RELOADED EP323 | Thanksgiving Special: Best Thing I Ever Ate at Duck Camp - Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Episode Transcript
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VO (01:44):
Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, Reloaded. We
bring you the best of our pastepisodes. Whether you're a
seasoned waterfowler or curiousabout conservation, this series
is for you. Over the years,we've had incredible guests and
discussions about everythingfrom wetland conservation to the
latest waterfowl research andhunting strategies. In Reloaded,

(02:04):
we're revisiting thoseconversations to keep the
passion alive and the missionstrong.
So sit back, relax, and enjoythis reload.

Chris Jennings (02:20):
Joining me today is my cohost, doctor Mike
Brasher. Mike, how are you?

Mike Brasher (02:23):
I'm doing well. Chris, how are you?

Good. And, also, we have a special guest,
Jennifer Chandler, aprofessionally trained chef,
author, and local columnist forthe commercial appeal. Jennifer,
welcome to the Ducks on Lookpodcast.

Jennifer Chandler (02:35):
Thanks for having me today.

The reason why we're bringing Jennifer in today
is we wanted to have aThanksgiving episode. As a part
of this Thanksgiving episode,we're all gonna share some of
our memories, some of the thingsthat we like about Thanksgiving,
but it's also about duck camptoo because people are spending
time at duck camp. Mike, do youwanna kinda talk about exactly
what we're doing with this show?

Sure. Yeah. This is an idea that I don't know
exactly if we started with itlast year, but finally, we had
enough time and had enoughguests where we actually were
able to pull this together. We,as folks know that listen to the
podcast, we interview, talk withpeople from all across North
America, and we thought it wouldbe pretty cool to ask those
individuals, like, what is theirfavorite memory, favorite meal

(03:17):
that they have had either at aduck camp or duck blind because
there's a lot of eating thatoccurs in both of those places.
And so it's just another one ofthose areas where, I guess, it
it becomes part of what duckhunting is to so many people is
the what we eat and the thefellowship that we get from that
with the people that we're inthe duck blind with.
So this was a we kinda as wewere interviewing people here

(03:39):
over the past, I don't know,three or four months, we we
would ask them what theirfavorite meal was, and so they
would kinda share that with us.So we have a series of clips
that as we get into this, we'llbe playing those, and then we'll
give our listeners sort of aglimpse at some of the things
that other people might eat.

Yeah. The variations of duck camp dinners.
But before we get into that,Jennifer, I wanted to give you
an opportunity to kindaintroduce yourself to our
audience, you know, who you are,where you live, what you do,
and, you know, how you became aprofessional chef, and and the
professional mentality thatyou're gonna bring to this show.

Well, it all boils down to the fact that I
love to eat. I mean, that's thewhole reason I got in this
business in the first place, isbecause I love to eat. And I
quickly realized that, a lot oftimes if you make your own food,
it's gonna be the best meals,and I wanted to learn more about
it. So I will have to preface,I'm very excited to be back here
because I worked for DucksUnlimited when I first moved

(04:36):
back home, in 1995, so way backin the dark ages working on the
Great Outdoors Festival.

I was gonna say that. If most of our list maybe
not all of our list Well,

may not know what that is.

That's right. But we still get a lot of emails
about the Great Festival. Sothere are people out there who
are like, oh, yeah, I rememberthat.

Yeah. It was a great It was a festival that
had covered all types of outdoorsports. I mean, there was a
different kind of areas thatthere was like an archery area,
there was an ATV area, there wasa fly fishing area, there was a
shooting range, you name it. Ifit had to do with an outdoor
sport, it was covered at thisevent that happened for a few

(05:13):
years here in Memphis, then itmoved up to Minnesota, and sadly
it doesn't happen anymore.

Well, does technically, but now we call it
Ducks Expo and it's

held Oh, okay.

Yes. It's actually in Texas at the Texas
Motor Speedway. So last year wasour first year, or this year I
guess was our first year ofdoing it.

That's right.

And then now we're doing it again in April,
so we'll fill you in on that

after That's the great because I had a ton of
fun and I learned so much, andof course, the funny thing is
when I came to work here, I hadjust left France, and I'd gone
to culinary school and, youknow, thought I wanted to do
that realm, and then I had donespecial events before, so I kind
of got back into special events,that's how I ended up here. But,
yes, I love to eat, so I went toLe Cordon Bleu in Paris after

(05:56):
college and did a culinaryprogram there in both savory
foods and pastries, and then Iwent to work for a fancy hotel
look on the Champs Elysees inthe pastry department, so, for a
few months before I moved backhome. So I loved everything
food. Worked here for a littlewhile, and then eventually I had

(06:18):
the opportunity to open my ownrestaurant, was called Chefy's
Market and More, that we openedin, 1999. And, I had a great
time with that, sold it when Ihad, my two babies, and back to
back, so that baby had to go.
And then I turned to writing,and since then I've written four
cookbooks, I've written forcountless magazines kind of in

(06:41):
the region and across thecountry. I've had some fun
opportunities. I've gotten to docooking segments for DUTV in the
past. For a while, I worked forFrench's Mustard doing their
kind of culinary demos acrossthe country. So I've had a lot
of fun, tasty adventures with myfood career, and now, primarily

(07:04):
what my main job is, is I workfor the Commercial Appeal.
I'm a food and dining editor forthem. So, I have the privilege
of learning about Memphisrestaurants and Memphis
restaurateurs and chefs, andthere's so much amazing food
here. That's right. But it allboils down to, for me, I love to
cook, and I really love to eatgood food.

That's awesome. And we're gonna go through these
kind of duck camp mint or littlestories that a bunch of our
guests have provided us, and wewanna get your reaction to
these, and we wanna hear youknow, some of these are are
pretty interesting. Some ofthese are, may sound even a
little gamey, but but and someof them may not even really
relate to the game at all. Someof them are just a gathering of

(07:45):
folks, which is why we wanted toto do this show because it is
that time of year. It's a timewhen we get together with family
and friends and eat.
And one of the most interestingparts about this time of year
for us, for me especially, isnearly every state in The US,
duck season is open for the weekof Thanksgiving. So there's a

(08:06):
lot of stories of people who goduck hunting before
Thanksgiving, and and there's alot going on as far as
migration, Mike. I mean, this isa big time of year when, you
know, Canada just froze up. Youknow, birds are traveling south.
People are out there reallyseeing the birds, and it's all a
part for me, especially, it'sall a part of this, you know,
the whole aspect of Thanksgivingis, you know, hunting, birds,

(08:28):
migration.
It's fall. It's that time ofyear. And I think it really gets
people fired up not only aboutthe hunting aspect but also the
cooking aspect. And so yeah. AndI think, you know, before we get
into some of these mentions, Ireally want to hear your plan
for Thanksgiving.

My plan for Thanksgiving?

It's gotta be extravagant. Right?

Well, I host every year now. I kind of my
grandmother hosted for years andyears in New Orleans, and then
when she passed away, my dadtook it over for a few years,
and probably about ten yearsago, the torch got passed to me.
In fact, it's very funny. I nowhave everyone's turkey plates,
So there was these things mygrandmother had. She had given
them to all of her children, andand as people have passed, I've

(09:10):
inherited.
So I can feed probably 35 peopleon a plate with a turkey on it.
So that's one of the things.I'll be pulling out the turkey
plates this year. That willprobably be the big thing, is
dusting those off, because theyget used once a year. But they
have a special family memory,and I'm sure everyone that's
listening has something that is,you know, goes back to their

(09:30):
childhood that was always on thetable, whether it's a plate,
like in this case for me, or adish that we'll be doing.
So I'll be hosting, and I thinkI'm gonna have, like it keeps
growing. I think I'm gonna have16 or 18 people, I think, at the
end. Everyone keeps justinviting someone or inviting
someone else. But one of thethings we do is we fry turkey
every year. I used to roastturkeys, and years ago, I worked

(09:55):
with a client that makes turkeyfryers, I started doing the
indoor turkey frying, and it'sso easy because you can have a
turkey on the table in fortyfive minutes.

Now, indoor I I thought the idea was to never
fry a

turkey There in is a contraption electric
turkey fryer. Ah. It isfoolproof. Now, I generally do
it in my garage because if youdo it indoors, your house kind
of will smell like a turkey.Just think it's like a giant fry
daddy.
Best investment you've ever had.I've had mine for like twelve
years now, and, we pull it outevery Thanksgiving, and we fry

(10:29):
turkeys for lots of people,actually. We'll start frying
turkeys on Wednesday, and, forpeople who want them. But then
we'll fry one, and it's on thetable in forty five minutes, and
it's great. And what I do, thisweekend, I'm gonna go ahead at
because we like gravy, you don'tget gravy with a fried turkey.
That's a good point. But I buyturkey necks and turkey legs,

(10:50):
and I roast them, and I make theweekend before, and I make a
gravy with that, with a littleadvanced plan. Nice. But we're
gonna have all the side dishes,you know, cornbread dressing.
Okay.
I have a question for you guys.

Oh, you're not gonna wanna hear my answer.

Do you put sausage in it, or do you not put
sausage in it? There seems to bea big I thought everybody put
sausage in it.

I don't eat cornbread dressing. Really? Yep.

I've been heavily You can leave

the room.

