Wabbit

I don't really like meat. Chemicals, artificial hormones, and lack of respect for animal welfare get me down. But also, growing up, partially for economic reasons and partially I don't know why, we didn't eat much meat. Last year as my neighbors were moving out I rescued some food from their freezer, and nabbed a NY strip steak, just to see what it was like. I remember the occasion pretty vividly, had a potato with it, some ketchup, and was watching Hombre with Paul Newman. It was disgusting. So much protein. How do people do that? So what does this have to do with rabbit you ask? I like meat when it is a flavoring agent, not the primary nutrition of a meal, not the 'star.' Unless we're talking wild sockeye salmon, of course...

Co-op, 1 August 2009. Organic Okra. Yes! I'd been thinking about cooking rabbit for r/s/l, but we ran out of time. But rabbit was on the mind, and okra and rabbit seemed like a natural. Ended up making a mutt-like rabbit stew. Not going to write a recipe cause there wasn't one, although I consulted some italian and southern cookbooks (Jamie 0, Paul Prudhomme). Used the cream off of the top of a Strauss Milk bottle + olive oil. Herb de provence, cayenne, bay leaf, blood orange zest. Onion, garlic, okra, peppers from the garden. Mushrooms, beet greens, red russian kale. Red sauce. Fish sauce. It was ok. I think I'll do some more experimenting, and might even follow a recipe next time. Albertsons has cut up rabbit for 6$/lb, not too shabby. Yea gods I just promoted Albertsons on the blog. When Clare was getting ready to leave I was hoping to do a rabbit dinner, and called all of the butcher shops, and no one had rabbit in stock, some wouldn't even order it, and that was downtown SB! So that a store in easy biking distance had rabbit.... had to do it.

Was rocking out to the Evening Blues on KCBX while cooking. Jackson Blue was hosting, he does an hour of acoustic blues at the beginning. I dig Elizabeth Cotten, she sounds like she's 12, but it works. A late dinner --> crappy interior lighting for the pic....

This photo violates the 1/3 rule of composition pretty nicely. Also avoiding lines unless they are diagonal. The other pics I took were worse....

The next day I pulled all of the meat off of the bones, shredded it a bit, added quite a bit of organic valley heavy whipping cream and some roasted acorn squash. The color isn't great, but the flavour is quite good. Especially on polenta, although this is leftovers on rice.

My new favorite plate.