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I took down my Christmas decorations today. Usually I do this sometime after January 1 when my door wreath has dried out so much that it's turned brown, but this year's wreath could have lasted a couple of days longer. Most of the other decorations on the block are down (including my next door neighbor's lighted bushes) so I figured it would make me sadder leaving them up. It makes me a little sad to take down my Christmas decorations, but leaving them up when all the rest of the world has gone back to the drab busyness of winter makes me sadder still.

On the bright side, I bought some duck breast this weekend so that I could experiment a bit with a recipe I have that is based on Anglo-Saxon cuisine. It's a game stew with barley (I chose to use duck instead of rabbit, though my local butcher sells rabbit also). I added a bit of bacon to the duck and barley for flavor. The other ingredients include broth (chicken bouillon in this case, though the Anglo-Saxons would probably have made broth from the duck itself and used that), leeks, and mushrooms sauteed in butter. It is seasoned with dill salt, mustard powder, sage, garlic, and bay leaves. The smell as it slowly simmers in my crockpot is indescribably wonderful; I hope it tastes as good as it smells when it's done.

EDIT: I decided to write about my duck and barley stew in my food blog; you can find that post here.