The Elusive Donald Duck

There's only one place around here that sells fresh duck, and it happens to be in a posh area with no parking and completely out of the way of our usual, beloved grocery store. It remains one of the only butcher shops I've been to; an institution, if you ask me, that is dying slowly because of the complaints of one-stop shoppers who value time over custom cuts of meat and aggressive vegetarians, of which Berkeley has no shortage.

I have no idea why duck is so difficult to find in American grocery stores; it's possible that it's because we haven't developed quite the sophisticated palate as many Europeans, or people don't quite understand how to cook duck. I tend to think it's because ducks have been glorified as lovable cartoon characters described as "cute," and "funny," even though creepy Donald wears no pants and Daffy spits like an automated sprinkler on a suburban lawn. People just don't want to eat that.

When S. noticed the duck peeking out of a corner in the display, he almost didn't notice that it wasn't free range or organic (S. belongs to another gastronomical discriminatory group that Berkeley is replete with, The Organicists.). Right then and there we decided to return the following week, pick up our hormone-injected duck, and to the horror of my vegetarian roommate, cook the damn thing in its own fat for a delicious duck confit.

Then Taxes happened. Being the responsible procrastinator that I am, I saved my tax doing for a few days before the last possible minute, meaning this past weekend was tax time. I was consigned to register myself with the one-stop shoppers and pick up dinner foods at our wonderful, but expensive, and unfortunately fresh duck-less Berkeley Bowl. As a piece offering to S. who was rather disappointed about having to wait for his confit, I decided on a compromise: a tangy and peppery chicken a l'orange, traditionally made with duck rather than chicken breast.