I've been heavily criticized for this,
around the office, and I've youknow, I'm literally just told,
well, you're just a Yankee, andyour opinion doesn't matter. But
my family grew up making morelike, the bread based

Okay.

Stuffing, and that's what I really like. And I
I just I literally, we just hadthis conversation with a girl
here in the office, and she wasjust like, I don't trust
anything you say. That's

so funny.

So so yeah. I mean, when you ask sausage or no
sausage, I would rather go withsausage, but we don't my family
has never been into cornbreaddressing.

Yeah. You put French bread in there.

Yeah. It's a regional thing for sure.

So I'm I'm a southern, grew up in
Mississippi, so it's cornbreaddressing. It's what I grew up
with. It didn't have sausage init

Yep.

But but I married a Canadian, so that has kinda
thrown a twist into the stuffingversus cornbread dressing. So
when we have Thanksgiving orChristmas at at Rebecca, my
wife's family, with with her,then it's always the stuffing.
It's the bread with the sage andthe spices, and celery and
onions, and inside the the thecavity of the turkey, and it's

(12:20):
really, really good. And you'renot gonna you're not gonna get
me to choose between the two.I'm not gonna fall for that.

You should have both.

Well, that's right. And so we are we are this
year. Anytime our families gettogether, we we typically will
do something of that nature,have both.

So Yeah. Definitely. That's the best of
both worlds.

Yeah. So is is that your featured item in

the stuffing? Yeah. It's always there. I would
not say it's the featured item.Probably what's the featured
item when, again, going back tomemories and childhood, and this
is cauliflower au gratin.
I have to tell you, the majorityof my life, I would only eat
cauliflower this way. Now I likecauliflower, my, you know,
taste, know, palate as I'vegrown up has expanded. But when

(13:02):
I was a kid, if somebody putcauliflower in front of me, I
would have, like, turned my noseat it, said no way, but I always
ate my grandmother's cauliflowerau gratin at the holidays,
probably because ratio to cheeseand cauliflower, there's much
more it's made in a bechamelsauce and it has like white
cheddar cheese and Parmesan andbread crumbs. They're really not

(13:24):
that much cauliflower in

it. Yeah.

But it's a dish that it's funny. My kids
ask for it every year andthey're like, it has to be on
the table.

Yeah.

And it's nobody else I know serves that
on their Thanksgiving table, butit is always on our Thanksgiving
table because, you know, I don'twant to give away my age, but
we'll just say for about fivedecades I've been eating that.

It sounds really good.

It does.

Once a year. So that's the one thing that for
sure has to be on that table.

That's a good one, for me, my family half of
my family is very Italian. Mhmm.And had a pretty large family
growing up, had a largeThanksgiving, large, you know,
feast, tons of people overthere, but there was always we
always like even my friends whowould come over would be like,
what what are you guys doing? Imean, we'd have the turkey and

(14:13):
and do that and the the dressingor the stuffing, you know, but
then there was always a pan of,like, rigatoni or like a
mustacholi dish Yeah. Out there.
And, like, it's just likerandomly placed at the end and,
like, and that was always myfavorite thing.

Yeah.

You know? And because I I just love any pasta
dishes. But one big standout ismy uncle would always make green
bean or not green bean, broccolicasserole.

Oh.

And it was so it a broccoli and rice casserole,
and he always had to make that.And then my dad always made
homemade cranberries, so hewould buy the cranberries and
make that, and you'd have to goin the fridge all night long,
and it was a big process. So itwas you know, that's the one
thing that that really stood outfor me. What about you?

So my Thanksgiving growing up was was pretty
Thanksgiving was always a greatday because my my grandparents
on my mother's side andgrandparents on my on my dad's
side lived within a block of oneanother in
small town.

That's how that's how I was, sis.

Not that

we always had these huge gatherings.

And so it was always Thanksgiving lunch at my
mother's parents, and then itwas we would go walk literally
right up the sidewalk to mydad's parents, and the
traditional meal for lunch wasyour traditional turkey and ham
and stuffing and whatever elsethat we would have, but then for

(15:38):
dinner up at my dad's parents,it would always be chili. It was
an interesting That's cool. Notmany people have Thanksgiving
chili as their tradition, but itwas for us, and it could have
been, I don't know this to betrue, but it could have been
because they knew that some ofus were already having regular
Thanksgiving meal just rightdown the road, right down the

(15:59):
sidewalk for lunch. But yeah,that was always the big day for
us. Big families on both sides,and by the end of the day, you
just didn't want to do anythingbut lay in the recliner.

Oh, a nap is definitely a centerpiece of the
Thanksgiving meal. And I have totell you, I like sweets.

I was gonna ask you what's the go

to I have a thing that I'm known for. The
joke is, I think one year I mademore pies than there were people
at

the table.

So this year, I think I'm only gonna make four
pies, but I may end up making anextra pie. I haven't decided

like pumpkin pie approach or you're getting

So some traditional and some not. So I
make a traditional pecan pie,and I do, when you talk about
family, I have a funny storyabout my pecan pie. So my
grandmother, I was born in NewOrleans, but I grew up here in
Memphis. But we would always goback to New Orleans to visit my
grandmother, and she was, like,second generation from France, I

(16:55):
mean, genteel southern woman. Imean, and so you would ask her
for her pecan pie recipe, andshe would handwrite it, I mean,
the most beautiful script you'veever seen, and she would mail it
to you.
And I mean, this went on foryears. If you needed a recipe,
she would do that. And we alwaysloved her pecan pie. And after
she passed, I was working on astory for a magazine, and I was

(17:16):
like, oh, I have the best pecanpie recipe in the entire world.
I want to commemorate mygrandmother, and so I'm, like,
submitting this recipe and thisarticle, and then my editor
calls me back and she goes, yourealize this is verbatim the
recipe on the back of the k rowbottle, don't you?
And I went, what? And literally,I mean, so we had a big, New

(17:37):
Orleans family. I mean, I have,like, probably I I should count
them, but we probably have,like, 10 cousins, you know, that
are on the same age group. And Ihad to call everyone and be
like, we were none of us knew.Nobody knew that.
So the best pecan pie recipe foreveryone here is on the back of
the K Rowe bottle. That'sawesome.

No need to complicate it

right there. Yes. Don't complicate it. You
don't have to look it up. Justbuy the bottle, use the
ingredient you need, and dothat.
But I'm gonna make pecan pie. Imake a twist on a pumpkin pie, I
do like a pumpkin mousse tartwith a little brandy and a
little chocolate cinnamon crust,and then I'm gonna make like a
chocolate chess pie. And thisyear, of all funny things, I was
trying to get a head startshopping, and I had my husband

(18:19):
pick up some things on his wayhome from work the other day,
and I said I needed heavywhipping cream. And he came home
with this most giant tub of CoolWhip. Well, Cool Whip is great,
but it's not the same thing asheavy whipping cream for when
you're cooking.
So, I have to tell you, thismorning, I was kind of googling
around, and I think I'm going tofound a recipe for a Reese's
peanut butter chocolate chip piethat is made with Cool Whip. Oh,

(18:43):
So I think I'm gonna add thatone to the mix since I have I
mean, I talk about it's not thenormal size. I don't even know
if it's in the it's a bucket.

Like a five gallon bucket of Costco Yeah.

Is in our chest it wouldn't fit in my
freezer in my house. It's in thechest freezer.

So where does sweet potato factor into
Thanksgiving dinner for you? Isthat a side item? Is that a
dessert? Or is it a side itemthat doubles as dessert?

Well, side item doubling dessert may be it
because, yes, we do the mashedpotatoes and we put the
marshmallows in. Oh. Yeah. Now Iused to buy, you know, like,
what is it called, like the jetpuffed, whatever, the
marshmallow whipped cream stick.The whipped stuff.
I used to put that into it, andthen put the marshmallows on

(19:27):
top, but then I decided it was alittle too sweet. So now I just
put a lot of cinnamon and I puta dash of bourbon. Secret
ingredients.

Yeah, secret ingredient.

You don't need a lot, just a couple of
tablespoons.

There was a handful of dashes of bourbon
that floated around my family'sThanksgiving Yeah, as

and so you put that into the mix, then you
put the marshmallows on top, itkind of, you know, has that
sweet crunchiness on top. Andthen speaking of bourbon, when
you take your pecan pie rightout of the oven, take about a
tablespoon of bourbon andsprinkle it over the top right
when it's right out of the oven,and it kind of like it'll cook
the alcohol out so your kids caneat it, but it gives it that

(20:06):
just a little umph of flavor.

Wow. That's a good idea. We will try that. We
will try that.

So before we and maybe to kind of help us begin
to transition to some of theseother some of the clips that
we're gonna play, wild game atThanksgiving or or even
Christmas, but I guess right nowwe're talking about
Thanksgiving. Now I know youyou're not a stranger to wild
game. You were talking to us theother day about how you've
you've not I don't have you beenduck hunting before? I know you

(20:31):
said you've been dove huntingand and you've prepared those,
but I don't remember if you'veif you said you had been duck
hunting yet.

I have not been duck hunting yet. I have
over the years I mean, I feellike every year I get invited
somewhere and something weirdhappens, like there's either no
ducks and there, you know,somebody's been out there a
couple of days before orsomething is frozen over or and
so I have actually never been.However, everyone brings their
ducks back home to me. So I getI guess I get the best of both

(21:00):
worlds. I don't know.
I do everyone tells me howbeautiful it is out there. I
have to tell you, I'm not amorning person, and I don't like
the cold.

