back when my zip code was still 10038, and for a very brief time 10010, [and that is way after 10003 and 11580] it would be normal to sate a hunkering for homemade seared duck breast by stopping on my drive home downtown along the hudson river from the columbia med ctr/health sciences at fairways to buy d'artagnan [the neighborhood is alluded to here]. the prep involved would transform the whole apartment on 30th street into a cloudy aromatic, smoky room that invariably triggered the smoke alarm, not to mention afterwards a whole pile of pans and pots and greasy stove top. i have not been so lucky here in suburban albuquerque where duck, though good, have been had [as in ordered] only at the fancier restaurants [the compound, artichoke cafe, scalo's] as i have been unableto find duck breasts at the whole foods or trader joe's or the local boucheries. elk or buffalo or deer do not justly take the duck's stead...
attempts in the last couple of months to ordering online [from upstate NY] on its D'Artagnan website proved that their stock is undermined too quickly by the demand.
but lo, in my latest try today in this slow monday afternoon, ten, count'em, 10 half breasts of moulard magret are effectively all mine. [the fate and longings of a slew of other people hunkering for the hudson valley fowl can be read here] that it would cost nearly as much as a roundtrip ticket to manhattan when southwest airlines decides to offer a panic sale was quickly overlooked. frozen, they are to be fed-exed to me here in suburbia in the next day or two. expect at least a preparation a la orange, aux framboises, orange-chipotle sauce, pear and green peppercorn, cherry-port sauce, etc.
this was precipitated by the discovery of epicurious' new iphone application learned while reading an excellent short gopnik rumination about cookbooks in the new yorker. the first word typed into its searchbox was, alas, duck. and the rest, as they say, is history...
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