot on the stovetop and finished up the beans the regular way. These were New England–style beans, not Southern or Texas beans, but they were pretty rustic anyway. We put the potatoes and sweet potatoes in the coals in the smoker while the meat was cooking.

This is the covered-up hole for the beans; we checked it every now and then to make sure we hadn't started an underground fire, though I suppose there could be one raging out there as I write and we wouldn't know about it.

Digging up the lukewarm beans.

More successful was the cobbler, which we made in an eight-quart Dutch oven ("Made in China for Texsport, Houston") with a flat, rimmed lid and three legs. Apples, pears, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and tapioca. I precooked the fruit a bit because I wasn't sure how it would work on an open fire, but as it turns out I didn't need to do that: the hardwood fire Mr. Chalmers and our friend built in the old goat-cooking pit was extremely hot, and the fruit juices were boiling in no time. As soon as it was all bubbly, Mr. Chalmers mixed up a biscuit-y topping (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, half butter and half nonhydrogenated shortening, then milk) and dolloped it on, trying not to singe his arm. We put the lid on and piled coals on top. We let it cook like that for about twenty minutes, then I said it was time, and we pushed the coals off the pot and lifted the lid and it was perfect. A little blackened on the side closest to the center of the fire, but otherwise just right. It may well be the best cobbler I've ever had a hand in making. The apples and pears were all dark and caramelized, and somehow the topping was both fluffy and crisp, and tasted as if it had been baked, then fried, then drizzled with caramel. And there was just a touch of smoke flavor, or maybe that was burnt flavor—in any case, I liked it. A lot.

I used about eight apples (mostly Granny Smiths, and a few Galas) and three pears.

It's hotter than it looks. I think those are motorcycle fenders around the edge there.

We took it right off the coals after this, because it was bubbling furiously and the fruit looked like it was going to burn onto the bottom of the pot.

Plates in a tree.

Add Miller Lite and Bailey's Irish Cream (brought by our friends from town) and it was a fine way to celebrate our Irish cowboy heritage.

Bug's First Live Music

This was at the Saving Grace Café in Comer on Friday night. We had a nice dinner there after the chicken auction in Royston. Lovely place, fun time, even though the food wasn't very good. It was the first time I've heard a server offer half-and-half to put in the espresso and water to put in the wine (because it's so strong). The bug ate a big slice of lemon and watched the guitar player, and was a little confused every time the applause started up.

Loose Ends

I finally got around to making the Bittman-Lahey no-knead bread this weekend, and I'm pretty happy with the results. I only wish there were more bread to show for the nineteen-hour first rise and two-hour second rise. The crust is crackly, chewy, and thin. I doubled the amount of salt in the recipe, and it could've used even a bit more. I also took some liberties with water and flour amounts because the dough looked like it was going to be too stiff. Otherwise I pretty much tried to follow the recipe, using a seven-quart round cast-iron Dutch oven. Instead of putting the dough on top of a floured towel, I used a Silpat and put the floured towel just on top—no sticking problems at all. I'll definitely make it again.

And while I was in New York I finished the brown Fetching mittens. Very happy with them, too, although the picot bind off edge is a little loose around the knuckles—it was fine on the pink pair, where I did the bind-off wrong; this time I did it right and it's not as snug.

The Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran is already pilling like crazy.

My mom made several pretty outfits for the bug: a "romper" (whatever that is) for summer, a couple of breezy blouses, and some pants, the latter two based on Burda 9645. Here she is out in the yard the other day in one of the blouses.

New York

Better than expected. Taking the bug on the Metro-North to Grand Central, then on a train to Fort Greene for brunch with my friends, high-powered Cookie and Style and Google (don't tell me you need a link) types, and back again was just not as difficult as I'd imagined it would be. She was a brilliant, sweet little bug the whole time, even when we sat down for mushroom-shallot-thyme quiche, spicy pan-fried potatoes, and sweet potato biscuits and she had to make do on a little mat on the floor with a container of Cheerios and freeze-dried corn. (I'm going to try to make a similar quiche tonight; if it works out I'll post a recipe.) The trains ran the way they were supposed to.

