Oh Deer!

ADDENDA:
Spent the morning at the food markets, the afternoon wandering around with B for vegan Chinese (way superior to Chinese Bricks!) and massages, and a nice unique & very personal meal in the evening.

BREAKFAST: 10am, small bowl of organic chex with good milk, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:30am, 1 wholewheat saltfree pretzel with good peanut butter, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, vegetarian dimsum including mini lotus leaf rice, mixed gluten, monk dumplings, mock shrimp in rice dough, mashed taro treasure boxes, 1 bit of yuckily sweet red bean cake, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5pm, bowl of veggie booty, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, 3 funky cheeses with bread, olives, baby carrots and ranch dressing, prosciutto, 2 kinds of braised venison over creamed parsnips with roasted baby onions and brusselsprouts, about 1.5 donuts with a little vanilla ice cream, 1 glass champagne, 1 glass red, a few pints of water
My friend Erikka's father is a hunter out in Minnesota, sent her a care package of deer-flesh. Her boyfriend has a professional history in cooking, and whipped up this meal. I think I've eaten venison before, and it was unmemorable. This time, fully paying attention to what I was eating, it was a bit of a revelation. Shawmir grumbled a lot about messing up the meat, not accounting for the lack of connective tissue in one cut. Granted, one of the two kinds of meat on the plate was a little tough, but still thoroughly edible (god knows I suffered through many cooked-till-pale-and-shrivelled lamb chops from my mom to know the meaning of inedibly tough!) and the non-tough meat was just as good as any shmancy cow steak at a bistro. I thought the flavor would be gamey, but it was pleasantly mild, and I kinda caught a uniquely 'deer' flavor.