Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

Day 23

For me, one of the saddest things about my grandpa having to sell his house was that he wasn't able to take most of his belongings with him. He had to pare down—and that meant leaving behind his smoker.

Anyone who knew my grandpa pre-move knew about his smoker. It was a contraption he constructed from an old oil drum, handy as he was, and it made the best ribs I've tasted in my life. He'd use it to prepare other items, too, including fish and rabbit.

So I was psyched when I found out rabbit (specifically,

rabbit ragout with vegetables and pommes puree) was one of our recipes, because I knew it would bring back good memories. Of course, nothing will ever compare to my grandpa's rabbit, but I have to say this dish succeeded in satisfying my taste

buds. For the dish, the rabbit was prepared three ways: The legs were braised (the hind legs were served whole while the meat was taken off the front legs to make a ragu) and the loins were sauteed then roasted along with the tiniest rib racks I've ever seen.

The class also made jarret d'agneau braise (braised lamb shank). We slow cooked the shanks in red wine, veal stock, tomatoes and rosemary and then served it over couscous with a reduction of the braising liquid. We kept the shanks on the bone, caveman style. Sometimes there's nothing more appealing than a huge hunk of meat on my plate.

There was so much food by the end of the day that we wrapped up the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Good idea, considering we'll only be cooking organ meats.

Besides both rabbit and lamb dishes, the class scarfed down a strawberry tart provided by the Italian culinary class as well as a blueberry peach crumble I promised to make weeks ago for two Southerners yearning for a taste of home. To top it all off, I headed to a pie-making demonstration after class and consumed slices of both blueberry and sweet potato.

I definitely ate more than rabbit food today.