The bug slept in her carrier all the way from Rye to the main concourse at GCT, where she woke up and found herself in the middle of the typical Grand Central throng (well, the Sunday version).

She was not as freaked out by the 4 train or the people on it as this picture would suggest.

At brunch in Brooklyn, she crawled over to the coffeetable, grabbed a cookie, and shoved the whole thing in her mouth before I even knew what she was doing. Turned out it had a big hunk of chocolate in it.

One day Mr. Chalmers and I left the bug with her grandma and aunt and went into the city on our own. We took the Garment District by storm—ducking in and out of fabric shops, walking fast, and bargaining like we were pros. I have the most amazing husband ever: he actually seemed to enjoy our whirlwind hunt for curtain material. (Although, come to think of it, he might not have used such words as "whirlwind" or "fast" or "ducking in and out" to describe the experience. I used to live a five-minute walk from those stores, and my fabric-shopping outings were always almost painfully slow, to the point where I wouldn't even buy anything because I could just tell myself I'll think about it, shop around, and come back the next day, or even later in the day. I have a problem making decisions, which is a small part of why Mr. Chalmers's participation was so refreshing.) Luxuriously, we shipped our purchases home right from 39th Street and skipped downtown unencumbered for a beautiful lunch at Lupa: octopus in chickpea puree, roasted sweet-and-sour parsnips, duck agrodolce, buridda, and a red wine from the Alto Adige that was really great. All of it was great.

The elder Chalmerses even got to go to a movie!

Accessories

It's always nice to send off a bunch of work, whether you're freelance or not. I've taken several days off since I finished two of the three jobs I've been working on lately, and was able to finally finish the larger knit bonnet for the bug—I figured she might need it where we're going tomorrow: New York City!

Note the new, larger, more powerful radio collar on Wagnerford. It works, but I had to put up still more traditional fencing (so, okay, maybe it doesn't work so well).

I also got her some fleece-lined jeans and a pair of little shoes for the trip north, and I'm trying to finish up a second pair of Fetching mittens for myself in time to wear them this weekend (the first pair got lost on our last plane trip); these are in dark chocolate brown. Mr. Chalmers went up to the city ahead of us, and if all went well (telephonic communication between Carlton and Manhattan has not been the greatest) he saw the Arcade Fire show last night.

Overall I'm looking forward to being back in New York for a few days, seeing a couple friends for Sunday brunch in Brooklyn, going nuts in the Garment District, and maybe having a nice dinner someplace cramped and crowded (Lupa?) with Mr. Chalmers while the bug plays with her grandma and two dogs in the suburbs. Still, I'm prepared for much of it to be tiring and in no small part annoying. There was a New York couple on House Hunters last night, and as horrifying as they were I couldn't stop watching: this blinking, unhappy man and his sneering fiancée were looking for a loft space and it had to be within a ten-block radius of where they already lived, on Gramercy Park (because they liked the "energy" of the neighborhood and also wanted to be "close to work, yoga, and the gym"), it had to have two full bathrooms ("for the sake of their relationship"), it had to be large enough for their two very large dogs (they're thoughtful dog owners), and they had to close the deal on it before their wedding in Tuscany two months hence (cue blinking). They "couldn't imagine" living anywhere else. For maybe four or five years I couldn't imagine it either, but once I realized I could live somewhere besides New York, the whole mystique of the place crumbled and a cinderblock ranch house with a carport and a yard in Florida started to look like just one of many possible versions of heaven on earth. Our kitchen here in Georgia is another:

For my mom, a picture showing the two top teeth. She now has two on the bottom, too!

In the Dining Room with Dogs

The guy in downtown Carlton, as he refers to the sorry stretch of unleased commercial space along Highway 72 between Comer and Elberton, Georgia, has not yet finished the dining room table he's allegedly been making for us since late August, so there's still plenty of open space in the dining room for playing. I've been working in there too, opening up the curtains and letting the sun in during the cold daytimes, and turning a low lamp on in the early mornings and evenings. The bug and the dogs usually stay close by while I copyedit and drink a lot of cappuccinos and espressos out of a fancy china coffee cup. The coffee makes the workload seem more civilized.

