A Night in the Wind (Roast duck with figs soaked in red wine)
 

By Doug Irvin

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I began working in a restaurant when I was high school. The hours were long, and sometimes I worked until early in the morning, which may have been a violation of a few labor laws. But, in reality, for me, it was therapy. By my senior year, my parents' home had grown too small, and I moved to a friend's house close to the restaurant in which I worked.

I have always found it easier to cook for strangers and friends than for family. My family always moved like a car whose wheels are stuck in a rut on a long, straight, dirt road. Tradition ruled, particularly when it came to food. On Thanksgiving with my father's family, my North-Irish grandmother would cook up a storm of corned beef, mutton, meat loaf, cabbage mashed with potatoes, boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, boiled turnips, boiled beets, boiled carrots, corn bread and a turkey on the side in order to accommodate the American tradition. For Christmas, my mother's mother prepared the foods of her Norwegian heritage: goats' head soup, salted fish, lutefisk, white salad and blood bread. During the rest of the year, dinner traditionally consisted of pizza and cheese steaks. Change was unacceptable, there was no room for the dishes or cuisines that I learned to make at the restaurant.

When my mother and father came to a fork in the dirt road, they deserted the car and the rut they were in. Each got out and went off in a different direction. It was my first semester of college and luckily, I had already been walking down my own path. But now I had to find a new place to spend the holidays. I chose to spend them not with my family, but in the kitchen of the restaurant where I worked.

Every year the head chef, Chris, and I would perform our labor of love. The day before Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we prepped for hours more than usual even though there were more ghosts in the restaurant than people on these holidays. We hung ducks in cool, dry places to drip then we stuffed them with oranges, garlic and chives. We soaked figs in port wine to be served on the side. We dumped gallons of sauces and reductions down the drain when they didn't taste just right. We boiled lobster stalk for our lobster bisque. We made sure the oysters were covered in ice. We fed the anonymous, lonely souls who had no family to go to on Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. We cooked the dishes that I longed to cook for my family.

The summer of 2003 came and so too did a friend. I was working at an oceanfront bar in Belmar, New Jersey, when Angie came in, walking through the clouds. She had dark hair and brown eyes that blended into a dark olive complexion bronzed by the summer sun. The ceiling fan slowly circulated the humid air, lifted the salty smell of the sea off of the customers and sent it right back down again; the whole place resonated with its silent rhythm. Angie walked around looking for a friend. When she found none, she sat down at the bar and ordered a drink, not by name, but by exactly what she wanted: gin with yellow chartreuse chilled with a twist. It was a nice break from the ordinary routine of domestic light beer and frozen margaritas. These drinks, and the people who drink them, are the staples of Jersey Shore bars.

Angie and I spent the summer together. The relationship was quick and clean, the conversations subtle, the summer intense. We went fishing together during the day and cooked the fish in the evening. We drank warm beer under the boardwalk and wasted countless quarters in ski ball machines whenever we found the time in between a thousand smiles and other expressions of love. When we went back to college in the fall, I never expected to hear from her again. On the same breath of wind that brought her to me, Angie was freed.

During winter break, I got a call. Angie. She came walking through the clouds, to me, again. Her parents, as always, decided to spend the Christmas in their house in Greece--the house that they grew up in, the house where Angie was born. There was no room for change. She told them she wanted to take a winter course at the University of Pennsylvania so she could catch up with lost credits. Then she called me and invited me to spend the winter break with her in Philadelphia where she and her parents lived.

Every year she had gone to Greece over winter break and for one month during the summer. For her parents, Greece was home. But for her, home was the brownstone on Walnut Street. During the year, her parents missed home. During the holidays, Angie missed home. Loneliness was the always the rule, the cycle, the way of life. Before she had decided to stay for the summer and rent a house at the shore, now she had decided to stay for the winter.

The morning before Christmas Eve, I drove down I-195 to Philadelphia and met Angie on the university campus after her final exams. We stopped by the Redding Terminal Market and picked up the ingredients for the cuisine that I had longed to cook for my family on Christmases past, a dish for which there was no room at my home. The dish that Chris and I made for the anonymous, lonely souls who had no family to go to on Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. Here, in Philadelphia, room was all Angie and I had.

We soaked figs in port wine overnight, then took a few cups of the liquid and soaked a duck in it, saving just enough wine to keep the figs fat, and just enough for us to drink. Then we stuffed the duck with chives and split oranges, grated ginger over the flesh and crushed a clove of garlic into the sauce. For three hours we cared for that bird whenever we found the time in between a thousand smiles and other expressions of love.

Two weeks later, as if in a fairy tale, Angie begged to be free. And now, like a fairy tale, the night walks on in the wind.

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INGREDIENTS:

1 (5-6 lbs) duck

1 bottle of port wine

1 lb fresh figs

2 oranges halved

1 cup fresh chopped chives

1 ginger root

1 garlic clove

Pinch of sea salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

Place figs and one bottle of port wine in a pitcher, preferably earthenware. Let them "get to know each other" to taste.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Stuff duck with halved oranges and chives. Place duck in roasting pan (preferably earthenware) and prick skin (without piercing meat) with fork so the skin crisps when cooking.

Strain port from figs, leaving just enough to keep figs moist, then stir in crushed garlic and pinch of sea salt. Pour wine over duck until there is one inch of liquid in bottom of pan. Grate ginger to taste over duck, and place pan in the oven.

Baste every 30 minutes with juices from the pan. Add more fig-soaked wine to bottom of the pan keeping level one inch except for the last hour. Let the liquid evaporate as much as possible to crisp duck. Cook 2 to 3 hours based on size of duck.

Serve cold figs on side or for dessert. Drink any extra fig-soaked wine.

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