The Great Duck Experiment Part 2

If you haven't read The Great Duck Experiment Part 1, I suggest you skip to that first, and pick up here, where the story continues.

Back to the duck drama. So this is the duck at the halfway point. You can't see all the fat in the pan I'm about to suck out, but you will in a moment.
This is how you get the fat out of the pan. Please note the proper use of a baster. It's not for the various dirty things I've been accused of!
Here you can see how much fat I've taken out of the pan, and my duck is ready to go back in the oven!This duck is done. I forgot to take a picture when I'd started to chop into the leg, so it's already on it's way to being decimated.Result! While I finished the cooking and steaming of the pancakes, flatmate D chopped the onions and cucumbers as good as I've seen in any restaurant. The only disappointment was the crappy plum sauce I got. It was so not the right sauce and really couldn't hold it's own, but it had to suffice.Mmmmmm duck! I ate the duck. The duck was good. I liked the duck. Mmmmmm duck!Now, D and I only ate just under half a duck. But in order to clean up, I shredded the rest to put in the fridge. This is the duck carcass. Such a far cry from that perfect looking duck above.In conclusion, the duck was very good. A bit to salty and could have used more spice, less salt. But tender, and tasty. The plum sauce was also off, which would have assisted with the saltiness, had it been the right sort. But that's me being picky. The pancakes were great, the duck was really good, the onions and cucumbers were perfect and I have enough left over for dinner tomorrow!!! Conclusion to the Great Duck Experiment, positive with room for improvement. I guess I'll have to try it again!

The Great Duck Experiment Part 1

I thought I would document my duck adventure here, since my favorite guinea pig is not available and flatmate D is also not around to admire my duck-work. I think if you click on the pictures you can see them bigger or something, but don't hold me to that. Anyway, onto the blow by blow so you can experience all the joy right there with me. First, I wanted to share my inspiration for this experiment. Notice it's just words there. That's the recipe. Just read along and vaguely do what it says.....Here is my duck. It is longer than a chicken, longer and then seems narrower. Duck isn't particularly cheap, but the cost of this duck is around the same cost as 1/4 crispy duck at a restaurant. So... not terrible. If it works. Because the duck is so long, I needed to make sure it fit in a pan. Of course I have more cooking equipment than most people in this country so it was very likely that I would have a pan that would fit the duck. What I didn't really have was a grill layer to keep the duck off the bottom and let the fat drip. There goes one of my three cooling racks. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure I used it for this before.Okay, it's time to get down and dirty and roll up the sleeves!First thing to notice, a duck is REALLY not like a chicken. It does not smell like a chicken, it seems to have a lot more bones and things than a chicken, and there was a very long flap of skin which I assume was neck skin that is definitely not on a chicken.Hehehehehehehehehehehe. Hahahahahahahahahah. *snort* *chortle* I am so easily amused.Here is my duck all seasoned. Notice the small piece of ginger tucked in it's ass. There are two more shoved inside. There's a really funny joke there about ginger and butts, but you'd have to have more information about figging to truly understand.Of course the best part of getting a whole bird is the giblets. Look, it's liver! I love liver. Just grill that puppy down with a whole load of salt. Very, very bad for you. And very, very good.And there it is all done. My duck has been in one hour now. I think it needs to go for two. But I need to go scoop out some fat so it crisps up. I hate taking large hot things out of the oven. I'm always terrified that I'm going to drop it and burn myself.So I've had my mid-cooking snack, and it's time to keep going. Stay tuned for the uber exciting great duck experiment part, deux.

Various Streams

Here are the things on my mind today:
- How much I dislike adults who love Disney,
- Pondering why older men have always been attracted to me,
- Dreaming of the now built-up duck experiment,
- Wondering when I'm ever going to have sex again,
- Being very annoyed at HvR,
- Trying to figure out what I'm going to have for lunch.

What is not particularly on my mind is the work that I should be doing, or the studying I need to do when I get home, or the laundry that has recently reached epic proportions. So lets just stick to the existing list shall we?

I don't know why but recently I was reading some other blog that happened to mention listening to Disney tunes. I cannot possibly describe the amount of revulsion that entered my system at this. No adult should love Disney. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy Disney, and certainly enjoy going to see new Disney productions (it's been a while now, hasn't it?). But I don't buy the video and watch it over and over. I certainly don't buy the CD and listen to the tunes. I don't like things decorated with Disney characters for anyone over twelve. When I meet these people (and there are many, many, many of them populating the planet) then I am instantly wary of them and do not trust them. Blech.

