Orange Pith and Duck Fat,

       Duck a l'orange, sounds like something a magician would say to get himself out of a bad situation... It's not. But it is a myth. Duck is a real thing, and oranges are very viable for many uses. Separately, they are two very beloved things, but to merge them both in holy matrimony,  never going to happen... Until the French came.
  
        On a more serious note, those three words have been floating around my mind for the past month. I'm not capable of eradicating it from my thought process. (believe me, eradicate is the correct word.) I am to recreate a beautiful classic French dish? "What is Classic cuisine anymore?" Good question, seems like there's none around. "Classicly French trained" on a resume now a'days means you cooked in a French kitchen for a month. Than again, who am I to say this, I'm 16 and I've worked in one professional kitchen. Anyways, back on track, I'm asked to create an astonishing classical dish, I want to do it right for goodness sake. I've been searching and researching this dish for the past week and have yet to come up with a recipe I am satisfied with, and if I used someone elses, I would be terribly ashamed of my sources. It's not even a question in my mind that I am over thinking this by huge amounts, and it's actually pissing me off. So today I buckled down, yelled "Fogetta-a-bout-it!" and wrote a damn recipe.

Here it is.

Duck a l'orange.

Ingredients:
1 Pekin Duck, excess fat removed.
2/3 Cups Orange Juice
3 Orange (Peel)
Zest of 2 Oranges
Zest of 1 lemon
2/3 Cup of Sugar
3 tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
2 cup brown duck stock
1 cup of Mirepoix 
Potatoes
Pearl Onions


Preperations:
Simply salt and pepper the duck and place the zest of the orange into the back cavity of the duck. Sear duck in duck fat. Reserve. Saute mirepoix. Deglaze with white wine. Reduce. Add brown duck stock. Braise duck for 45 minutes.

Julienne orange and lemon zest. Confite in simple syrup. Reserve.

Tourne pommes cocotte. Blanch and saute. Reserve. Glaze onions a brun. Reserve.

Gastrique sauce:
Make light caramel with sugar and vinegar. Add orange juice. Add to fonds de braisage. Reduce. Work on sauce cinsistency and finish sauce.

To plate:
Break down fully cooked duck into 8 pieces. Place at the middle of a large platter. Coat with castrique sauce and decorate with orange and lemon juilenna. Pommes cocotte and glazed onions as garnish. Decorate with half slices of orange on the platter.

José Ramón Andrés Puerta

          So I sat down in a serene place to contemplate who I would lose my Why I Cook virginity to, and thought of one chef that was perfect. Don't get me wrong, it was a terrible gruesome battle within my mind to choose the perfect first post, but now that it's over, I couldn't be more pleased with my decision. This man is pretty much a saint in my book, and I can flip through his books all day. It seems he shines new light on an ever so lost Spanish cuisine. My perfect life consists of traveling and, oh so cliche, food. I've decided that I wont allow myself to kick the bucket until I've been to two places, those two being France and Spain. Granted he now mows his lawn in Washington D.C, he is still a Spaniard at heart! There is no interesting story of how I came across Chef Andres, but the first time I ever noticed him was because of a book I ended up purchasing, Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America. If you have never been induced with a culinary coma, than that book might just do it for you. I don't know what it is about him, but I can honestly say that he is part of the reason I want to pursue culinary. It might be his attitude, the support line to his lovely and stupendous food ideals. Perhaps it's the culture you can see in his food. Personally, when I look at his dishes, I feel as if I am in Spain at a Tapas bar. Maybe it's his drive to continue dishing (Ha! Culinary pun!) out innovative masterpieces. Or maybe it's purely because of his great success in the Culinary Industry. (yes it deserves the capitol letters.)

      On the subject of success, he owns and runs 6 restaurants! Yes, count them... s-i-x.... A couple of them are Tapas restaurants, serving up vibrant small plate dishes

And some on the more finer side of Dining

       And while he is not dealing with 6 restaurants, he finds time to host a show titled Made in Spain. Which is a pretty interesting show, and is always very informative.
     I guess, to me, it doesn't matter what way you look at it, without a doubt in my mind, he is part of Why I Cook.

Inspiration comes from all places.

Lets get straight to the point, this blog has been a big idea jogging around my imaginative head for quite some time. All it took was a threatening comment about failing a class to put it up and running. As many of the readers here will know, this is a school project and is graded, so all of you better give me good remarks! On a lighter note, it might be about time to start telling you about my blog, considering that is the objective of this post. As I mentioned before, this blog has been rolling around in my thoughts for a couple years now, but now it is alot more focused. This blog is about my Inspirations, and believe me there is alot of them. I guess the easiest way to explain this, is to show you.