And it's sure nice to have dogs around. The bug just spent the last half hour gnawing on a very stale taralli, and Wagner sat next to her, patiently watching her, and didn't try to take it away even though she would frequently hold it out to him and bang it against his food bowl. (I know, I know: not the cleanest thing in the world for a baby to be doing, but I try to keep her clean in the major ways and not worry too much about all the minor ways she contaminates herself.) When she finished up and crawled away happy, Wagner stood up and licked every last crumb up off the floor where she'd been, saving me even this trouble.

The bug and Wagner.

Resting with Cooper in the fireplace. Fireplace dirt is considered minor unless she gets black soot on her hands, in which case I'll wash them off right away. Lost socks are minor too, unless we're in a store and old people start tsking.

And this is pretty much what the days are like around here lately. (The blur is Wags.) The picture would be more representative if there were a manuscript getting trampled in the foreground.

Speaking of Wagner, over the weekend Mr. Chalmers and I put up this cool Radio Fence wire along one side of the yard where Wagner is jumping over the existing fence. So he gets a shock—sorry: "static correction"—through his special collar when he gets within a foot or so. He still goes over (hence "is" above). We need to train him more or try a more powerful collar. I think it'll work, and I'm convinced that soon we'll have full containment capabilities. And a table, even if it's not Made in Carlton.

Ribs

Last weekend we smoked a slab of ribs and a bunch of chicken wings out in the backyard. Saturday it was warm and balmy, and we heard from friends that they'd be coming through the next day on their way from New York to New Orleans, so we started marinating and thawing. Sunday it turned cold and it was hard to keep the temperature in the smoker up high enough for ribs (I like to do them at about 225; we could only keep it a little over 150)—still, they were pretty great. A bit too spicy, though, because more cayenne came out of the container than I'd meant to use. We also had apple cream pie and beer. And molasses crinkles.

Ribs: Trim pork spareribs and rub with a mixture of 1 cup brown sugar, lots of cayenne, black pepper, and salt, and a little granulated garlic. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Smoke with hickory (we actually used pecan deadfall from the yard) until the meat pulls back from the ends of the bones, basting occasionally with a mixture of 1 part vegetable oil to 1 part cider vinegar. Boil the basting liquid for a few minutes, then add a bit of brown sugar and some mustard and use this to glaze the ribs in the last 10 minutes of cooking.

I'm still in the throes of a spate of freelance jobs. Last week I dropped the bug off with a friend in town for three hours during the day while I went down the street and worked at Jittery Joe's—I got more done in those three hours than in any three hours of my professional "career." If the bug hadn't come down with a raging cold—her first—soon afterward I'd have wanted to do it again, if only to jump-start the next job on the docket. I think she had a good time playing in a new place with a new friend.

She now has two teeth—the one on bottom and one on top, both in front. She can stand on her own without holding on to anything for about ten seconds at a time before gently sitting back down. She likes to play peekaboo, as she always has, except that now she's the one lifting the blanket or sweater over her face and then pulling it down quickly. She's almost said "balloon" several times—balloons are her favorite things other than dogs. We still have the ones from her dad's birthday several weeks ago, but they're so deflated by now that he brought some new ones home for her the other night. We've been starting to teach her a few words in sign language: light (on and off), ceiling fan, dog, cat, bird, tree, balloon, and train. (The useful words—hungry, cold, sleepy—are not as fun, so we tend to not do them as much.) One morning a couple weeks ago, she woke up with a completely new way of babbling. Apparently overnight she'd figured out how to use her tongue differently, so she suddenly had all these new syllables at her disposal. It took some getting used to on our part, because she didn't sound like herself.

Cold Food

That is, hot food for when you're fighting off a cold, as I think I am now. My first attempt at congee, a New York Chinatown staple, is pretty good. Untraditional, but good.

