echo

Oh now you want someone just to buy you the duck and wild rice? Well that's different. I assume you want it cooked for you as well.

The various good places to have duck locally (Seattle) are Brasa, Canlis, and Campagne. If you are in San Francisco, Bacar does an amazing duck and foie gras sausage as well as a nice roast duck breast. You could also checkout MC2 as they have a nice duck preparation.

But if you are being adventurous and hoping that someone actually buys you the ingredients and either cooks for you or convinces you to cook, you should hope for a nice Long Island Duck and most any organic wild rice will do (if that's what you're craving). Since duck is so rich your side dishes need some power to keep up with the duck or at least bring out the flavors of the bird or compliment the subtleties of the wine.

My usual preparation is the aforementioned honey lavender roast duck, served with spicy greens and seasonal mushrooms, and either garlic or horseradish mashed potatoes. The wine would be an Oregon Pinot Noir, although the last time I made this preparation, I served it with a Californian Pinot Noir from Napa.

If I were to use wild rice, Id probably go with a cherry (or some kind of berry) reduction to bring out the fruitiness of the wild rice. Id probably roast the duck with a combination of cracked black pepper and sage rubbed all over the outside and inside. I might do a fennel and apple salad just for fun. The wine would probably be a red Chateuneuf-du-Ppe or a red Hermitage. But thats just me.

it's the history that gets me too. it's just so intense to be somewhere, especially a church graveyard, where there are people buried there who were alive a thousand years ago, it just feels different. in a way that very few places in america can really do. cities that have grown, over time, over a long time, without a plan, without an ikea catalog or a civic planning department or whatever. just grown cause things happened, and people moved and wars and rulers and stuff. it's intense, i like just walking around and taking it all in. you can totally feel the stories of everyone as you look at stuff.

i remember in belgium, we were at a museum and across the street was an old apartment building that had been firebombed years ago, the glass was broken and just a chair was sitting in with the wreckage and the broken sign across the front said something about being a socialist group. it was amazing, you just don't have that kind of history in america. it's incredible.

you should come visit :-) ok i know that it's not going to happen, but you would love it here i think.

do i need to double post to show that i love talking with you too? ;-)