Well, you can hunt in the afternoons.

Yeah. Well, yeah. I just need somebody to
invite me on an afternoon hunt.Then then that would

sound When it's 75 degrees.

When it's 75. As I said, I'll go on a dove
hunt field, you know, in any daybecause it's like, what, 80
degrees, the sun is shining, youknow. But I, you know, I do love
to cook them, and it's one ofthose things that, as I said, I
I have the best of both worlds.

Yeah. Have you ever incorporated wild game
ducks or geese into aThanksgiving meal? I have I have
not. There was not wild game wasnot really a part of our or
Christmas meal, to be honest. Wewould always kind of have that
separate, but I know some peopledo, but I'm just kind of
wondering if

you It is not for us. We still stay pretty
traditional to the AmericanThanksgiving turkey. But one of
the things that we do on the dayafter Thanksgiving that we do
every year is I make a big gumbothat we serve with the leftover
turkey carcass. And so I haveactually, before, thrown some

(22:05):
duck in there, that we've had,and then or I've had a turkey
gumbo or a duck gumbo. Weusually do our Friendsgiving
afterwards, and when you talkedabout chili Yeah.
We don't serve a traditionalmeal, but I serve a gumbo, is
kind of what we do because one,it's you a can make a huge pot
of it or two huge pots of it,stick it on your stove, and you

(22:25):
put some rice out there in aslow cooker, and people just
serve themselves, and Yeah. It'sthe easiest way to entertain.

Gumbo is a great dish for that. A lot of people
have gumbo for theirThanksgiving meals, especially
when you get into Cajun country,remember encountering that a few
times. The other thing withregard to wild game, Matt
Kaminski is a person that wespoke with a couple of years
ago, he was talking to us aboutusing a swan as their his
Thanksgiving, instead of aturkey, they roasted up a swan,

(22:55):
And grilled up a the recipesounded amazing. Still haven't
tried swan.

I've had a goose for Christmas before.

Mhmm.

And it was good, but it was just not the
you know, it's one of thosethings that goes back to
memories. Yeah. Yeah. And thatsome of the things about
holidays that you just you cannever change. You know, I think
one year I was like, I'm gonnatotally do a new holiday dinner
and do all this stuff, and I,like, my family revolted.
Yeah. The same one reallyhappened. Yeah. I mean, it was
like, where's this? Where'sthat?
You changed this. You did that.I was like, okay. I'm never
changing anything again.

Well, you know, interestingly enough, we went a
nontraditional Thanksgiving withmy family because of COVID last
year. Everyone was afraid totravel. My parents are now in
Florida. Rest of my family's inIndiana. We live in Memphis.
And and so we just loaded up Ihave an RV, and so we just
loaded up the RV, and we stayedat a state park down in

(23:44):
Louisiana, like South Louisiana

Yep.

And in Saint Bernard Parish. And it was just
my wife and I and my twodaughters, and I literally was
like I was like, I'm gonna cooklike a traditional Thanksgiving
in my RV. And how that wholething transitioned was actually
I went to a local market the daybefore Thanksgiving while we
were down there and ended upwith buying a bunch of shrimp,
you know, got some gumbo becauseI was gonna make a gumbo, but

(24:08):
then I realized I can't make itas good as some of those people
down there. Yep. And so we ourThanksgiving dinner last year
was, like, boiled shrimp.
We had crab stuffed bellpeppers. You know? And and my
wife of course, my kids nibbledat it and stuff. We also made
some noodles and some stuffingthat they wanted to eat. I made
a small little turkey breast,but we had a really
nontraditional.

(24:29):
And we, you know, we weincorporated a lot of this, I
guess, at wild game because wewent red fishing the day before.
Sure. And red fish and so that Ireally like that aspect of it,
but you're right. It does kindatake away from that traditional
feel of, you know, Thanksgivingthat you've always kind of
remembered. It's it's difficult.
But, I mean, we enjoyed it, andwe would go again if the oh, my
fishing guide was available.Corey, if you're listening to

(24:50):
this.

I might have to get that number for my
husband because my husband isthe biggest fisherman in time.
We talk about seasons. Like, heis he is leaving me this year on
which is our anniversary nextweek, and, he is leaving me on
Saturday morning because it isthe, brown trout spawn Oh. In
Arkansas. In Arkansas.
Yep. And he's like, I'm goingfishing. And I'm like, oh, my

(25:13):
children are gonna be home fromcollege. I don't wanna leave my
girls. So it looks like thegirls are not gonna stay home,
and he's going fishing.
Weekend. It's perfect.

VO (25:27):
Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast sponsored by
Purina Pro Plan and Bird DogWhiskey after these messages.

Alright. So let's get into these, you know,
conversations, and and I'll justgo ahead and preface this by
saying, you know, we talkedabout how duck seasons are open,
you know, currently right nowall throughout the country. And
but there there's lot of peoplewho are eating Thanksgiving
dinner with family and thenheading off to camp, or, you
know, some people are havingThanksgiving dinner at camp.

(27:41):
It's just all all over the placewith people. But the first one
that I wanna introduce here, andthis is Jeff Jones from
Shingear.
He he came on in in the earlyparts of season five. He had
something that I think willreally relate to opening day and
Thanksgiving and a gathering ofof folks. So, Chris, can you go
ahead
and play that?

Jeff Jones (28:01):
The best thing I ever ate at duck camp, my
favorite meal at duck camp, andwe do it every year. It's a it's
a tradition. Every year, it's atmy neighbor's camp, and it's
nothing fancy. It's really not.It's just pork roast with
potatoes and carrots and onionsand they cook it all day long,
but he cooks it in it's like thething that he cooks it, it's a

(28:25):
it's not a pressure cooker andit's not a crock pot, but it was
like the predecessor to allthese things. It was like the
very first this thing wasprobably made in the fifties. I
I don't know. I I don't know whyI'm so obsessed with it, but
it'll hold like two giant porkbutts. It's five pounds of
potatoes. It's three pounds ofonions. It's three pounds of

(28:46):
carrots. It's water andWorcestershire sauce and love,
and you cook it all day. Butwhat makes it cool is everybody
knows that that meal is gonnahappen like the second weekend
of season or it might getdelayed till after Thanksgiving
to the first split when we comeback. And it's just a time for

(29:06):
everybody that has camps overthere to come because it feeds
like 40 people. So the meal'snot necessary the the food that
you're eating is not necessarilyextravagant. It's not some kind
of wild creation or anything.It's normal comfort food, but
it's everybody being theretogether, and you know it's
gonna be good because you'vebeen eating it for years. So

(29:27):
that's like my favorite day andmy favorite meal that we have
every year.

I love that story. I mean, it is. It's
about, you know, food for me isall about gathering.

Mhmm.

There's something about it just brings
people together and to havememories around meals. When you
think about it, a lot of familymemories and times that and not
only family, but memories withyour friends has been around a
table. Yeah. And over a greatmeal and the meal doesn't have
to be fancy, it doesn't have tobe complicated, but it just has
to be something that brings joyto you. But I really wanna know

(30:00):
what this thing that he cookedit in, and I wanna have one of
them.
Yeah. That sounds so cool.

I figured you would know what it was. Yeah.
You don't know exactly

It must be some giant kind pressure cooker.

Yeah. Think I've seen those big ones there.

Lids that maybe tightened down. Yeah. That's
where I was kinda wondering if

it an uncle that made Italian beef, and I I
promised it would make, like,200 pounds of Italian beef, and
they'd have to pull it out atthese big parties and stuff, and
and and that's what it soundslike it is.

Yeah. So the other thing that I liked about that is
and I've not experienced thattype of tradition time and
again, but I have I have huntedwith friends on occasion where
in the morning when you headout, or let's say you're heading
out for an afternoon hunt orsomething like that, you get
back, you prepare the meal inthe morning, and you're gonna go

(30:46):
out for the afternoon hunt, andyou know the meal is gonna be
waiting on you when you getback. There's something about
that, knowing that it's cookingwhile you're out there, and
maybe the birds aren't flying aswell as you would like for them
to, your mind can still beoccupied thinking about that
meal you're gonna have once youget back.

And probably if it's in something like that
that's cooking, when you walk upto the, you know, the cabin or
wherever you're staying, you canand walk into the kitchen

Oh, yeah.

You can smell it.

Oh, yeah.

Mhmm. So it's like, oh.

You can probably smell that thing from a couple
miles away.

You might. Yeah. If it feeds that many
people.

Yeah. One of those type of meals where if you don't
quite have your limit beforeshooting time is over, you say,
let's let's go ahead and call itquits. Let's go back and get to
that meal.

Alright. So our next one, we'll go ahead and and
just kinda run through this listreal quick. Mike, do you want to
introduce yours?

Sure. Some of these, I'm actually not going to
remember what they were. Werecorded them quite a while ago,
so this is just going be arandom selection. We're going go
with Doctor. Heath Hagey, USFish and Wildlife Service.
We had him this is actuallygoing be interesting because
part of the conversation that wehad during that episode related
to buffet, like a buffet meal,and we're drawing some analogies

(31:55):
between how humans eat at abuffet line and how ducks and
geese forage in a field, so wehe he used that analogy. So it'd
be interesting to see what hesaid here. I can't recall what
he said, but this is doctorHeath Hagey from the US Fish and
Wildlife Service.

