Monday, April 07, 2008

Oh my god, the bird exploded!

I am really lazy. Really. I keep meaning to post but keep finding excuses not to and other things to do. It’s not as if we’re not busy and all but if MLE and Doola found time to post during their wedding stuff, I have no excuse. Oh well.


So Bone Marrow. The boy got 35 lbs of beef bone marrow from the new meat supplier at work. The restaurant is trying to go as local as possible with suppliers. The new butcher is awesome. He’s very French, and has all sorts of stuff including rabbits, quail, and other lesser used meats. So we got some bone marrow a few weeks ago. I’m going to make beef stock with some of it in the next few weeks but on the day we got it, we just made some for immediate consumption.

Bone marrow is basically sliced up bones with the marrow exposed so you can scoop out the meaty goodness inside.

We roasted the bones at 450 for about 20-25 minutes, a little more for bigger bones. You do not want to over roast these so keep a careful eye on them. I seasoned the tops with garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. The marrow was served with a crusty baguette, gruyere cheese, radishes, and fresh chives.

It was soo good. It’s really rich and meaty, so you definitely need something to cut it. They gruyere was an excellent compliment to it. I would definitely recommend trying this out if you ever get the chance.


Then there are the other birds, the kind we don’t eat. The cats have been doing a good job of bringing us gifts of birds, bugs, and small reptiles. Alex is not a passive kitten when it comes to this. He does help hunt the birds or rather, likes to take over the prey once it has been caught.

I came home one day a few weeks ago to find a carpet of feathers in my entryway. My first thought was, “Oh my god, the bird exploded.” I mean there were feathers everywhere. It must have been a long, hard fight. They went in four different rooms. I followed the feather trail and found the remains upstairs in our office and had to clean out the lovely blood and all. Poor thing never had a chance. I’m also still finding feathers from that.

Last weekend, Punk caught a robin and brought it inside. It escaped and sat in our garage/junk room for a while. I spent a few minutes shooing it out into the yard. As soon as it flew out the door, bam! So did the cats. They ran out and Alex caught the damn thing and brought it back inside. Much fun ensued while I chased him around our bottom floor, trying to get the bird away from him. He would just not let go of the thing. It took both me and the boy several tries to get the poor birdie away from Alex. But alas, it was too late and the bird had to be mercy-killed. And there were still feathers to be cleaned up.

Punk apparently has a penchant for leaving gifts for our neighbors also. One of them told us that she left them a baby possum at their back door a few days ago. They didn’t mind and thought it was nice of her to share the wealth. (They have 2 dogs and used to have a cat so they understand.) Ah, my crazy kitties.


In a future post: chicken jello, gardens, alex and the hole, and condescending moms