March 10th – Sardines & Salmoriglio Sauce w/ salad at the house.
March 11th – Sandwich heaven at the Mountaineers Navigation course
March 12th – A poor man’s lunch. White beans, kale, cheese, & and an egg.
March 13th – Poor man’s lunch #2. Lentil cakes w/ tomato & onion sauce
March 14th – A week of meals for a Specific Carbohydrate diet .
March 15th – Impeccably laid out ingredients for gluten free caramelized onion scones.

Feb 25rd – Slowly frying a perfect egg for some breakfast.
Feb 26th – Miso & Lime aioli
Feb 27th – Gluten Free Chocolate Chip & Coconut Cookies
Feb 28th – Cooking off some handmade tofu, mushroom, & zucchini dumplings
March 1st – Being attacked by the steam of steel cut oats.
March 2nd – Sardines! Try them grilled whole w/ some herbs & oil.
March 3rd – Finishing off the turmeric root with a microplane (microplanes are great for ginger and garlic too!)

Feb 17th – Toasting the spice blend for channa dal
Feb 18th – Spinach, cauliflower, & cabbage dal for lunch
Feb 19th – Scallops over romesco w/ caramelized onions and garlic kale
Feb 20th – Opah, a tuna like fish, over avocado, chiles, and sauteed adzuki bean sprouts
Feb 21st – A veritable forest of Adzuki Bean Sprouts
Feb 22nd – Popcorn, a very basic salt and olive oil one this time.
Feb 23rd – A breakfast when I’m feeling motivated in the morning. Avocado, fried egg, sauteed quinoa w/ garlic, shallots & thyme.

Feb 9th – Sandwiches w/ friends at Hex Mountain
Feb 10th – Pickles and Beer at Kiss Cafe
Feb 11th – Yam Chips, Smoothie & Carrot Cake w/ Almond frosting at Alive Juice Bar.
Feb 12th – Blending Romesco, the best sauce you’ve never tasted.
Feb 13th – Latte Art at Milstead Coffee Co
Feb 14th – A Valentines day drink. Housemates’ Raspberry & Chia Seed Kombucha
Feb 15th – A Private Party. The Shaam Savera w/ Mahkti dipping sauce was the big hit.

2/2 – Diamont Knot Industrial Pale Ale
2/3 – Spiced Apple Jam & Gluten Free Oatmeal & Cranberry Cookies
2/4 – Carrot Fritters bubbling away
2/5 – An army of tortellini vs a single creepy Veggie Filled Empanada
2/6 – Ballard Pizza Co!
2/7 – House Dinner – Smoked Cornish Game Hen
2/8 – The Perfect Seared Salmon w/ The Perfect Structural Medicine Specialist

Gluten Free Potato Gnocci w/ duck confit, tarragon & spinach

clean yourself off... you're drooling

Toboton Creek duck egg poached over olympia grown asparagus w/ shallots, parm & cracked black pepper

arial view of brunch

This duck yolk rolled out of its casing as slow as molasses during Boston's great molasses flood of 1919 but tasted so much better on asparagus

each yolk was the size of a small lime and as orange as well….an orange

1)    Walking through the farmers market while curious citizens and stand-tenders gazed at the two goat legs poking out of a trash-bag. I specifically remember a woman serving Naan, near the northwest exit, shouting to me “at least you don’t look suspicious!”

2)    Butchering Maxwell Copper-Bottom, the chosen name of the goat, from whole animal to the parts that I wanted: a neck, legs, two shanks, shoulders, sirloins, tenderloins, offal meats, and bones.

3)

Sarawack Goat Shoulder Curry w/ red camarang & white rice

Goat Shoulder Taco’s w/ Salsa Verde

Goat Aspic w/ goat neck and cherries

Mustard & Apricot Glazed Goat Leg w/ red onion, butternut, feta, and orzo salad

Greek Herbed Rubbed Goat Leg w/ orzo salad from one menu item above

Seared Loin & Tenderloin, w/ chermoula and minted yogurt dipping sauce

Goat Sausage spiced w/ cumin, chile d’arbol, coriander, red wine & cinnamon.

Goat Kidney & Liver pate w/ balsamic syrup, cornichons, fig jam, and whole grain mustard

Warmed Rustic Bread

Potato & Dill Salad

My culinary magnet led me to further discourse with one of the owners of Toboton Creek Farm, Lynda Kofford-Di Ciccio. This time the words “Muscovy duck” and “slaughter weight” were thrown around. Cut to me a few weeks later in Lynda’s car, driving to her farm in Yelm.

After retiring from their respective nursing and teaching professions, Lynda and Dan bought the farm 12 years ago. Of their 40 or so acres only a very small percentage is not left untouched for pastureland. When rolling through the gate to the farm you see Lynda and Dan’s small house, their two story generic barn on the right, and their feeding lot that they describe as “organized chaos”.

When the email was sent out that the pens would be organized into bucks, does, show goats, and kids, the chickens and ducks must have been playing angry birds on their Ipoult. They imperturbably floated from pen to pen laying eggs where they want and disregarding the needs of anyone else.

Behind the pens is a vast pastureland bequeathing its worms, grass, insects, streams and dense foliage to the needs of the animals, whose unclipped wings made catching them akin to a three stooges episode.

In the mornings, Dan leisurely feeds the goats, and picks up any eggs that he can find in the feeding bins or on the ground. Lynda would scrub the eggs of which I was able to see the massive ethereal white duck eggs, the pale green Araucana chicken eggs, and the shining dark chocolate Black Copper Maran eggs.

When going out to feed their Old Spot pig, Dan must cross what I call the vast “Sea of Cuteness”. A thirty-foot stretch stockpiled with two-week old kids whose sole purpose in life is turn the 8 second walk into a 5 minute “baa-fest”. À la The Grinch, my heart expanded three sizes when dozen of these soft and fluffy cherubs of the farm made a concerted effort to scale each other and my legs to get to my potential food-giving hands.

cuter than most human babies

The amazing thing about Lynda and Dan is they raise animals to make the animals’ life happy first and foremost. They see their goats, chickens, and eggs as an extension of their farm and land, not as a product of their farm or land. Their four dogs run around and aren’t easy to wrangle, their chickens and ducks fly, fertilize, and lay wherever they want, and their goats spend their day lazing around eating while gazing into you innermost thoughts and feelings. All Lynda and Dan do is clean up after them. They spread their feces for fertilizer, collect their eggs for food, and take care of the goats needs, which of course further philosophize about the meaning of your life.

“We always thought this is what a farm was”

Lynda put it nicely, when she said “you try and get them to do what you want, but they’re animals too and if they don’t want to they’re not going to”. Their laissez faire style of farm management yields healthy, lively, beautiful, disease free, happy animals.

Having said all that, they do slaughter over-aggressive turkeys, of-weight ducks, and old hens. So I found myself, knife in one hand and Muscovy Duck in another, about to take that much forgotten step in turning duck into that delicious confit you enjoy so much. I could feel both my blood and the Muscovy’s blood coursing through our bodies when I made the cut. My knees jellied a little, but my grip held, and a few minutes later it was over. By “…it was over” I really mean that I missed the second artery and didn’t realize it until I came back from washing my hands and was mortified to see the first duck I ever “slaughtered” had hopped out of its cone. I was determined to not make any-more mistakes and finished the rest of the ducks without incident…phew. After bleeding we, scalded, plucked, and cleaned the ducks before I had to get back to Seattle. Lynda and Dan sent me home with a whole Muscovy and a few dozen duck and chicken eggs.  Here are some more pics of from the farm sans the bloody slaughter.

baby muscovy's