Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Six Geese a-Layin'

When I was a senior in college I lived in a brand-new three-bedroom campus apartment with five other women. Now I think of them as girls, but that's what we called ourselves then. When December rolled around that year, we were all as busy as ever with exams, but we were all also aware that the end of our college time was near.

Life in that apartment was not always copacetic, but the six of us agreed to get together for a holiday meal the last Saturday before we left for break. To this day, I have no idea where the goose came from, although I do remember that, to a girl, we thought it was an excellent menu idea. I was in a Dickens seminar at the time, and the thought of roast goose for Christmas stirred my heart.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I had the GREs that day, and so the task of cooking our ever-so-traditional entree fell upon a roommate. In those days before the internet, trapped in a tiny rural town as we were, her research was impressive. She found a recipe that looked very promising despite all of the footnoted warnings.

As it turns out, a goose is quite a fatty bird, which makes a lot of sense. Fat floats and it keeps one warm in harsh northern winters such as ours was. Too bad fat also burns. As I walked into the courtyard on my way home from my exam, I saw all of our neighbors shivering in the cold.

Who knew a teeny little kitchen fire might upset so many?

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