I am a terribly lucky girl. (Well, as lucky as a Presbyterian can be.) I’m sure in time I will blog about many of the reasons my husband is amazing and just the right man for me, but today I’m going to focus on one in particular: he likes to cook. And he’s really good at it.

Take for example, this. This is what my amazing husband made for our lunch today.

Now, when I say he made this for our lunch, I mean he 1) made the pesto, 2) brined and pan-fried the chicken, 3) made the bread from scratch, 4) toasted the bread and put the sandwiches together.

Y’all. I took down and packed away all the Christmas decorations while he MADE BREAD FROM SCRATCH. I mean, I don’t even know. He’s unbelievable.

We enjoy cooking together, so, since we were spending Christmas Day alone with the dog, we agreed to cook something rather exotic. This turned out to be duck.

Neither of us had ever cooked a duck before, which was part of the adventure. And for all they say about how greasy duck is, ours wasn’t at all. It was delicious – simple and juicy and marvelous. We made it in one of my Christmas gifts – a cast iron skillet, which I’ll be reviewing sometime soon, as it very well should have been on our registry.

My husband thought this would go well with green bean casserole and twice baked potatoes. So there were no complaints from me. We tag-teamed on the duck, and he made the rest of dinner on his own. (You see how outclassed I am on the whole cooking thing?)

Since I am in love with Trader Joe‘s wine, it’s no surprise that we drank this lovely, slightly fizzy white with our dinner.

It was so good, y’all, and so fun to try something new. And since we had all day, there was no rush to our cooking. It was marvelous.

I am so spoiled.

(P.S. Duck – at least of the Pekin variety, which is what we eat in the US – has a very thick layer of fat under its skin. And y’all, you stack that fat on your fork with a big chunk of meat underneath, and you put it in your mouth, and it’s like the heavens are opening. It’s SO GOOD.)

(P.P.S. I got more than a cup of duck fat, which apparently keeps a long time in the fridge, and more than 10 cups of duck stock out of the carcass.)