Heath Hagy (32:10):
Gosh. That that's an impossible question to answer,
Mike. So as you can see, I liketo eat. And so there have been
many great meals enjoyed at atduck camps with professional
chefs and and in, you know,blinds at Real Foot Lake with
full kitchens in the back ofthem. And so I've I've been
lucky in in that regard. But I Ihave to tell you that one of my

(32:34):
absolute favorite things to eatin a duck blind I guess I have
two, if that's not cheating.Right? Okay. Two things. One is
the the very simple breakfastburrito on a little Coleman
stove that you can do in anypit. Super easy. Just bring some
eggs out, some tortillas. Supereasy. So so while that's not

(32:56):
grand, it's one of my favoriteeasy things in a duck blind.
Maybe a close second is realsimple, some duck jerky from the
previous year. I love to carrywith me duck jerky that that
I've made or had processed andhave that with me in the blind.
It just something about it justfeels right, you know, when
you're not duck hunting.

So, Jennifer, not an extravagant meal, as Heath
talked about there, but so whatmakes that special in your mind?

Well, you know, one is when he talked
about the breakfast burritos,again, tradition and doing
something over and over again,and it's just it it becomes part
of the experience for him. But Ilove the idea of the duck jerky.
I mean, I I feel like I need togo make sure somebody does that
for for us for next year, andI'll send all, you know, I'll
send all my friends out, youknow, with some duck jerky when

(33:44):
they go hunting, because thatreally kinda brings it all
together.

It does.

I mean, it brings the whole concept of why
you're out there Yeah. Together.

You know? I actually do that with do it with
venison, venison jerky, well asduck or or goose jerky, but I
have more venison in the freezerthan I do duck or goose, so it
tends it tends to be thevenison. But it's the same
concept. Mhmm. It's full circle,experiencing harvest from the
previous season, or from earlierin the season, if that be the
case, but it yeah.

(34:12):
And the experience being part ofthat atmosphere, that ambiance
is I think that's gonna be acommon thread through many of
these stories.

Yeah. I think and that's what it's about. I
mean, it's about the kind of thefellowship of gathering and and
eating together and the food.And and here's here's another
good one. I've got Jay Anglinwho joins us quite regularly to
provide some migration updates,and and I and Jay just Jay in in
and of himself is an experience.
So I can guarantee you his hishis favorite thing to eat at

(34:46):
Duck Camp or his best experienceis probably pretty interesting.
So can you play that one?

Jay Anglin (34:50):
Well, you know, I've had quite a few good meals at
Duck Camp and it the the taverndown the street right next to
Duck Camp. But one stands out,oh, back in the nineties or I
guess it was the early twothousands. I was in North Dakota
with a crew of guys from townhere, and I was kind of the new
guy. I just moved here, and, thehotel was just packed with
hunters from all over thecountry. And, you know, there

(35:12):
was a lot of blue wing tealaround, and everybody was
looking for mallards, and I wasperfectly content to go gun some
blue wings. So I went off on myown one day and, you know, had a
good morning on the blue wings.One of them just happened to be
wearing a leg band. It was a itwas a Drake, and it was from
Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Was anice nice adult Drake, you know.
And so I I went back to camp,and every guy there posed with

(35:35):
this duck like he had taken it,you know, for a photo, you know,
like they posed with it, youknow, at the hotel. So we sat
around, and we had all theseteal, and a bunch of guys had
gadwall and a whole mishmishmash of quote unquote soft
ducks. So we sat there and wecleaned them up, and one of the
guys from Texas had come up andhe brought a horse trailer full
of beer. And we sat there and wewrapped those things and we

(35:59):
soaked them in some jalapenojuice, Texas style. Right? And
wrapped them in a little baconand guys pulled a grill out. We
sat in the parking lot around inthe circle on buckets and you
name it, decoy bags and andgrilled those those little
little morsels of tendergoodness and drink beer, and
everybody passed that duck bandaround and stared at it. And it

(36:20):
it just really stands out for mebecause it's about as good as
duck can taste. I'll tell youwhat, in that setting with a
bunch of good guys and a nicecool evening up in the Northern
Prairies, it was it was reallyawesome. I think about it once
in a while. It was it was oneheck of a one heck of a good
day.

That sounds like a great day.

Yeah. It does. And and, again, you know, it's
really the the full experienceof it, and and it it's it's
great to have him even kindarecall, you know, the guy from
Texas with the horse trailer,and, you know, and I and I think
that's even when you're talkingabout your own Thanksgiving
meal, you know, you're recallingthese these real intimate
details of of what you're makingand what your family reacts to.

(37:01):
So so what do you think aboutjust like the jalapeno? It
sounds like you just married himthe whole day.

Well, one of the things that sounded great to
me is because whereas I've notbeen duck hunting, I've been
dove hunting.

Mhmm.

And I've had a similar experience in a dove
field where we've cleaned thedove and we've, you know, done
the you know, wrapped them inbacon, and wishbone Italian
dressing is what I've alwaysmarinated in them. But I'm gonna
have to try the jalapeno. Yeah.That's Maybe a combination of
the two might be perfect.Jalapeno might be a little too
spicy for me.
It's just the straight jalapenojuice. If you did jalapeno juice

(37:36):
and Wishbone Italian dressing,that might be, like, the perfect
marinade.

Yeah. A little spicy.

Yeah. A little spicy, but still gives
you those those flavors. But Ijust there is something about,
yeah, traditions and there'ssomething about these
experiences that you really onlyget in the outdoors. And if
you're not getting outdoors,you're not having you're not
having that indoors in arestaurant. And you're not
having those memories that are,again, just being the
majesticness of nature andbringing it all together.

The community, the fellowship and the sharing in
the stories.

Yeah. And you probably have a bonfire going. I
mean, I've had some some funthat, as I said, it brought back
a memory to me when he wasexplaining that.

Chris, I wanna build off of some of the couple
of a couple of things that Jaysaid there, I guess, to select
the next person that we'llshare. Another one of our
frequent guests, a big fan ofblue wings. I don't remember,
like the one with Heath, I don'tremember what this person shared
with us. This is doctor ScottStevens. He comes on about every
month.
He loves to hunt blue wings, andso I'm kinda actually, I think I

(38:35):
might remember part of thisstory. It might have some humor
to it. So play let's go withdoctor Scott Stevens.

Scott Stephens (38:40):
Yeah. So so maybe this fall in the category
of most memorable. So when whenI was when I was younger and had
just started duck hunting, whichwhich I actually took up late, I
I was with a friend in a blindwith his with his grandfather
and and and another oldgentleman who who had the blind,

(39:01):
and they were cooking eggs. And,I don't know. They must have
had, you know, four or five eggsin in the skillet there, and,
you know, he was cooking those,and then he kind of flipped
around and said, oh, dang. Like,I don't I don't have a spatula
or anything. He's like, I'm notsure how how I'm gonna flip
those eggs. And, you know, I wasthinking, gosh. You know? What
what can we use? And prettysoon, then he just sort of

(39:24):
flipped the skillet like a likea chef does, and they all landed
and none of them broke. And soI'm I'm sure he had that set up,
but I will never forget him sortof doing that in the blind, and
it was one of those early sortof formative hunts for me. So
that's probably my mostmemorable.

The humor aspect of that one that I recalled was
the the other guest that we hadas part of that show was doctor
Tom Mormon. I think he sharedwith us shared his experience
with us as well, but he wasenvisioning that story ending
with the eggs on the on thefloor of the duckbill.

I was actually thinking, would they
land on the ceiling and be stuckon the ceiling or something like
that?

But, yeah, that was one of those memorable
experiences and left animpression upon him as a young
hunter for sure.

Yeah. And what I like about this one is is the
experience itself is the cookingaspect. I spend a lot of time in
the kitchen. I inherited thatfrom my mother who is constantly
cooking, but it's that is likewhat I have always liked about
Thanksgiving and and even evenmy duck camp. What I like, guys
are going over there, they'relike, we're gonna shoot ducks

(40:27):
and we're gonna do this, and I'mlike, I get to cook for like 12
people for three days.
Like, I love it, you know, andand so I like the cooking aspect
of that, and I think that'ssomething you know, do you kind
of feel that as

Yes. But I think there's also a note to
everyone to take away is have afun culinary trick that you can
do. Yeah. That's right. Because,yeah, I'm sure everyone was
thinking, oh, what are gonnahappen to those eggs?
And that guy knew he could flipan egg. Gotta be confident in
Yeah.

Especially if there's multiple in the pan.
Alright. So our next one is fromour great conservation partners,
Mossy Oak. We've got Daniel andNeil Hayes, and they joined us
early or about the middle ofseason five, and and I really
can't even remember which, youknow, what meal they

were preparing in that regard.

Right? Yeah. It is. It's kind of like the
reaction

Opening a box, opening a Christmas present.

