A duck. What to cook with a duck. Side dishes for duck.

 The backstory is I got a frozen duck from Gideon for my birthday in December. It is too luxurious to eat by myself, so I stuck it in the freezer. Now it's April and the Omnicron wave around my the end of the year has subsided, the weather is nicer, and it is time to cook a duck.

The first problem with my meal plan is the flip side of it being too lonely to eat a fancy duck by myself. I started by inviting Yasmin. Then I invited Matt and Emily because they also gave me lot of fancy ingredients for my birthday (most of which I still have, and may incorporate into the meal). And I had to invite Gideon of course, but he hasn't told me if he will come. Also, roommates. So I am dealing with not a lot of duck per person and also a lot of uncertainty about how many people I even need.

Two people have suggested I make Peking duck. I do not know how to make this. I am not really sure how to make any duck (that is the point of Gideon's gift.. he gets me weird things I have to figure out). But I especially don't know how to make Peking duck.

I currently think I will make a large amount of some sort of risotto (that was a gift from Matt & Emily) as a first course, then a small serving of duck with a side of some vegetables as a second course. This is basically the Italian meal style. Which means I could flesh it out with an antipasto course. My main risotto ideas are either mushroom (risotto ai funghi), saffron (risotta alla milanese) or to be very weird, strawberry (risotto alle fragole). This one for orange risotto sounds good too. (risotto all'arancia)

The point of this blog post is to take notes while I look through all the grocery circulars to see what is on sale this week and maybe come up with ideas. The title of the blog post was accidentally SEO bait and then I thought it was funny so I made it more baity.

Bravo: Asparagus $2/lb. Mozzarella $3. They don't list them on sale, but they sell bulk white mushrooms for $3/lb which is a pretty good price and I could use a ton of those with a few porcini (gift from Matt & Emily).

Brooklyn Harvest Market: Asparagus. Mozzarella.

C-Town: Asparagus. Mozzarella. All the sales are the same this week. Escarole $2/lb.

Food Bazaar: Lemons 5/$2, but I'm not dealing with that whole store for that.

Ozzie's: Asparagus. Mozzarella is 2/$4 (must buy 2) so at least that is a little different. And ricotta is only $3.

Green Corner: Strawberries $2/lb. Lemons 5/$2 (I will go here just for that).

My Planned Menu

Antipasti: various olives, some cheeses, giardiniera, roasted red peppers, and maybe some sort of crackers

Primo: Risotto ai funghi

Secondo: Orange duck (anatra all'anatra)

Contorno: Escarole or arugula salad with strawberries, gorgonzola

Grocery Inflation Part 2: Whole Foods

 Whole Foods has been the worst for grocery inflation because they don't update the prices on their shelves. They just charge you more. First I got charged $1.99 for my $1.79 tofu. This week, I went back to get 3 liters of olive oil before the quarter ended and my credit card quit giving me 5% on groceries. My $19.99 olive oil rang up as $21.99.

I had happened to take a picture of the shelf of the olive oil so I had the price. So I decided to complain. First I was going to complain to NYC to get them arrested, but there was a line on the form that said "did you try resolving this with the company first?" So I emailed Whole Foods.

Whole Foods ended up refunding me the entire $21.99. Which was a lot more than I would have expected ($2 would have been fair!) but they didn't say "and we will tell the manager to make the prices on the shelves right" so I still don't want to risk shopping there any time soon. But because I have so much olive oil, their plants aren't as good as they were in mid-March, and I got a rosemary at Trader Joe's, and their tofu isn't cheaper anymore, I don't think I need to shop there.