I’ve never cooked anything wild in my life and I was a bit dubious about my own cooking abilities when my daughter told me that she wanted duck for Christmas dinner, but she’s my kid and I couldn’t very well refuse her, now could I?

I decided to tackle the problem head on and found lots of duck recipes on the internet, but most of them were pretty complicated looking and I wanted to find something that wouldn’t keep us in the kitchen all day. I had pretty much settled on duck with apple dressing when it a question popped into my head. It was a question I should have asked before I even started panicking about how to cook a duck.

The question was a simple one; where the hell do I find a duck? I couldn’t quite picture myself sitting in a duck blind on a cold (remember cold weather?) winter’s morning blowing a duck call and having my trusty gun by my side. Besides, the only gun I have would be a poor gun for hunting ducks. Whoever heard of duck hunting with a snub nosed .38 special?

Luckily, a listener told me about Lake Charles Poultry and the problem of finding a duck was solved. I wish the rest of the duck dinner could have been solved so easily. My daughter and I took those two ducks and cooked them to the consistency of a set of mud tires. Seriously, the damn thing should have said “Firestone” on the side. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the first 50,000 mile duck.

Still, we cooked the poor thing and by golly we ate as much as we could. I didn’t’ have a gauge so I’m not sure how many PSI of power it took, all I know is that my jaws ached for the rest of the day. I don’t think anybody really cared because the important thing was that we were together and, besides, there were plenty of side dishes to fill up everyone.

My daughter and her family departed and I decided that I would take a short break before cleaning up the kitchen and carving up what was left of the duck. I left the room but for a moment and when I returned I couldn’t help but notice that the duck was no longer on the carving board on the counter.

My attention was drawn to the floor and there, like it was attempting to make an escape from the room was the rest of that duck. Standing at the ready, guarding his prize, was my dog Hank. The poor guy was chewing like crazy, but he didn’t seem to be making much progress in chomping up a huge bite of duck. He looked at me like it was my entire fault as he valiantly attempted to finish off the leathery bird.

He’s a great dog and, thanks to Hank, I don’t have to figure out how to prepare shoe leather leftovers, but I paid the price for Hank devouring so much duck. I won't go into detail but every time he walked through the room, there was a cloud of gas that made my eyes water.

Next year, I think we’ll have something less daunting for Christmas dinner. I’m thinking of convincing my granddaughters that Mac And Cheese is a traditional Christmas food.

More From 92.9 The Lake