Duck Soup

Date: 17 October 2006 01:30:49

And wonderful soup it is. I just made it. I cooked a duck yesterday, A wild mallard I accidentally bought - I'd intended to buy a fish pie but there wasn't one in the shop and I got carried away. I suppose it goes along with the pizza I accidentally made last weekend when I intended to bake some cheesy bread rolls for breakfast, but didn't have any yeast (well I did really but I couldn't find it because it was hiding behind some rice and beans) so I made some soda bread - sort of cheesy scones - but I ended up with far too much dough (even though I didn't use the big mixing bowl) so I squashed the rest out flat and baked it in a pan in with tomatoes and more cheese on it so it was a sort of pizza and actually quite nice - but anyway, it was quite a small duck and I ate most of the obviously eatable bits (though I have a little plastic tub of slices for lunch) but I boiled the bones and left-over bits with some garlic and carrots and green beans to make a stock yesterday and I'm now eating a large mug of it with peas and a potato in it and it is lovely duck soup.

But anyway, it makes a nice end to a long day that's not as relaxing as it should have been. I took the day off work and we went to the races at Plumpton. Lovely weather. The lack of autumn continues. Hot sunshine when we left this morning. It hazed over later and the weather was perfect for racing - neither warm nor cold, dry, but good going. The Downs were beautiful as always silhouetted against the sky with layers of blue-green scrub cumulating over the scarp, the sunset wonderful huge and bulbous, the rooks redolent of Not Being In London, the oak trees just turning colour, though the ashes and thorns are as green as in June - with golden keys and dark red overripe berries.

OK, we bet a little. Or rather gambled. No serious attempt to win. And no winnings at all (which is probably good, from the point of view of reducing the temptation to do it more than twice a year). Abigail wanted each-way bets on horses with interesting names or jockeys with pretty colours. I was into putting money on whatever the best-priced believable horse that wasn't the favourite was. A bookies dream. They dine out in their holiday homes in northern Cyprus on the backs of punters like us. Though she did suggest backing a no-hope horse (no form, almost no races, amateur rider) in one handicap hurdle each-way at 22 to 1 and I put a tenner on to win (because each-way is a girly bet) and he came home second, so had it been each-way we'd have paid for the day, and I'll never be allowed to forget it. So it goes.

And we missed the train back to London because we were admiring the horses back from the last race - astonishing amounts of sweat and steam and foaming at the mouth, *and* overhearing a stereotyped explanation from a certain mildly well-known jockey to a trainer as to why his mount came fourth - even though everyone else connected with it seemed to think it was a decent result - so we shouted over the railway track to ask the crowd on the other platform when the next train to Lewes was, and it was coming now, and it seemed better to dash over the footbridge and have a pint in the Lansdowne Arms than to wait another fifty minutes for the London train, but we missed the next train from Lewes so went back to the pub and had another drink, and didn't get back to London till after 9, and popped into the local for another quick one but got into an argument about cheese sauce (to roux or not to roux?) and ended up back home after midnight.

But the duck soup was really nice.

And I've just finished it, so I'll stop now.