No duck = no Paper Chef

Well, it really is a good thing that Stephen is hosting Paper Chef this time around. It is hard for me to believe that my energy level and interest in cooking is so very, very low. I think the series of breaks (both physical and metaphysical) coming up are much needed.

I didn’t end up cooking a single new thing this weekend although I did think about the Paper Chef duck/pear/nut butter/ginger challenge. I was going to try roasting the duck on high heat in a nut butter, ginger, garlic, soy paste with roasted pears and bitter greens. But instead I went to one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco, Boulevard, for an old friend’s birthday on Saturday and then enjoyed a roast chicken picnic al fresco at the Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda while watching a (truly) fantastic production of The Tempest by the California Shakespeare Festival.

So I’m sorry but no duck. Things will be quiet around here for the next few weeks. I am transitioning to a new job which is really exciting. I am taking a much too short break to go wander up the North Coast and walk through redwoods along the shore. Hopefully it will rain (I LIKE rain).

Coming up is NANOWRIMO which the rest of my family usually enter – which in turn means I won’t have a single conversation with them for the month of November.

But I like November more than October. Her in California, October is when we get hot days and cold nights and it gets drier and drier as the Sun tries desperately to stave off the clouds from the coast. I am waiting for the clouds. By November the Sun has lost. The rain comes. The cold comes.

7 Comments

  1. Hey Owen…glad I could help…wandering among redwoods in the rain does sound restorative — I hope it is…think I’ll pass on the NANOWRIMO — my wife just finished a 100,000 word novel in about 8 weeks and having seen that (it’s a yearly thing for her) I certainly have no desire to try it…even 50,000 words sounds too scary…anyway, good luck with it.

    Rain I can do without…I like snow…

  2. It’s looks like not many of us have duck for the Paper Chef challenge :). But I’ve done it with dessert, using inspiration from your comment on peanut butter and jam as an entry! I hope the next Paper Chef winner sets a budget of AUD$5-$10 for November’s Challenge.

  3. Congrats on the new job, Owen. Hope you feel a little more rested & restored after your break – walking through the redwoods along the shore sounds wonderful.

  4. Hey Owen, good luck with the new job!

    I’m going to attempt something completely insane this year: continue food blogging while participating in Nanowrimo. Of course this means Chopper gets less help in the kitchen, poor guy. (He’s going to curse me when he reads this.)

  5. Mrs D – you are certifiably insane! Plus you have to judge the upcoming Paper Chef the first week in November! (Or maybe C D can do that for you?)

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