2024 Begins with a Beautiful Goose

We were given a frozen goose for Christmas.

My husband had been yearning for a goose for a long time. The last time we were at the meat market, he stood talking to the owner about the price of the goose. “I could shoot a goose at Lake Park, pay the fine, and it still wouldn’t cost as much as this goose.” The owner nodded his head in agreement. Goose is so expensive, he said, that he sells it at cost. Still, the cost was in the three digits. My husband put the goose back in the freezer.

I tell him to buy the goose. We can afford a goose every couple of years, good grief. He doesn’t know what I spend online for books and boots and other accoutrements. He doesn’t ask, I don’t tell him. It’s way better than when we were first married and sat at the kitchen table looking at every single check in the bank statement. Every month, he’d wrap up by saying “we just have to have a budget.” which was probably wise but seemed at the time (and now) to be a hideous proposition.

The older we get, the more it seems that meat has become an appropriate gift from our children. I don’t mind this. Who needs another plaid shirt?

So, this year, in addition to a box of exotic meats like alligator and ostrich and such, my son and his girlfriend gave us a 14 lb. goose that cost a ridiculous amount of money. It is in the oven as we speak and the smell of it roasting is incredible. Stuffed with onions and oranges and garlic on a bed of ‘old potatoes’ to soak up the goose fat, it’s been in the oven for three hours. When it comes out, it will rest for thirty minutes and then we will eat it with our finest finery. The silverware engraved with an S and maybe even the good plates.

The first dinner of 2024 is a beautiful goose. We would’ve been okay with a 2 lb. chicken but here we are. Kicking off the year high on the hog. Who could’ve predicted?