Nose to tail eating can sometimes involve cooking and eating some things that can sometimes seem unappetizing - even to those of us who are offal inclined.  And then there's fois gras.

Fois is the liver of a duck that has been force fed.  What the birds are fed is up to the producer, sometimes it's a combination of different grain, sometimes it's brandy soaked bread.  There is a lot of controversy surrounding how fois gras is made, some peope feel the ducks are being tortured by going through the gravage (forcefeeding) process - I've seen these ducks happily following the farmers to get their suppers. 

Opinions on feeding ducks aside, fois gras is delicious, luscious and a treat.  I purchased my tiny piece at one of my local gourmet shops, it's Grade B Fois Gras, which means that there are some veins present but the flavour and texture are still fois.  Just a little more high maintenance.  They are fairly easily removed with a sharp knife.  For those on a budget I highly suggest it.

Before I left my last job I bought a jar of cider jelly, which is very simply a gallon of cider reduced to a small jar of jelly - the flavour is sweet and tart and appley.  I've also got a little bit of homemade blueberry lime jam.  Very simply I'm going to toast some baguette, sear my fois gras in a very hot pan and serve them with my two preserves.

Don't salt the liver until it's seared, then give it a generous sprinkle.  The one thing to remember is to not over cook your precious liver, you want it quivering on the inside and crisp on the outside.

The liver is flavourful, fatty and salty, the cider jelly is sweet and tart and the toast is crisp (the jam is alright - not bad for a first batch).  A nice glass of wine and Ross and I are  feeling very fat and happy.

Tonight I got home from work and felt a little fragile.  My husband Ross, being the saint that he is, let me sit at my computer watching trashy TV and took care of dinner.  Complete with my favorite - roasted bone marrow.

Dinner tonight consisted of a bottle of wine, some nice cheese, a niçoise salad and a few knobs of roasted bone marrow with scallions and buckwheat walnut toast.

While Ross was compiling all his salad ingredients he preheated the oven to 425 degrees and put in the bone marrow (on a foil covered tray) - twenty minutes later the marrow was perfectly jiggly.  Ross sprinkled each bone with some coarse gray sea salt and a generous pile of sliced scallions.

Heaven.

The coarse gray salt cuts the rich beefiness of the bones perfectly.  And the scallions managed to add a little bit of summer to what I normally think of as a rich (fall or wintery) dish.

Thanks for a fantastic dinner Ross, I'm a very lucky lady.

Here it is! 

Looking forward to seeing how my next video (grilled pig tail) turns out.

After having a beautiful roast chicken for dinner I was left with one lonely liver.  That one liver cooked in a bit of nice olive oil, then finished with a splash of last nights red wine, some salt and cracked black pepper made a perfect mid-morning snack.

I seem to be averaging about a post a month, which really disappoints me.  There have been a lot of changes around here.  Been spending more time with the lovely people at How2Heroes doing some videos.  I'm changing jobs, trying to get the new house a little more together.

Trying to ramp up for some more posts, but it may be slow for a bit longer.

Thanks for sticking around everyone!

The How2Heroes crew just left, and I had so much fun!

Not sure when the video will be up on the site, but I'm so excited to see it.

Here's a sneak peak from facebook.

Once again, Jo at Create A Cook has fueled a blog post.  This time she brought me these tiny, lovely crabs - marinaded in chili's, and I'm sure a bunch of other ingredients I'm just not recognizing.  She found them near other banchan (the little dishes that accompany Korean meals) which leads me to believe that's  what these guys are. I love it when Jo goes to H Mart.

I've got no idea how to eat these little guys, outside of with a nice bowl of rice.

The flavour is spicy and fermented with a undeniable fishiness.  Much stronger than the shrimp she got me last time.  As always, I love the biting through the crisp shells.

After tasting these little guys I'm reminded that I need to eat more Korean food.

Thanks for another delicious post Jo!

A few months ago I spoke to a culinary class at Newbury College about food blogging with my good buddy Lilly Jan.  One of the pieces of advice I gave them was you must post once a week, barring an extremely important life changing event.  Having said that, please excuse my absence for the past couple months, it was not without reason.

There has been some excitement in the world of Eating Nose to Tail - I will be shooting my first video for How2Heroes in a week.  I'm not sure if I can give away what I'm making or not but a key ingredient is one of my favorite pieces of offal.  I'm very excited.

More immediately exciting is the two different types of black pudding sitting in my fridge.  Black pudding is a sausage made from blood, oats, bread, fat, meat and a variety of flavorings such as onion, garlic, salt and pepper.  My dear friend Tobi has promised to come over and cook a traditional British breakfast (as luck would have it, Tobi is British.)  I was put in charge of finding the black pudding, and I was able to find it at Kiki's Kwik-Mart in Brighton.  If you have a chance go take a look - it's quite a neat little spot.

These particular black puddings seem to be more Irish than English.  Truthfully I don't really know what the difference is, but I'm looking forward to watching Tobi cook them.  I'm hoping he can tell me everything I've ever wanted to know about black pudding.

Sitting just below the remarkable assortment of black pudding was also some really good looking back bacon which also made it home and into my fridge.  I've been talking about trying to make a peameal bacon at home, hopefully this back bacon will inspire me.

I've been doing this project for almost a year, and I've been thinking about making a few changes.

The first is including standard recipes (ingredient list, followed by step by step instructions), instead of just a narrative about the cooking process.   I'm just wondering if anyone would actually cook the recipes...

The second one being maybe doing a video or two - I think I'm going to have to feel my way through that one.  Investing the money into a camera may not be realistically in my budget right now.

Looking forward to hearing what you think about these ideas, and if you have anything else you think would be a good addition to this blog.