Recently I have also been pondering how many older men, at various points in my life have shown interest in me. I can't count how many times before I turned 30 that some older man, a friend of my parents, someone I met through work, etc. said to me something very much along the lines of, "How come you don't have a boyfriend? You are fantastic. If I was a younger man I'd snap you up in a second." They may or may not go onto suggest at this point that I was 'real marriage material' whatever that meant. This happened again most recently to me this past Friday. I suppose at some point I'm going to be an older woman and then maybe some older man may feel a little less skeevy hitting on me (only a few of the previous older men alluded to actually propositioned me, though it did happen). Of course, I'd really much rather have some sort of partner before I'm old and wrinkly.

I'm going to Sainsburys at lunch. I am going to buy plum sauce. I am going to buy a cucumber. I am going to cook this duck tonight! God damn it.

I want sex. Enough said.

HvR can kiss my mother fucking ass. No, he's really not good enough to kiss my ass. He can lick my shoe while I use my other free foot to kick him in the nuts. Fucking cuntard will NOT steal my projects, will NOT dump his garbage on my desk, and will NOT just do whatever the fuck he wants at work because he doesn't like it. If he keeps up this behavior, a major beat down will be in order.

Since tlsd is ill and I have to go to Sainsburys, I'm not at all sure what I want to have for lunch. Nobody is around to go have lunch with in particular, and even if they were, they wouldn't want to go to Sainsburys with me. I suppose I could have Indian or Carribean, but both require coming back to the office to eat which I generally dislike doing. If I wanted to completely erase the benefits of going to the gym this morning I could have KFC or McDonalds, but I'm not really in the mood for fastjunk food. Only thirty minutes to go, and I'm starving!

You do not deserve sex if you are wearing these:

Ikea, D, and a Sandwich

Today tlsd and I went off to Ikea with the express purpose for her to get a big fluffly down duvet and for me to get a pot for my plant and a replacement filter for my stove air handler. Of course tlsd was a bit under the weather, and we had to wait thirty minutes for our train out in the cold, but we did make it and got down to the serious business of shopping at Ikea.

It's always tricky, because you know before you go that you will be sorely tempted by a million inexpensive and colorful products that are guaranteed to make you think you can carry just that little bit more home. This trip was no exception. I did manage to get a pot for my plant that I really like, but they told me I couldn't get the filter for my vent, that I had to get it from Whirlpool which seems idiotic. Then I managed to get a whole host of other little odds and ends that I didn't really need, but made me happy. Tlsd was the same.

With so much stuff, we opted to split a minicab back to our neck of the woods, which allowed us to go get another bag of goodies from the food area right past checkout. The cab was alright, though I don't know how much it ended up costing as I was the first drop-off. Stupid traffic has been a wreck with all the local roadworks and crazy people causing a fuss in the middle of the streets.

At home I managed to get a couple things done, but being tired decided to zone out instead, which I will pay for shortly as I do really need to get some things done before tomorrow. Then flatmate D and his girlfriend V came home and D says to me "K, we wanted to talk to you." which just freaks my shit out. I don't like anyone saying that "they need to talk to me" because it makes me instantly feel like I'm going to hear something I don't want to hear. But it turned out to be all cute and fine because they were really concerned that with V coming over almost every weekend it seems, that they were 'imposing' on my space. But not really because they spend all their time holed up in D's room anyway and I never even see them when she's over. And a couple nights a week is reasonable I think, for a girlfriend- it's when it becomes three, four, or five nights a week consistently that I think it's a bigger problem. It's nice that they asked though. So cute.

Now, I am preparing to eat a sandwich that I made before I decided to sit down and write this blog. On a croissant I have put some honey, some mustard, some thin sliced honey-roast turkey, some brie, and some green apples. It's a reconstruction of a sandwich I used to eat in college all the time from this popular sandwich shop on 'the corner'. I'm rather looking forward to it, but not, to going to work tomorrow.

