My Wild Duck, Duck Dinner

  It started as a simple tweet last night. I'm going out to a wild duck dinner. A lot of people thought that implied something. What was I up to exactly?  What sort of wild? What sort of duck? And no, Henrik Ibsen didn't figure into this at all.  Last night we were invited out to eat some duck that our friend Ron Mezzetta had hunted just the other day.
  Ron and his wife Ruthie are good friends and part of our coffee group at the infamous Basque Cafe. Ron also makes some damn fine peppers and olives and pasta sauces and all sorts of goodies as Mezzetta Foods. He also knows how to cook a very tasty duck in a cast iron skillet.

Ducks before...

Ducks after

   Earlier in the day we'd gone up to a house that he built where we had a view of the entire Bay Area.. that's SF, and the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival waaaaaaaay down below there in those clouds. The tiny figure by the pool is me.

 We explored the place which even had a wine cave built into the side of the hill....

It goes around a corner and opens out onto a patio with another huge Bay view.

 I got a picture of these boulders by the side of the stone tub in the master bedroom....

 Which turned out to be pillows! Very Bedrock. I so want some of these!

But back down the hill at Rons' house was where all the duck action was.
 Ron carved.

Ruthie made wild rice pilaf. Our friends Cam and Kim brought stuffed mushrooms and baked brie with walnuts and cranberries. Jeff made an insane pear and squash soup that was Thanksgiving in a bowl.

 There was peach pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert.
    I had started Saturday off pretty jealous after reading all about the foodie doings down in SF. We had script work to do which was going to keep me home in Sonoma for the weekend while I read all about the doings of  Salty Seattle and Lawyer Loves Lunch and Bay Area Glutton on Twitter. Then out of the blue I got a duck dinner invitation! Who knew??? Hey, it's not a swag bag filled with homemade salt and all sorts of other craveables, but Ron gave me a plastic bag with some apples off his tree before we went home.