The Ghost Goose

If you take nothing more from today’s post, know these three lessons: It’s never good when fully-grown adults are eating with their fingers.  Especially mashed potatoes and gravy.  Evaporation is a cooling process.  And, folks who have maids at home make poor duck camp partners.  Your life as a chef will go much smoother with these tidbits of knowledge.

Smoked goose sounded so yummy and appropriate since my hunting partners and I had just de-blinded from a day on a waterfowl slough.  We were ravenous.  A chill November rain had dampened our spirits.  Oh, another take-away: “Water resistant” in the sportsman’s catalog doesn’t necessarily translate into “waterproof” in the field.  We were all soaked to the bone.

Not to worry.  Hot, smoked Canada goose coming right up.  What could be more manly?  More hunter/gatherer?  More haute than smoked-goose cuisine in a duck camp setting?

When my gourmet meals fail to rise to the normal standard of excellence I have set for myself I can always trace the root cause to the tools.  It is never, ever the carpenter.  The culprit in this case was a charcoal-fired smoker, about the size of a three-year old child and just as unpredictable.  Would it smoke?  Oh, yes.  Like a Turkish elder.  Would it produce cooking-level heat in a steady rain?  Suffice it to say this was not an appliance you would want to huddle around on a cold winter’s night.

While my partners were warding off the chill with assorted beverages and clinking their silverware in anticipation of the meal, I was racing between the smoker and the three-burner stove on the old school bus we call home in duck camp.  I was cooking potatoes to be mashed and attempting to finesse the gravy which looked quite a bit like the mattresses on the bus – lumpy.  I was ruing the fact that my goose was not dripping the stuff I needed for my gravy rue.  Plus the drips on the school bus were becoming more demanding about my meal’s timing.

Every time I took the lid off the smoker to check on the goose the room-temp air inside escaped.  A steady November rain was evaporating as it hit the smoker, chilling any chance of a hot meal.  After two-hours the gander still had the pall of a goose ghost.

 I finally had to admit there wasn’t a ghost of a chance for putting a hot meal on the table.  So I went back to the bus to serve mashed potatoes, cheese and crackers, apples and candy bars.  And there they were, my hapless hunting partners, sound asleep with gravy smeared all over their fingers and faces.  The least they could have done is use the forks and put themselves to bed on the lumpy mattresses.