There's Gonna Be Some Cooking Going On

I have the ingredients to do two cooking experiments. The first I will be cooking this evening, and tlsd will be my lucky guinnea pig. Tonight the plan is to make a smoked trout and new potoato salad from Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie's Dinners' cookbook. So far, everything I've made from this cookbook has turned out really well, so I'm hoping this particular entry will be no exception.

Of course, I only had half the trout I needed, so I'm going to half the recipe. This will probably be okay, as every other time I cook food, there is always way too much of it anyway. And more importantly, I need to clear the fridge and make room for my cooking experiment tomorrow which is to make my very own crispy duck.

Now, crispy duck is not something that I ever had in the states. There is always Peking Duck in most restaurants, but it's not at all the same as Crispy Duck. But my intent is not to deep fry a duck. Instead, I am again taking a page from Jamie's Dinners and am going to try to make my own baked crispy duck. I bought the pancakes and am all ready, it's just the duck that's a bit of a mystery. I bought it today. It's large. I've never cooked a duck before, this should be interesting. My guess is flatmate D and tlsd will probably share in this experiment as well.

So. Broadway Market? Check. Studying? No. Cleaning? No. Laundry? No. TV watching? Check. Interent surfing? Check. Gym attendance? No. Work that I brought home from the office? No. Well. I can see how this weekend is going.

Something Else

As in, "It's time to talk about...". I'm getting bored with myself. Which is not to say that these matters aren't still pressing, just that I'd rather stop talking about them now, and I'm sure none of you mind.

This morning DMG, our IT guy came by my house before work to help me fix my wireless network. Obsessive readers will remember me saying how pleased I was to set it up a few months back, of course, what I perhaps did not report is that it all went to shit soon after and had to work via cables. Or really, that should say 'one cable' which sort of defeats the purpose of a wireless network so that flatmate DM and I can both be working on our computers, via the internet, anywhere in the flat, at the same time. Well, it looked promising when we left my house to go to work, we'll see what the situation is when DM gets home tonight. At the very least he should be able to work via cable and I should be able to go wireless if we can't get his connection working right. Stupid computers.

In the meantime, I stayed at work really late trying to get a drawing from Illustrator, which was massively big into a smaller more friendly format. My computer was grinding on the conversion for close to an hour, though it did eventually work, on my screen, and when I went to save it, it crashed and lost the hour-long conversion. So I set it up a little differently and tried it again, only to have it happen again, so I just went home, now a full day behind in my work for the week. This morning I've managed to get it to work better, so now I'm waiting for my InDesign document to turn into a pdf which is going to take another fucking hour or so. Which leaves me plenty of time to write a long rambling blog on company time. Woo hee!

Tonight I'm intending to swing by the London Munch. A munch being the standard name for bdsm social gatherings. I usually don't go to munches. Not to be mean, but they are often populated with people very unlike myself. I obviously like bdsm oriented sex, but it doesn't mean I am a goth, or into lots of tattoos and body piercings, or even like to wear black- all of which is regularly unfortunately associated with bdsm. It's not that everyone is like that (clearly), but the most outspoken people, and those who are the most involved, tend to predominantly be that way. So generally I don't feel like I fit in at a munch. Sure, these people share one particular interest of the many in my life. That doesn't mean we have very much else in common. However, a couple people I am friendly with are going tonight and have asked if I was going, and since I don't regularly go, I thought I'd go tonight and get myself off the hook for another bunch of months.

My weekend plans involve not much really. Broadway Market, general grocery shopping, laundry, rotating my mattress, and a possible trip to Ikea. Studying, will obviously feature largely. And I may end up taking work home at this rate. And there will go my weekend. But that's alright. I don't think I mind.

I always find in times of dissatisfaction with life, I am dissatisfied with everything. At the moment I am wondering why I'm not someone else, doing something else with my life. Continual jealousy of those who I see as having the things I want. Often not spouses or money- most frequently the contentment of doing a job that I think is amazing. I should be writing porn or making things or have my own upscale sex shop (with SH of course, since that's been our ten year vision, too bad CCK beat us to it!!). Son of a bitch.

How To Fuck Up Your Children

What the fuck is going on in this picture? Who the fuck thought this would be a good idea? And what the fuck is that little girl doing? Seriously? No, I mean, SERIOUSLY.

When I came across this via we make money not art, I just had to reproduce it.

I'm sure you can see why.