Friday, November 13, 2009

A blogger, a chef, a wild duck dinner

As many of you know, Boyfriend is one amazing cook, and somehow he found himself in a friendly competition yesterday with Sacramento Chef Michael Tuohy in an Iron Chef-style wild duck cookoff at Tuohy's restaurant, Grange, located in the Citizen Hotel in downtown Sacramento.

They each prepared five dishes from wild duck that Boyfriend and I supplied, and a panel of judges devoured and evaluated them.

The icing on the cake is that the ducks won, hands-down. After the wild-duck cookoff, Chef Tuohy and Boyfriend prepared a prix fixe dinner of domestic ducks (because you can't sell wild ones) modeled after many of the competition dishes. Ten percent of proceeds from that dinner - which was packed - went to California Waterfowl.

My job was just to take pictures, which was about all I was up for because I have a stupid cold. You can check out the slideshow below. I'd love to write more about this, but my Nyquil is calling me. If you want to read a more complete tale - and yes, Boyfriend came away with some good stories, like the horrible thing that happened to a cart full of food - you'll just have to check out his blog.

One last thing, though: This was the kickoff for Grange's new program: Bring your wild ducks to Chef Tuohy 48 hours in advance and he'll make you a gourmet meal out of your own birds for $75 per person. Being a regular customer at Grange, I can tell you you'll get your money's worth. If you're interested, give 'em a call at 916-492-4450.


© Holly A. Heyser 2009

5 comments:

Chad Love said...

Hey Norcal, my editor sent me the press release on the Grange "bring in your duck and we'll cook it for you" program, so I did a Field & Stream blog post on it today.

Darn, if I had known about this at all I would have mentioned it in the blog.

Holly Heyser said...

Oh, thanks for reminding me - totally forgot to mention that this was the kickoff for the bring-your-duck program in my blog post. Stupid cold has made me thick-headed. I've updated it now.

As soon as Hank's done writing his story, I'll go leave a link to it in the comments on your F&S post. If it'll let me...

Holly Heyser said...

For anyone who's interested, click here to see Chad's F&S post. (Chad, you should always feel free to pimp your posts here! I only delete spam comments.)

Galen Geer said...

I must now stop working and go feed my face. glg

Colina said...

Seeing all the pots lined up on the stove made me smile, but seeing the cocky "Yeah, I'm cooking PRO" look on Hunter-Angler...'s face made me laugh. What a wonderful evening!