I miss those guys so much
It was a while after my mom died. My sister moved away. It was me, my dad, and my mom’s brother, Uncle Richard. Uncle Richard enjoyed cooking, so by tacit agreement, he became the household cook.
It was awesome because Uncle Richard was an excellent cook. The Wallace household, before my mom died, had its usual meals. My mom was a good cook, so we always ate well. We had a varied diet, but for some reason, we had never had duck.
I was asleep when they decided we were going to try a duck
Dad and Uncle Richard got to talking one day, “ Richard, we need to try a duck, your sister never cooked one, and I never tried it.” My dad said, or something like that, I wasn’t there to hear the conversation. Uncle Richard thought it was a good idea, so my dad bought a duck.
We were hungry and curious as we sat down that evening. We filled our plates, and we all got a mouthful of greasy and nasty-tasting avian yuck. Being Wallace’s, my dad and I finished our plates, and so did Uncle Richard. A duck was never cooked again in the Wallace house.
The obvious thing would have been a Google search, but that didn’t happen
It’s been years since the duck incident. My wife got to talking about ducks. I told her about the disaster at my dad’s house. My wife, using the common sense she’s gifted with, knew she needed advice, so she called our sister-in-law.
The simple solution was to place a rack in the roasting pan to lift it so the duck wouldn’t soak up the grease. It was awesome. It was so good, we decided we were going to stay home this year and have a duck and a ham for Thanksgiving.
It never hurts to ask, and information is a click away
The takeaways I got when I thought about the Duck Incident all these years later. It’s good to experiment and try new things, but in the Age of the Internet, it’s silly to ruin a meal. Find out what you don’t know before you cook something you never tried before.
I love my wife; she’s the best cook ever. I always look forward to my meals, and I’m never disappointed. If you have never tried to cook a duck, do research first because a greasy duck is gross.
Final Thought:
I miss my dad and my uncle. I know they would have got a kick out of me enjoying my Thanksgiving. They would have laughed at the memory of the duck Incident. Enjoy the holidays with your family because it sucks when they are gone.
A duck deserves to be cooked right.
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