Daniel and Neil Hayes (41:14):
Just a couple years ago, you know, I'd
always heard and never musteredup the courage to eat it, but,
know, I've always heard, youknow, how good duck hearts can
be. A few years ago, we had agreat hunt and shot a lot of
mallards. We popped 20 or 30mallard hearts out of the ducks
we were cleaning and just put alittle seasoning on them and
threw them on the flat top andcooked them just briefly, you

(41:34):
know, for, like, maybe thirtyseconds a side and popped them
off. And I've got to say that'sone of the best things I've ever
put in my mouth. I mean, it wasmouthwatering good.
So that's probably the bestthing I've had at DUC Camp.
And I'll I'll I'll add to thatthat I think a lot of people are
intentionally dramatic about howgood a Deer Heart is because you
see a lot of people that theyknow that people leave them in

(41:55):
the gut bucket, they go, oh,man. It's better than a better
than a tenderloin. And they'rebeing a little I think they're
exaggerating a little bit, butDuck Heart really is The first
time you try it, you think thatmaybe people are being a little
facetious, and then you eat it,you're like, damn, that tastes
just as good as the duck breastdoes.

So I've eaten a lot of organ meats over my
lifespan, especially having goneto culinary school in France.
Yeah. We were we're, you know,I've eaten a lot of different
things that I may not have eatenbefore. But you know what? I
have not had a duck heart, so Iwill always try something once.
But I could imagine that itmight be I mean, it's gonna be

(42:30):
lean. I mean, I think any ifit's a it's a muscle, I would
think that any heart of anythingwould be lean. I just may not
need to think about what it is.Like, when I've eaten tongue
before, I just it's too closeand personal. I can't put it on
Still my think about Yeah.

Well, the good thing about duck heart is it's
It's it's a bite. Really small.Yeah.

It's like the size of a quarter.

Yes. Maybe even you know, so it's about half the
size of a wine cork, you know,something about like that.

Heart poppers.

There you go.

Heart poppers. Got a new thing we're
gonna start.

Heart poppers. A lot of recipes out there

that we're

just not aware of. So I will want to go with the
next one here. This is from ayoung lady from Texas, from down
around San Antonio, miss BrennaMalley. This was a really story
with regard to how we came to dothis particular episode. She's
17 years old.
She sent us an email asking ifshe could come on the DU podcast
to tell a story about somewetland conservation sort of

(43:23):
outreach education program thatshe's involved in, and I thought
that was just so cool to havesomeone of her age and as
thoughtful as she was reach outto us wanting to be part of
this, because we're only what,three years into this right now,
and so she came on, a fantasticguest, along with the volunteer
associated with the program thatshe's involved there, the the

(43:45):
Texas Brigades. And so we'regonna play miss Brenna Malley at
this time.

Brenna Malley (43:50):
It was when one of my mom came duck hunting with
me for the first time, And she Itold her we were gonna be in the
blind for a while. She broughtall that. She brought these
little ham and cheesesandwiches, and she brought like
this whole picnic meal. And likethe entire blind ate this
wonderful meal, and, like, noweveryone wants me to bring my

(44:11):
mom hunting because she'llshe'll pack food for an army.
And that was definitely one ofthe most memorable because those
sandwiches, are my favorite.
She's made them since I was alittle girl. So it was really
nice to sit in the blind andtalk with everyone while eating
my favorite food, and I lovethat my mom was there with me to
enjoy it.

Yeah. Obviously, makes that one special is that
it's a bond between a daughterand a mother, and her being able
to share with her mom somethingthat she really enjoys, so that
was really cool.

Yeah. Mean, I'm a mom. I love that story. I
mean, you you cherish thoseopportunities to do, I mean, I
have a joke, my children are incollege now, and I have one
that's a freshman, I have notgotten to go cook for her yet
because she doesn't have anapartment, but my one that's
senior in college is I'll go andI'll cook for all of her friends
and do the mean, when I go upthere, there's usually a big

(45:00):
meal involved that they get ahome cooked meal, and it's just
such a special time for me as aparent to get to be able to have
that with my kids. And so I'm soglad to hear her appreciating,
which I know her mom was, youknow, so excited to be able to
be there and to be able to dothat and experience something
with her.

Yeah. That's that's a great story. My next
one here is a guest that webring on pretty regularly, Tony
Vandermore. And Tony, if you'refamiliar with Tony, he's a co
owner of Habitat Flats up inNorthern Missouri, and I know
for a fact that they serve a lotof meals up there in that camp.
So go ahead and play Tony's.

Tony Vandermore (45:38):
Holy. That's gonna be tough for me. I mean,
duck camp's kinda like it's likeshore lunch. You know? When
you're fishing up in Canada,you're cooking walleye on the
shore on a beautiful day afterfishing and cooking it outside.
I mean, you can't get that in arestaurant. Restaurant. Kinda
same to be said for duck cannedfood. I mean, whatever you cook,
whether it's something easy thatyou're cooking in a blind. I

(46:01):
mean, a a bratwurst tastingincredible in a duck blind. But
the best thing I've ever had Idon't if it's the best, but we
have a pizza night. Our buddycooks incredible pizza, and we
do it on Sunday nights. We'rewatching football. Takes four or
five hours at the lodge. He'sjust cooking pizzas. There's
wings. Everybody's tellingstories from the day. It's fun.

(46:22):
It's a lot of fun. That that'sthe best for me.

Yeah. I think that that kinda goes back to the
full experience and thecamaraderie and everything. And
and that sounds awesome, and andhe's right. I mean, it's, you
know, that's definitely aconsistent message. Even some of
the more basic meals can be justfantastic at duck

Jeff Jones (46:39):
camp.

Yeah. It depends on who you're with

Daniel and Neil Hayes (46:40):
Mhmm.

And what the experience is, and then that
just makes the experience.

Yeah.

So and by the way, leftover roasted duck, you
shred it up and put it on top ofa pizza with, like, caramelized
onions.

Oh, yeah.

I've never had it on a pizza. It's really good

on a pizza.

I love it on a sandwich or something of that
nature a day

after. Throw it on a throw it on a pizza.
It's really good. Do that.

The next one we'll play here is from Doctor. Mark
Glutney. One of the things thatI'll say, this is an interesting
one, I do remember this one.This is interesting. A lot of
the others, or at least severalof the others that we've had
sort of illustrate that thesetypes of most memorable meals
are as much about the peopleyou're with, the experience, the
ambiance at the particularsituation or some tradition, and

(47:21):
that's really cool in itself,but this one was memorable for
me listening to it because it'ssomething I'd never heard of
before.
Doctor Mark Glutney with DUCanada.

Mark Glutney (47:32):
So I I remember having a meal down in the Long
Point on the Long Point areaaround Ontario, one of the camps
there, and it was a duplicationof of meals that they used that
they've served historically,where where they roast a duck,
and then they they breast theytake the breast meat off, and

(47:55):
then they put the carcass of theduck and the legs, and they put
it in a press. And they pressthis thing, and then all the
juices of the duck come out, andand they make this amazing gravy
with that juice and and and pourit over over the over the duck,
and and you you have it with thewith potatoes and and some
vegetables. But, you know, thethe history of the way it was

(48:18):
prepared and then and then justthe the the ability to extract
all of that good essence of theduck was was quite an
experience.

So that was I remember the question I asked
afterwards was kinda inquiringabout the press itself, and he
said it was resembles like asausage stuffer. So that kind of
gave me another reason topurchase a sausage stuffer.
Haven't done that yet, but it'son the list. Your reaction,
Jennifer?

Yeah. I mean, I think that there's something
about, you know, using every bitof the animal and and also, you
know, the flavor. Like, when Icook anything, like, if you can
cook something bone in, whetherit is, duck or it is chicken or
it is, even beef, you know, Ifyou cook it bone in, there is
going to be flavor becausethere's that all that awesome

(49:09):
flavor comes from the marrow andthe bones, and the fact that and
then the fat and things likethat, they're just in the dark
meat that maybe kind of like isnot what you would serve on a
plate, but there's flavor in it.And if you can get all that
goodness, especially to make agravy Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's a really smartidea. Now I'm wondering if I
need one of those things Well,

know that would fit well with a Thanksgiving
dinner. Right?

Oh, it would. Because then I would get my
gravy. My gravy would be evenbetter. Instead of me roasting
my gravy on the side, if I wasable to press everything out of
those chicken leg I mean, theturkey legs and the turkey necks
and get all the goodness out ofthere, that'd even be more
flavor.

There you go.

That's awesome. Add to my Christmas
wish list.

There you go.

My next one is Bill Buckley, a professional
photographer and freelancer forus, for Ducks Unlimited magazine
and and countless others. Let'sgo ahead and play Bill's.

Bill Buckley (50:02):
This before the days when I discovered
vacuceiling and what adifference that made. And so if
you put a duck in a freezer andeven if you suck the air out,
within a month, the blood wouldturn brown, and it would have
this horrible freezer taste. Itjust tastes terrible. So I
always wondered why down south Iwould go down there and have
this wonderful these wonderfulduck meals. I come back so

(50:25):
excited.
I thawed some birds, tried, itjust tastes terrible. And like I
say, it had to do with what thefreezer does to a bird. But
anyway, I remember being backwith my buddies Chuck Myers and
Bill Benton when they wereinvolved with Green Tree Hunting
Club. And we came down after, itwas in the late afternoon, it
was starting to be cocktailhour, and got down there and

(50:48):
they had these wonderful littlehors d'oeuvres with toothpicks
and these chunked up pieces ofmeat and has eaten quite a few
of those and this other guycomes in and he sits down and
tries a few, says, God, thatduck is incredible. I looked at
him like he was an idiot.
I said, That's not duck. That'sbeef. And it turned out it was

(51:10):
duck. And and it kind of got meto realize that duck can be
phenomenal if you treat itproperly. So and I'm one of I
I'm a huge proponent of learningnew ways to cook ducks and
geese, and I love loveintroducing people to how good
they can be.
So yeah. So that was kind ofkind of probably one of the best

(51:33):
things I ever ate in duck camponly, well, because it was
really good, but also because itintroduced me to the whole idea
about the detriments of freezingducks by a standard method other
than vacucealing.

