Christmas is less than two weeks away; and I've read what some people in here will do: things like get drunk and wasted, go fishing. that sort of things.

But here in the Snipy house hold are planning on having a big family dinner.

We had dinner at my gf's sister's on Thanksgiving. it wasnt bad; but I, as a man, won't allow myself to be outdone.

I went to Costo last night and picked up a four-bone-in standing rib roast, USDA Choice.

we have one of those 50's era GE fridge in the garage, I've already taken everything out of it, in anticipation of my attempt to dry-age the cut. right now i am trying to find the sweet spot of (or calibrate the thing to) 34-36 degrees F.
I figure 10-12 days in there with a controlled environment should do the trick, I have read of places doing up to six months, but I dont have the time nor am taking chances. I wish I had a UV light I could leave in the fridge all the time.

last year we went to a local gourmet store and paid $15 a pound of prime rib roast, and the guy just took it out of the vacuum pack and gave it to us. so it had been wet aged the whole time, it kinda pissed me off since they had a smaller one that had been dry-aging on display. but it was two days before Christmas so we didnt have much of a choice.

I do expect this one to taste much better.

I will be serving it with roasted potatoes with herbs and asparagus with hollandaise sauce, with tomato and basil bruschetta with a balsamic vinager reduction and prosciutto and fig with goat cheese bruschetta.

and then Ima get blasted high!

I wanted to cook a goose this Christmas but as they cost £70-90 from our nearest farm, we shall be sticking to turkey!

what so special about goose?

They just don't raise (is that the right word? Rear? Grow?!) many of them, we would only get one we knew had been looked after and on that farm we always see them running around outside but they can only keep a certain number. Not much demand either, when the supermarkets are full of turkeys people tend not to look for an alternative. Goose is raaaaather middle-class, obviously too much so for my family! They don't have much meat on either but I thought as there are only four of us for Christmas dinner it would have been a nice experiment for me, rendering down the fuckable and making it crisp up.

Edit: Put the right word back! At least for the food forum!

Get down to Hebden Bridge, there is a flock of them that live there terrorising people. They keep getting chased away but come back.

I couldn't kill one, nor pluck it and hang it etc...

You could kill it in self-defence if you got close enough! Vicious bastards

My grandmother had two in her garden for years.
She loved them, they loved her............ and they where better than any fuckin' Doberman!

My father threatened to ring their necks and hoss them in the oven on several occasions, but knew the mission to do so would incur too much personal pain.
The shotgun was an option, but as he rightly said, there was no glory, victory or satisfaction in that.
He wanted to look the fecker's in the eye as he strangled the life clean out of them.


Goose is absolutely beautiful.
Cooked slowly, it's very very tender.
What you might be better doing Amy, is just buy a breast and cook it along with the turkey.
Well worth it.

That's a thought, or maybe for another day over the holidays. We have a really good butcher who could sort us out.
Charlotte Church has been growing geese this year and she called them Christmas and Dinner!

A lot of the people who keep chickens on our allotments have geese for this very reason, some of the *ahem* locals not being aversed to nicking a couple of chickens if the opportunity presents itself. Unfortunately, the geese can't distinguish very easily between friend and foe. I'll say this, you will only turn your back on a goose once in your lifetime.