Free foie gras

I know how to make a traditional terrine de foie gras, and you can too. This recipe from Epicurious closely resembles the terrine I used to lovingly prepare every Christmas, and it is truly simple to make.



But do you know what? Delicious as that home-made terrine is, I won't look my nose down on a jar of foie gras fresh from the farm -- especially if it's free.



Call it one of the few perks of my husband's job as an agricultural management consultant: we get some tasty gifts from local farmers, like this unassuming tin of foie gras. It definitely simplified my Christmas cooking, and I thought you might like to take a look at what was inside.



Getting the goods out of these cans is a little tricky. You have to open both ends, then push the foie out, being careful not to cut yourself along the way. Here I'm almost halfway through that perilous step of the process:

The foie comes out looking, well, a lot more gras (fat) than foie (liver.) But that nice covering of fat is what's keeping the liver inside moist and rich:

I hacked away the fat and kept some of it, thinking I might fry potatoes in it. But that probably won't happen. There's only so much duck fat one can take -- even at Christmas, even in Southwest France:

Finally what you're really interested in -- the foie gras itself. I sliced it into unreasonably thick slabs and served it on toasted apricot-fig bread special-ordered from our local grocery store:

I'm glad we had a big jar, because my daughters have been known to eat it for breakfast!