Yeah. And I think that's a good good example
for everyone is preparation.But, you know, is is that
something that you that you're abig proponent of as far as
freezing and

and preparing beforehand? Everything is better
is if it's right right whenyou've, you know, right when
you've either shot it or whenyou've gone fishing, right when
it's right out of the water. Imean, everything is going to be
better then, but yes, thefreezer can be your, like, worst
enemy in the entire world. Butthank goodness there are things
like vacuum sealers that you cando that. If you don't own one,

(52:18):
that is one thing I do own and Iuse the heck out of it.
For vegetables, for game, forfish, you name it. I'm probably
pulling that thing out at leastonce a week to take care of
food, now with like sous videcooking, I bet cooking, you
know, vacuum sealing somethingand cooking a duck breast in

(52:40):
sous vide and then put it,throwing it on the grill or
throwing it in a cast ironskillet afterwards would be a
great way to cook it. And I'vealways, I mean, I know with fish
and things, like I've not donethis as much with duck, but if
you put water in there, itprotects it. Like, if you put if
you put the meat and you put itin water and you freeze it in a

(53:01):
block of ice, at least withfish, it's kind of Yeah.
Protected.

So I'm

assuming it would do that with duck breast
too.

I think it would. I think I think the the
issue with duck itself is isjust that longevity, how long
it's in the freezer too.

Yeah. People put I mean, I'm guilty. I know
that there are things in mychest freezer in my garage that
have been there for years. Andevery once in a while, I feel
like I have to dig them out andthrow them away and be like,
there's no way that this isgood. So people do remember
that, you know, I mean, yeah, Imean, on average, three to six
months depending on what theproduct is.

(53:35):
I mean, sometimes you can get ayear out of it, but really, you
need to try to everything thatyou put in your freezer this
season, you need to have it tryto make the goal of having it
gone by next season.

And that and that really leads us back to the
duck jerky.

Yes.

That's right.

I mean, if if you have

Mark Glutney (53:51):
to get

rid of it

There you go.

There you go.

I mean, that's There you go.

What about his comment on the the duck tasted
so good, he he thought itcouldn't be duck. You know, he
was not used to duck tastingthat good. Have you how often
have you encountered that? Yousaid a lot of people bring their
ducks to you for you to cook forthem. How often have you
encountered that where yousurprise them based on the way
you cook it, and they think itthey always thought of duck as

(54:17):
being dry and

Without a duck. I mean, for years, I
wouldn't eat duck, and it wildduck, because I thought it was
dry and it was really gameytasting until, you know, I
learned some tricks aroundcooking it, and, you know, so I
think we all probably havepeople that we know when they
invite us over to a meal that'sserving game, we know we're
going eat off of their table,and then their friends were

(54:39):
like, okay, we know we need toeat something beforehand, we're
not gonna eat that much of it.But, yeah, it's just kind of,
you know, paying attention andexperimenting and learning, what
techniques work for you and whatdoesn't. So and and definitely
listen to your and ask questionsfor your friends that you think
do a good job cooking, becauseI've learned so much from my
friends who probably learned itfrom another friend, about ways

(55:03):
to make things taste good.

For this next one, it's gonna be a little bit of a
take us down a little differentpath here. And, Jennifer, I know
you did listen to this onebeforehand, and it left an
impression on you. It's AustinBooth, the director of Arkansas
Game and Fish Commission. It's alittle unconventional, a little
unusual. You might not shouldn'tsay unusual, but it's different

(55:25):
and and and very and I canrelate to it.
Austin Booth.

Austin Booth (55:29):
It's an unoriginal name called a duck bond
sandwich, but it's white bread,gotta be white bread. Cheap ham,
ideally, the cheapest ham thatyou can possibly find, a fried
egg, American cheese, and secretingredient is two things.
Miracle Whip, no mayonnaise, hasto be Miracle Whip, and

(55:51):
Cavender's. It's a seasoningfrom Harrison, Arkansas, and it
makes a sandwich. Maybe whatreally makes it is just that
white river bottom air.

Jennifer cringed. Your reaction.

Well, I'll tell you what I cringed about,
but the first thing is I didn'trealize Cavender's was from
Arkansas. I learned somethingnew. Yeah. Because I've used it
before a lot, but, yeah, I'm nota Miracle Whip fan. I mean, I
love mayonnaise.
I love Those are tangy. Somemayonnaise. But Miracle Whip and
me just do not go together. But,yeah. I mean, there's something
about simple foods like thatthat just are part of the

(56:27):
traditions that you need.
Now, do want to tell him that ifhe's having his sandwich on the
weekend of Thanksgiving, heneeds one of those Thanksgiving
leftover sandwiches with, youknow, cold stuffing and and, you
know, cranberries and all thegoodness that goes on that. He
should switch to that at leastfor that weekend.

That one weekend.

That one weekend. But otherwise, my
family is originally from NewOrleans, so I grew up a lot
with, like, one of my favoritesandwiches to this day is on a
French baguette. It's thinlysliced ham and butter and a
little bit of salt. I use koshersalt now, but my grandmother
probably used, you know,iodized, you know, whatever the

(57:10):
salt was back in the seventies.But it's such a simple sandwich,
but to me, it is so good, it'sthe best sandwich in the world.
Mhmm.

And Austin did emphasize it has to be the white
bread, and I clarified the whitebread that, like, sticks to the
roof of your mouth. Right?

Yeah. He said, I'm sure it's the Wonder
Bread or the Blue Bunny Bread orwhatever brand that

is. The one you got at the gas station.

Yes. Which, you know, he could go to a pond
afterwards and maybe feed someducks with his leftovers, know,
that's what we used to knowsbetter than I used to buy that
not to eat, but to feed ducks atthe at the park with the kids.

And and just you bringing up the the the
Thanksgiving sandwiches Yeah.Which we kinda talked about a
little bit offline. I just wantto emphasize that that is
probably my favorite part ofThanksgiving is the Thanksgiving
sandwich after the full meal.And my my sister and I go back
and forth about, like, what'sthe best part of the sandwich?

(58:03):
You know?
And is it the green beancasserole that's stuffed in or,
you know, maybe the broccolicasserole or, you know, you have
to have, you know, mayo on it oryou have to have cranberries on
it, you know, either way. But itsounds like you guys are big
into the Thanksgiving sandwichesas well.

Yes. Well, you gotta do the leftovers. I
always take the, as I mentioned,I always make gumbo, but I take
any of the leftover white meat,and I save that for the
sandwiches. Because, to behonest with you, the sandwiches
are less about the meat than allthe other stuff that you're
throwing in there. And youdefinitely have to have the
cranberry.

Yeah. That

I mean, the cranberry

That has always been my fun.

And sometimes I make take my leftover
cranberry sauce, and I make acranberry Dijon mustard. So you
take the leftover cranberrysauce, and you put it mix it up
with a little bit of Dijonmustard to your taste of your
liking, and it's the best breadthat you can use for another
week or two.

That's awesome. Alright. So moving on, we've got
a retired DU chief scientist,doctor Tom Mormon. I

Tom Mormon (59:00):
don't personally ever cook in a duck blind. In
fact, I rarely I rarely eat whenI'm hunting or fishing just
because I'm pretty focused onthe job at hand. But when I
first started duck hunting yearsago back in Ohio, we would take
a kerosene heater out to theblind on this big lake, Grand

(59:22):
Lake St. Marys, if anybody'sfrom Ohio, and we'd light that
heater October, November when itused to get cold, and we would
take hamburgers wrapped in foil,and you could chuck them on
there, and while you're sittingthere hunting, you'd be cooking
yourself a cheeseburger. Itsmelled really great and I have
pretty good memories of thatbeing really cold and that's

(59:43):
really the only cooking thatI've actually ever done in a
duck pond.
Most of the time I do layouthunts, and as you well know,
when you're laying on your backcovered up and trying to hide,
it's pretty hard to do anything,so not really a good place for
fires, anything like that, soyeah. And, of course, you know,
the the hunting hunting lodgesand everywhere I've ever been,

(01:00:05):
man, all kinds of great mealsusually revolving around ducks.

Mike Brasher (01:00:09):
That one kinda surprised me a little bit
because I always I mean, Tom, asmuch as he hunts, I just assumed
that he had some memory thatthat he carries with him kinda
to this day, but that one wasactually one that he that came
from his childhood there. So,again, pretty neat in that it
kinda takes him back to amemory.

Jennifer Chandler (01:00:26):
And I love that idea though. That's a
really smart idea, to wrap themin foil and just throw them on
the heater. I mean, that's kindof brilliant. Yeah. I bet they
were really tasty.

No. I'm sure they were. Everything tastes better
in a duck blind.

Chris Jennings (01:00:39):
That's right. Absolutely.

For the next one here, I do remember this one.
Doctor Mike Schumer, he sharedthis is sort of an experiential
story almost, and so this onewas yeah, this one is memorable.
Doctor. Mike Schumer.