My congee: Roast a duck carcass and neckbone at 500 degrees until well browned; put them in a 6-quart slow cooker with 1 cup long-grain rice and fill the pot with water. Add a cheesecloth bag of spices—star anise, black peppercorns, fennel seeds, and cloves—and sprinkle in some ground cinnamon (this to approximate five-spice, which uses Szechuan peppercorns; mine were too old and too lost in the back of the cupboard). Cook on low or high until the duck carcass seems to be pretty much done giving up its flavor, but before the rice has started to expand; remove and discard the duck (pull off any bits of meat and return them to the cooker) and the bag of spices. Continue to cook on low or high until the rice disintegrates and "blooms." Season with soy sauce before or after ladling it into a bowl. Garnish with cilantro, chile-garlic sauce, and sliced scallions. I kept the congee unsoy-sauced so I can give some to the bug for supper. I think she'll like the funny texture and meaty flavor of it.

I probably won't be able to post anything for a little while, as I'm completely logjammed with work and I need to just buckle down and do it. One or two frozen pizzas (and warmed-up congee, and maybe some duck prosciutto) are in the Chalmerses' near future, I'm afraid.

The Larder

Mr. Chalmers and I made five pounds of jagerwurst on Sunday. Next time we break out the meat grinder we really should make ten pounds. We pretty much followed the recipe in Charcuterie: 5 pounds cubed Boston butt pork with all its fat, mixed with salt, 1 teaspoon sodium nitrite (pink salt), black pepper, ground ginger, toasted crushed coriander seeds, toasted whole mustard seeds (we used black), nutmeg, minced fresh garlic, and nonfat dry milk powder. We put it through the grinder with the coarse plate, then put half of it through the fine plate, then the stronger of the two of us beat the heck out of it to mix it up really well. Stuffed it into hog casings we'd brought with us from Florida—those things last forever in brine or coated with coarse salt. Hung them from hooks under the shelf I put up in the cool pantry for a few hours to let the surface dry. Smoked them with hickory at 180 degrees, or as close to that temperature as we could maintain, for an indeterminate time (four hours?), until the internal temperature of the sausage was about 150 degrees. Plunged the sausages into ice water to chill and prevent shrinkage. They were good hot out of the smoker, but better cold and thinly sliced. The texture is nice: smooth and firm, but studded with larger bits. The casing is a little bit tough, though, and I'm not sure how to prevent that next time.

The next day, we got a whole duckling at Whole Foods in Buckhead (I'd been unable to find just duck breasts), and yesterday I broke it down into parts. Leg/thigh quarters are in the freezer to be made into confit later. I rendered all the extra fat, which came to about two cups—I'll cut this with schmaltz and maybe good lard when I make confit. I took the breasts off and packed them in a mixture of kosher salt, crushed juniper berries and bay leaves, and a little black pepper. Today I rinsed them off, dusted them with a touch of finely ground black pepper all over (I don't like white pepper at all), tied them in cheesecloth, and hung them in the pantry, where they'll dry for about seven days (the temperature in there right now is about, oh, 51.8 degrees, which according to R&P is just right), becoming duck "prosciutto," which I gather you slice very thinly and eat just as you would the real thing. I don't know, it sounds good. I've never had it before. These might take less than a week to dry-cure, because they're flatter than the average duck breast.

Right now it's looking like the duck wings and carcass will end up as a base for congee (or jook), a bland version of which I think would make an excellent baby food. I guess I'll roast them, then toss them in the slow cooker with rice and lots of water, plus, maybe, star anise? For now they're in the freezer.

Laurel

I have what's known in the knitting blogosphere as an FO. It's so rare that I have one to show for my days that I'm posting three pictures of it. A baby sweater of my own design (let's call it Laurel), made with beautiful, soft Briar Rose Fibers Fourth of July merino. I sure hope it gets cold again in Georgia so the bug can wear it a few times. It's awkwardly made, but it's warm and it fits (that is, it's too large) and it looks like a sweater from the outside.