I wish I could stay and chat

Busy today, but I don't want to fall behind.

Ethan Stowell's New Italian Kitchen recipe #4: duck leg farrotto with spinach

It's bugging me the way that strand of spinach stretches out of the frame in the picture. In any case, this was incredibly delicious. The recipe uses farro instead of rice in a risotto-like preparation which seems healthier and worked beautifully. Bought the duck at the Chinese deli in San Francisco yesterday, which made it all very easy. Speaking of ducks. I'll be sad to see them go, but they are so rough on our chickens.

Ethan Stowell's New Italian Kitchen recipe #5: roasted figs with chocolate sauce.

These are the figs pre-roasting; my photo of the finished dish was hideous. You toss figs with brown butter and honey and roast until they're dry and super-concentrated, then serve hot on a bed of cool chocolate ganache. This was a rich, intense, and unusual dish and we all felt it was more of a dessert garnish than a standalone dessert and would have been better served over ice cream. Nonetheless, every last fig got eaten.

Ethan Stowell's New Italian Kitchen is a lovely cookbook and I don't know how I'm going to stop myself at ten recipes.