Yeah, that's a great question. My mind goes
back to a time when I was ingraduate school doing my
doctoral degree in Ontario, andmy mentor Dave Ankney, who is,
I'd go with the word infamous,ecologist but foods researcher,

(01:01:16):
was at one of these gatheringsat Shannon Batsinski's house.
Shannon is a waterfall biologistwith the Canadian Wireless
Service now, but he and I wereboth working together in grad
school at that time. But he hada gathering in his cottage of,
you know, fellow duckheads andand and Dave was there as as
well. And they did roach.

(01:01:37):
They did roach ducks, wholefully flocked roach ducks at
like the peak of migration. Sothese are heavy, you know, birds
coming off of Lake Erie flyingout the cornfields. And this is
this is yellow fat, right, on onbig mallards and black ducks.
And so you put them on a Webergrill. There's a very specific
recipe that you do.
And it's a pretty carnivoremoment when they come off that

(01:01:59):
grill perfectly crispy. But atthe end of the night, all these
duck carcasses were, you know,on the counter on the table. And
there's really specific meat onthe back that people miss that's
really, really good. And so Iwent in there to use the
restroom and it was occupied. SoI looked at that tray of

(01:02:21):
carcasses and it started tearinginto them.
And lo and behold, who comes outof that bathroom but Dave
Ankney. And he looks at me andhe goes, Darn it, Schumer. I
knew I liked you for a reason.And he literally snuggled up to
me and just buried his face intothat carcass. That pile of
carcass was a duck.
And We sat there for about ahalf hour picking away, pulling

(01:02:41):
the leftover meat off thosecarcasses. That's just one of
those, I think, of realmemorable moments from somebody
who is very much my senior buthad that connection through,
know, not just the research ofducks or the hunting of ducks,
but to me something that's a bigpart of my passion about the

(01:03:05):
whole culture of waterfowling isthe food the food part of it and
the the small nuances that weall find, you know, similar
among in in our diet andinterest in in cooking and
eating.

And I can tell you that one of the reasons why that
experience was so memorable toMike, and it would have been to
any of us in the waterfowlresearch world to have shared
that table of duck carcasseswith doctor Dave Ankney is
because he passed away a fewyears ago. He's no longer with
us, and he is he was a giant inthe field, his memory lives on
in major ways, but that waspretty cool, and Mike was one of

(01:03:40):
his students, Dave was one ofMike's mentors, but that
experience there Again, thefood, that experience can help
you develop bonds with familymembers, friends, and that's
certainly one of those cases.

Oh, yeah. I mean, without a doubt. I have to
admit, so I'm kind of, like,picky about what I like the
breast meat. I'll shred theother stuff and put it in
things. I probably would not bethe person that would be up
digging in the car, becausehowever my husband and my two
girls would.
They like gnaw at bones andthings like that. But I like I
love crawfish, and to me, I'vehad that experience of, you

(01:04:19):
know, especially living up herein Memphis, you know, a lot of
people like crawfish, but noteveryone does, but the diehard
ones of us that, like, eat allof it, eat a ton of it, suck the
heads, like, do do the wholething, you find yourself, like,
with these really cool peoplebonding over that you guys are
the ones that are eating itright, and we're in the know,
and they're missing out. So allthose other people at that

(01:04:40):
dinner party were obviouslymissing out.

Yeah. And and crawfish is certainly I'm glad
you brought that up. That'scertainly something that, we do
a lot of crawfish. My wife'sfrom Louisiana as well, which
gives me a little bit oflegitimacy in the South. So, but
we do she eats a lot ofcrawfish.
I do too. But it's more it's notlike, hey, let's have crawfish
for dinner. It's like, hey,let's stand around with 20
people and eat crawfish anddrink a couple beers, and that's

(01:05:04):
it's all part of the camaraderieof the whole situation. My next
one here is Tom Docken withSportDOG, and he's a veteran dog
trainer out of Minneapolis.

Tom Docken (01:05:13):
I gotta say it's went over to a friend's house
here in South Dakota, and he hada guest at his house, and we
were doing mallard duck breasts.They were they were breasted,
but they had the the skin was onone side. And the way it was
everybody takes duck, to behonest with you, and cooks duck

(01:05:37):
way too way too done. And and hehe took he had he had duck fat
in a pan, and he seared theseduck breasts, skin down, and
then and then flipped them over.And most people would look at
that and go, you did not cookthat long enough for me to eat.
Put the thermometer in at onethirty five. And there were

(01:05:59):
several guests over there thatthey weren't hunters. And they,
you know, they're going, oh,boy. It's duck. And they were
like chomping at the bit, youknow, to have more.
So I I I think that that was it.Then my wife made duck the other
night with an apricot sauce. Igotta give I gotta give her

(01:06:19):
kudos on that because it was itwas really good too. So, yeah, I
guess there's a lot of thosestories, but those are the two
that come to mind right now.

I think those were good ones. And and,
Jennifer, I kinda wanted you tospeak to the use of the duck fat
and then also

The cooking overcooking. Oh, without a
doubt. I mean, you need to lookat when you're cooking a breast
like that, look at it as likeyou're cooking a steak. Mhmm. So
what the joke is, if you want awell done steak, eat chicken.
So if you the beauty of a duckbreast is it's similar, and, you

(01:06:55):
know, it's it's it's a darkermeat, and it has just all that
flavor. And if you cook it likea steak, like a medium rare
steak, it is going to havebetter texture, it's going to
have more flavor, otherwise it'sgoing to get more, you know, to
me it gets more gamey and itgets chewier if you cook a
breast like that all the way.You either want to, like,
braise. If you're going to cooksomething all the way, like for

(01:07:17):
me, if you're going to cook aduck all the way, you're
braising it, and you're almostdoing it like you do like a
roast that you kind of like aregoing to either like shred it or
serve it over something. But ifyou have a beautiful duck
breast, you definitely want to,you know, either sear it in a
skillet or throw it on thegrill, but cook it like a steak,
and, you know, and it's gonna beso much more flavor.

(01:07:38):
And, yeah, duck fat? Yeah. Oh.Yeah. Because, you know,
especially I'm assuming his duckfat came from not a duck that he
a wild duck, but came fromprobably a farm raised duck
because there's more there'smore fat.

I don't know.

I mean, people do render duck fat. It's just
you gotta have a lot of ducks.

You would have a lot of ducks to have to
render that. I know when you buyit commercially, most of the
time it's gonna be a farm raisedduck. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean,
there's nothing better than todo that, and then also to cook,
like, potatoes on the side ofthe duck fat. I mean, talk about
a meal, that would be adelicious meal.

I found it interesting that he mentioned
the way of of cleaning the bird,you know, getting the meat off
of the off of the carcass there,where he plucked it, left the
skin on, and retained that fat,you know, beneath the the skin.
And I think he probably I'veseen I don't know if this is it
feels like this is becoming morecommon for people to pluck the

(01:08:35):
bird, breast it out, but leavethe skin on, and I've even seen
it becoming increasingly commonthat people will will cut off
the the leg leg meat with that.So you can have two halves is
essentially what you have, andyou have that you've retained
the skin and that subcutaneousfat with that. And if you

(01:08:56):
especially if it's a bird thathas accumulated a lot of fat,
it's a fantastic way of ofpreparing that if you're gonna
grill it. And and there's somuch fat on some of those birds
you have to watch out if you'regrilling it on open flame
because and but I kinda I kindalove that to happen anyway
because they will Crisp it up ina big way.
But, yeah, there's a there's athere's a lot of good fat there

(01:09:18):
underneath the skin for some ofthese birds sometime a year.
Mike was even referencing that.But the meat itself is very,
very lean, and so you kinda haveto have that source of fat of of
some type.

Well, I wanted to go back to, you know,
the the gentleman that, had thetalked about the duck press.
Mhmm. And talk about you know,when we talked about that all
the flavor comes from, you know,as I said, the fat, the skin,
the bones, all of that addsflavor when you cook it. It kind
of goes you know, you may youmay not be eating the bones. You
may not eat the skin, but allflavor that comes from that goes
into the meat.

(01:09:49):
So you wanna when you'recooking, you wanna use that as
much as possible. I mean, itgoes down to a boneless,
skinless chicken breast isreally not flavorful. Yeah. But
if you have one with it's a bonein with the skin on and you
roast that, it's like a wholedifferent animal. Yeah.
That you're cooking. For sure.

Okay. So as as we get close to wrapping this
show up, Jennifer, I I kindawanted to give you, you know,
another opportunity to just, youknow, just overall, you know,
hearing about all thesedifferent, you know, hunting
camp meals or maybe it's just amemory or maybe it's the
specific species, kinda givegive you an opportunity to kinda
just reflect on all that. Like,how what did you think, you

(01:10:33):
know, about all of these kindatogether as a package?

