Holiday Greetings!

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kat Macfarlane <katmac at ...> wrote:
>
> Dear one,
> 
> If I cooked a goose (or a turkey either), my goose would be /cooked/! I 
> am a small woman (4'10" at last reckoning), and weigh approximately 130 
> pounds, so the goose would probably win the battle paddles down (and 
> shit all over the kitchen floor into the bargain). Even if it didn't, I 
> live in a tiny little apartment with a tiny little refrigerator. What on 
> earth would a person like me do with the Brontosaurus after the Feast, 
> assuming that there is room in here for a Feast, and assuming I liked 
> turkey, which I don't? I don't know about goose, never sampled one and 
> probably never will, though got a rather bad impression of them from the 
> Canada geese that hung out on Lake Washington in my doctoral years and 
> energetically pursued  anyone they perceived as having a picnic on them.
> 
> (I often wonder if cave women ever had this problem. ("Oh my /Gawd/, 
> he's bringing home another damned /mastodon/!")
> 
> I'm glad you got so much enjoyment (and so much fat) out of your goose, 
> but I think I will stick to skinless, boneless chicken breasts as 
> something my size can deal with without a great deal of angst and bother.
> 
> Slightly overet purrs,
> 
> --Gatta

Um.
Well, mine was dead when I got it. Not that I'm averse to slaughtering beasties,
though I suspect that in my enthusiasm it could get..... messy. And plucking 
the damn thing would be a pain in the ar*e, frankly.

No country-girl you, that's obvious. Geese aren't in the same size league
as turkeys -  average size for a fat farm-bred free-range goose is about 12 - 
13 lbs, going down to 9lb or up to about 15 max.  Wild ones tend a bit smaller.
Fits in a halfway decent oven. 
>From a mid-size you'll get about 3 pints of goose fat, leaving a cooked carcase
of roughly 8 lb (including bones) which, with some plucky work with the elbows
means it won't still be occupying the fridge/freezer come Easter, but will be a
pleasant memory before New Year. Ideal, IMO.

And just think,  you'll be exacting an annual revenge on those Washingtonian 
hissers. Serves 'em right. You are at the top of the food chain, after all.