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My Goose Is Cooked

{ November 22, 2009 @ 3:10 AM } · { General, Lifestyle }
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We eat a lot of wild game and home raised (organic) animals. However, it’s not often that we have goose and usually we are gifted from a neighbor that I make pies for. This year it is a bit different. He showed up with goose all right. A whole one.

This is my little adventure with the first one.

I punted. Watched it for a long time wondering how to proceed.
Canadian Goose

I double checked. Nope no instructions. So I decided to just pluck it.

Goose

Marinated in some sea salt for a few hours to draw out the blood:

I admit. I’ve cooked a lot but I’ve never cooked wild goose breast. We’ve had goose for thanksgiving before but not wild and I’ve never cooked it. So more punting. Here I put in some butter and olive oil in the skillet and got it nice and hot to sear the breasts putting over it some fresh dried sage, rosemary and thyme from the garden.

That was when I recieved a call from the giver who then told me I should be slicing it thinly and slow cooking it otherwise it would be tough. Hmmmm….

So…after the other side was seared…I cut it into pieces….I was originally going to sear it then roast it in the oven…but…he seemed pretty adamant that that would wreck it.

So…cut up and searinig with some more herbs and salt and pepper.

After it was seared yet again…..put it into a casserole dish into a low temp oven to finish…there’s my kitchen assistant on watch as always….

And then my mother came home just as I was going to make gravy and presented me with an orange creme soda…so I did what anyone would do….found the orange zest in the freezer I’ve saved from the case of oranges and grapefruit we bought to help fundraise for the local band….and made an orange cream soda sauce with the drippings….lol….

Added a little cornstarch and let it thicken….it was an interesting dynamic with the carbonation…

And then….viola! Dinner was served….with some broiled pieces of garlic buttered bread and parmesan cheese.

We were half done with our dinner before either of us realized…OH! Potatoes and veggies…whoops. Ah well…I was wrapped up in sitting down to test out my first goose cooked.

And it was awesome.

What’s Wrong With Failure?

{ August 27, 2009 @ 1:32 AM } · { General }
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There is no failure except in no longer trying. -Elbert Hubbard

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing. -George Bernard Shaw

If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down. -Mary Pickford

So anyway. We have all these quotes and adages…like my mother who likes to say, “Failure is only success turned inside out.” Apparently, this means that if you do the opposite you will have success? I don’t quite agree, but… “GO MOM!” We have all these things that let people know that “true” failure is not doing anything, that there is no shame in trying and failing but there is shame in never trying. Ok. So don’t be lazy. I could probably find thousands of quotes from thousands of successful people who tell all about their failures and how many more failures they have had than successes and they will all say basically the same thing…which is what I already said earlier.

So…then… Why do we have all these people still scared of failure or scared that people might know that they have failed at something? And another…why, even after all these hopeful and inspired quotes do those who have failed at something beat themselves up about it if failure is just another step to success? And how do people decide to rate their failures? What is an accepted failure and what is a completely unacceptable failure? Why do people set themselves up for failure rather than set themselves up for success?

I remember a dog training video I watched…and subsequently have seen this phrased used for dog training on many television shows of the same or similar topic. The trainer said the first step to training or retraining any dog is to set them up for success…to not make each step on the way too difficult or complex. And I experimented with this notion and it’s correct. The more I expected my dog to remember right away the worse he did. Once I broke down the task into three steps he was completing the complex task in about 30 minutes. That was three months ago…and now he still does it. Oh and the task was about being remained seated while someone fills the food bowl instead of trying to mow them down like they are going to take off with the food. :D That may not seem like a complex task but trust me…for a domesticated and spoiled dog that is very excited about food, it’s monumental.

All the time we get to see the “marketing guru’s” harp on us on 12 steps to this, 5 steps to that, ten steps to “real” wealth (whatever that is). The “gurus” break it down into small tasks (or at least that is the gist of their “ultimate” plan). Even people learning yoga…which is a monumental task if you ask me…(when I speak of yoga I do not just mean the physical part of it, I mean all limbs of it) teach students to go slowly, it’s not the goal at the end, it’s the journey that counts. But yet…even with all this, “failure is only success turned inside out” and all these people telling us to break things down into small tasks or attainable goals….we (people) STILL go right out there and set ourselves up for failure. Over and over and over and over and over again.

WHY?!?!

I have been working on this. I have huge big ideas, things I cannot do myself completely probably. Things I don’t have the money to do right now. Things that may take me years or decades to accomplish. For an amount of time I let these things just go by the wayside…they were too big. When I did try to go step by step, task by task, something always happened to deter me or got in the way of my flow. Circumstances drove those goals and dreams away.

Well… I say no more. I’m done with that. I’m done with being deterred. But I still don’t mind failure. I have learned a lot from my failures and without them I probably wouldn’t be where I’m headed. Which is…where, I’m not sure…but I have some ideas.