Well, I number one, I feel like I've
been missing out on something inmy whole life that I have not
gone duck hunting yet. I'm gonnahave to change that. We will.
Because I just love hearing allof these stories, and I've heard
all these stories from peoplebeforehand. I mean, mean, over
the years about and especiallywith my husband coming home from
hunts and things like that, he'sgone with his friends, and and

(01:10:58):
it sounds like such a greatexperience, and it's more than
just going out and doingsomething, a sport by yourself,
it it really has to do with yourfriends and the people that
you're out there doing it with,or your family members passing
along.
I have many friends that, youknow, their dad took them and
then they used to then they tooktheir own sons and now they may

(01:11:21):
be on another generation oftaking people out. And I just
think there is something sospecial about the experience of
that that just is is reallycool. And the fact that I do,
and it's again, is I've lived toeat, you know, is a big part of
my life, and I love that sportslike this wrap themselves around

(01:11:45):
food, you know, and meals, andit's all tied in together. So I
think it's just a really special

Yeah. And, you know, there's one last thing I I
do wanted to talk about, andMike, this is completely for
you. What's the best thingyou've ever eaten at duck camp?
Because I because we've got themfrom all these other people, we
haven't gotten one from you.Well, let me

first just say my impression about the collection
of stories that we heard, itmatches probably what I would
have expected, being a duckhunter and being able to
visualize pretty much every oneof those experiences that people
shared with us. I'm aware of, orI've been involved in some

(01:12:26):
version of almost every one ofthose, not everyone, but almost
everyone, and one of the thingsI found so meaningful, and
Jennifer, this kind of gets towhat you saying you feel like
you've been missing out, themeals don't have to be
extravagant, and oftentimes themeals are not extravagant, and
it's not a very sophisticatedpreparation, even the squeezing

(01:12:50):
out of all the juices and thefat. I mean, that didn't take a
whole lot of time, right? Youjust put it in some kind of
press and out comes the juices,or the one that was prepared all
day in the big pressure cooker.It wasn't a sophisticated set of
ingredients.
And so that's what is someaningful to me is that it's as
much about the experience, thememories, the people you're

(01:13:12):
with, as it is actually whatyou're eating. And so my memory,
whenever someone asks me thatquestion, I kind of go back to
something that would be similarto one of these, it was not a
very sophisticated meal, wasactually just grilled redhead
duck. We were on an island offthe Texas Coast, one of the

(01:13:34):
little barrier islands there, wewere there for a meeting, and it
was a group of colleagues, andwe had gathered up some mesquite
wood from some of the nearbyshrubs and trees, and we had
this big grill on like a trailerand I mean, way bigger than what

(01:13:57):
we needed. Right? Because theyused that place for some of
their staff meetings and soforth, and so they needed big
grilling capacity, but it's wayway too big for us.
But nevertheless, we we loadedit up with with mesquite, we
didn't use charcoal, justmesquite wood that we gathered
right there and and freshredhead ducks, and we grilled
them that night. We had maybe acouple of glasses of bourbon, I

(01:14:19):
think there might have even beensome cigars, but it was just
under the under the Texas sky atnight, away from all of the
worries of the world. Now wewere we were there as as sort of
a group that were were doingsome having some discussions
there around some of the workthat we do, but we also took the
opportunity to do that kind offellowship and get to know one

(01:14:40):
another, and it's I don't knowwho said it, it's one of these
food shows, it's like, if youwant to get to know someone, eat
with them, and that couldn't beany more true than the type of
things that we experiencedthere. I mean, it was the the
redhead was cooked medium rare.I don't even know if we had any
side items.
It was similar to what MikeSchumer was talking about, one

(01:15:02):
of these Carnivores. Carnivoremoments, and interestingly
enough, I believe doctor DaveAnkney was there with us, but it
was just a a most memorableevent for a whole host of
reasons, and the duck wasfantastic too, I will say, with
that mesquite flavor to it.

Yeah. That's awesome.

Well, I wanted to ask you what yours was. You we
can't can't Yeah. Get away fromthis without asking

for close it out. Was I was gonna send it
over to Jennifer. You know, I Iwe we eat a lot at our camp, and
we eat, all the time. Like Isaid, I focus on that. And, you
know, one of the big things forfor us now just for the last few
years, and it kind of became arunning joke for me, is because
I would bring and this is beforeI was even a part of this club,

(01:15:43):
they would invite me over, and Iwould bring a charcuterie board
in the morning.
And so they're like, what in thehell are you doing? I have, you
know, pickles and cheese andraisins and, you know, any kind
of just adding whatever I could,and now it's become this
extravagant every weekend whenwe're all there, and that's
pretty rare, but, you know, I Iplan. You know, I've got you

(01:16:04):
know, I order in, like, youknow, canned octopus and, like,
just weird things, and, youknow, and we're doing all this,
and I actually have, and I'llthrow a shout out to a place
called the Smoking Goose inDowntown Indianapolis. My sister
lives, like, two blocks awayfrom it, and they do a duck
prosciutto. Oh.
And it is fabulous. And, yeah,of course, it's not wild bird,

(01:16:26):
but but that kind of wraps upfor me, you know, everything
that that I like about theexperience and the hunting, and
and so it's not necessarily ameal itself or it's just all of,
like, just people getting firedup about food and hunting, and
you're at camp, and, you know,my family makes homemade salami
and has for fifty years. And soI'll bring those over and and

(01:16:50):
slice those up, and and peoplefrom all over the country are
like, man, this is, you know,great salami. You know? Where'd
you buy this?
I'm like, I didn't. My familymade it. So it's it's all part
of the, you know, kind of theattachment to the food and the
resource and the experience, andand so I think that that really
wraps it up for me.

I love that story.

Yeah. I have one. Well, have the worst thing
I've ever eaten at duck camp.How about they may be able save

that for a different We do have more more
clips from some of our otherguests. Now, that wouldn't be
fair to them though to shareyour worst thing you've ever
eaten along with That's right.

We'll do that

another Well, before we get

Austin Booth (01:17:24):
out of

here sometime in

the future. Want Jennifer to go ahead and just
provide us with, you know, theoverall Thanksgiving experience.
You know, this is ourThanksgiving show. What do you
rec like if someone calls you orcontacts you through your column
and says, hey. What should I dofor Thanksgiving?
You know?

Oh, I get those calls all

the time. I bet you do.

I have a joke on social media. I do these
things every year before theholidays. It's like the twelve
day I'm doing the twelve days ofChristmas, I'm doing the twelve
days of Thanksgiving, andliterally I'm posting about a
particular topic, whether it'sgreen bean casserole or sweet
potatoes or or you name it. Youknow, I I think everyone needs
to realize though that theholiday is about any holiday and

(01:18:04):
any gathering that you have inyour home is about people. And
always make that the priority,whether you're in a home or
whether you're in a duck camp orwherever you are, it is all
about people are there to seeyou and you've invited them
because you want them in yourhome and you want to see them.
So try to make sure that whenyou're doing your planning, that
you're not spending all yourtime in the kitchen. Do things

(01:18:27):
in advance, you know, atThanksgiving time, it is okay to
order one or two dishes fromsomebody else. If it will ease
up your load, that's okay. Ihave to tell you, last year, I
got my macaroni and cheese froma restaurant because I was just
like, okay, couldn't figure outthe oven space, and, but I put
my own topping on top of it, sonobody at the table

Well, you made it your own.

I put it in my own casserole dish. Mean, of
course, anybody who was at mytable, which wasn't anybody last
year because of COVID, it was mymedia family, but, well, but
they didn't know any different.So just make it easy on
yourself. Don't be afraid to doshortcuts. Don't be afraid to
ask people to bring dishes.
Remember what the reason forhaving people over are. It's
about the people.

That is great. Hey, before we get out of here,
I don't remember if you saidthis at the beginning, but how
if people now that people havelistened to you share and share
your thoughts and some of yourexperiences, if people wanted to
follow you to find out more ofthis great information that you
have to share, how would

they do that? Most of my stuff is on social
medias these days, so my Twitterhandle and my Instagram handle
and Facebook, it's all Cook withJennifer, so Cook W Jennifer is
the easy way to find me. I dohave a website,
cookwithjennifer.com, and I alsoam always posting stories on I
have a little small radio showon wknofm.org every week, and

(01:19:45):
it's on a food topic. And ifyou're interested in Memphis
restaurant news,commercialappeal.com/food. It's
pretty much all my storiesthere.

Awesome. That's great. Jennifer, this has been
fantastic. I'm glad that you gotcame in, were able to come into
the studio, be a part of this.We greatly appreciate it, and
and just, you know, thank youvery much for joining us.

Well, thank you for having me. Now I'm gonna
have to ask for an invitationto, go hunting with somebody.

We we can take care

of that.

I think I think we can take care of that.

Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you.

I'd like to thank our guest, Jennifer
Chandler, for joining us todayon this Thanksgiving episode and
and really bringing to light thethe true meaning of some of
these holidays is about thepeople, but also the food's
always fantastic. I'd like tothank our producer, Chris Isaac,
for putting the show togetherand getting it out to you, and
I'd to thank you, the listener,for joining us on DU podcast and
supporting wetlandsconservation. Happy
Thanksgiving.

VO (01:20:38):
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You wanna count us down? Do this one, two. How are

we gonna do it? Just go, Mike.

One, two. Happy Thanksgiving.

That was perfect. I was waiting on the three.

Do you want you want all three of us to do it?
Yeah.

Oh, okay. Okay. We'll do one, two, three,
and then we'll say it.

Yeah. One

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RELOADED EP323 | Thanksgiving Special: Best Thing I Ever Ate at Duck Camp

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}RELOADED EP323 | Thanksgiving Special: Best Thing I Ever Ate at Duck Camp