Merry Merry Ducky Wucky Christmas Marinade

There's nothing like duck at Christmas! Buy a bunch of duck thighs, preferably the French kind. There are a lot of complicated marinades on the net, but this one's easy:

Put plain sesame oil in a little pan. Heat. How much? Oh, around a half a cup. (Not the dark roasted kind! The neutral kind).

Slice in lots of garlic plus one little red onion. Stir. Squeeze a bunch of oranges into the pot; pour in at least half a bottle of maple syrup. 

Add a sprig or two of thyme and one or two of rosemary and any other nice-looking flavor packet you have lying around. Somebody gave me organic spice packets and one of them had a lot of rosemary and oregano and thyme; I threw in that one. 

Taste. Yum! Maybe a dash more maple syrup, and slosh in some red wine. 

Add in the duck and turn it over in the marinade, making sure each piece is coated. The whole thing will look like this: 

Just cover the bowl and let the duck cool its heels overnight in the fridge--later on, arrange in a baking dish; you can sear them in a pan first if you like, then bake at about 350 for over an hour . . . maybe even one and a half hours, depending on your oven. Keep checking. Enjoy. If you're feeling ambitious, make a gravy out of the leftover marinade (add a little flour, stir over low heat until it's a nice consistency).  Alternatively (and this is what I ended up doing): lift the thighs out of the marinade, sear them in olive oil in a Dutch oven, toss in a little flour, add the marinade plus a tad of broth concentrate or powder, and cook nearly covered, turning occasionally, for about an hour. It was good!

Winter Chicken Serenaded by Vegetables

 This is generally yummy, but also particularly good for ladies on chemo who have what I call "Mr. Allnutt Syndrome" or worse. You remember the scene in The African Queen: Mr. Allnutt's stomach gurgles loudly while he's enjoying tea and toast with the ultra-proper missionary lady and her staid brother. 

So if the chemo's getting to your digestive tract, here's a recipe that helps--the basic idea being varied vegetables, a round one, a leafy one and a root one at least once a day (and cooked! Not raw). For example, onions, squashes, cabbage are round. Leafy greens: kale, bokchoy, spinach, Swiss chard, mache, lettuces, parsley. Root: carrots, parsnips, celery root, burdock. There are others. 

Here's my recipe:

Into a medium-sized rectangular Pyrex dish put:

•a little olive oil--rub around just enough to coat the bottom of the dish

•one or two red onions sliced into fourths

•washed, slightly chopped parsley

•lightly boiled small potatoes, carrots, chunks of celery root

On top of all this, put four (or more) chicken legs that have been salted, peppered, and cooling their heels in a dish in your fridge overnight. Not essential to leave them that long, but the skin will be crispier if you do.

Squeeze a lemon over all and bake at about 190ºC. or 375ºF for 45 minutes to an hour. Check the chicken with a digital thermometer. Should be at 175ºF or about 79ºC.

Enjoy!

 

Another George Floyd Narrative: The Fall of Minneapolis

This is a typical response to Liz Collin's recent film, "The Fall of Minneapolis," which the New York Times has ignored, but which Glenn Loury and John McWhorter have been discussing, here and here.  Or here, if it's already been removed from the other places.

The basic thesis--backed up with the full toxicology report on George Floyd, revealed  a heart condition, atheroschlerosis, and levels of fentanyl and other drugs that could have killed him if he'd been sitting home in an armchair. 

But he kicked an officer. He agitatedly resisted arrest--I can see that; the full bodycam videos in the film show him arguing in the confused way that drunks do. He insisted he'd been shot during a previous arrest, which was either a delusion, an irrational fear, or a lie. The cop yelled, "Getcha fuckin' hands on the wheel!" and Floyd continued to wave them around and whine, "Don't shoot me."

Both were behaving badly. Language, officer! Narcotics Anonymous, George Floyd!

Would George Floyd have died so quickly if he'd been sitting up? And if he had died sitting up, would his death have been understood as inevitable?

I always thought this case was about a sadistic cop--not racism. But what if it's about a distracted or careless cop, or a cop who was blindly following the manual, and nobody realized George Floyd had just swallowed a bunch of pills in order to prevent them being discovered? There is that moment in the film catching white stuff dissolving on Floyd's tongue and foam around his mouth. The toxicology report in the film indicates he had very high levels of drugs in his system, but the one by a pulmonologist (here's the NPR version of that: https://www.npr.org/sections/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd/2021/04/08/985347984/chauvin-trial-medical-expert-says-george-floyd-died-from-a-lack-of-oxygen) says the pressure on his body, coupled with his position on the ground, caused his death. And that he could tolerate huge amounts of drugs, amounts that would have killed a first-time user, and that he'd have behaved sluggishly if he'd really felt intoxicated. Then there's the condition of his heart and the fact he'd had COVID. 

My head is spinning. George Floyd was clearly no angel; I can try to imagine being a cop and thinking "If I sit him up, he can jump up and kick me again." But then again, one of the younger cops said, "Shouldn't we roll him over and check his pulse?" Was Chauvin careless or negligent? Or was he just trying to prevent Floyd from a greater mobility that would have created more difficulties --while wondering where the heck the damn ambulance was?

It looks as though George Floyd was an unknown quantity--a large, muscular man who denied being high but who looked high, and who appears to have swallowed a handful of pills as he was being arrested--and these pills were taking effect the whole time, but since he denied being on drugs, the police waited 36 seconds to call the ambulance. Which got there very late--then--and this is on film--the team bungled the treatment, since the oxygen tube was used improperly--that is, not unpacked, so that he did not receive oxgen. 

What impresses me most is the interviews with the many former police officers of the third precinct, and the few who have remained on the force. They all seemed straightforward, deeply wounded, and not remotely racist. The film is worth watching just for those interviews.