Duck Delight & Wine Tasting With Love

My husband has been beside himself with joy and enthusiasm these past few weeks in the planning and preparation of a dinner and wine tasting event he was privileged to host for my sisters and their husbands, and ME ! He has piles and piles of cook books, cooking publications, and hours of perusing food and wine blogs and Food Network T.V invested in this dinner.In other words, he has been enjoying himself immensely. Of course he has the every day part of his life which requires he go to work, repair our well pump himself- which went out last month, and just last week and on into this week,he had to repair our septic pump which required digging up our septic system,working on it, spending lots of money and back-breaking labor on it , and then coming indoors and cleaning up so he could resume his passion, preparing for special dinners with people we love! ( Above is the center-piece of Friday night's event)

How does the table look so far? I'm just getting started. The china and carefully hand-washed and dried wine glasses are on the table, there is so much more to do...."Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him. A new friend is as new as the wind: when it is old, thou shall drink it with pleasure." Ecclesiates 9:10 And dear sisters, you are long time ( not old yet!) friends as well as sisters dear to my heart~

My husband prepared one of our home raised ducks for this dinner ahead of time. He ( the duck) is carefully killed and plucked ( I helped with that) and cleaned , ready to be the main course. Because one of our home-raised ducks is the center- piece of the dinner, we used our ducks as the theme. The menu and table setting reflects this. I took pictures of our duck flock, enlarged them and added the menu and made a wine-tasting mat the same way. "Wine was created from the beginning to make men joyful, and not to make men drunk. When drunk with moderation is the joy of the soul and heart." Ecclesiastes 31:35-36 The menu was also the place card and contained a Bible verse central to our philosophy regarding God's abundant blessings.

Here is the menu on a picture of our ducks on our pond. "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry.." Ecclesiastes 10:19

Close-up of the menu. " Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart." Ecclesiastes 9:10

This is the setting with the 4 wine-glasses . Each wine glass sits on a circle delineating the type of wine to be tasted. My husband also provided a wine-tasting sheet to help the tasters decide the qualities of the wine. "One not only drinks the wine, one smells it, observes it, tastes it, sips it, and one talks about it."King Edward the VII

Close-up of this wine-tasting mat for wine glass placement(above).You might notice this is the picture I use for the header of this blog. "Wine can be considered with good reason as the most healthful and most hygienic of all beverages" & "The flavor of wine is like delicate poetry." Louis Pasteur

My sisters , well, 2 of them with their husbands. (Tricia, wish you could be here!) My sister Joni and her husband Tom on the left, my sister Karen and her husband Kaare on the right. We had so much fun, and the meal was wonderful!!!!! I will post the recipes and more in the next post. Be assured, my husband did good, very, very deliciously and just ducky good!"With years a richer life begins, the spirit mellows:ripe age gives tones to violins, wine and good fellows." John Townsend Trowbridge My husband, the chef! He really could do this for a living...but maybe it is all the more wonderful he does this for love. "May our love be like good wine, grow stronger as it grows older." Old English Toast "He makes grass grow for the cattle ( and ducks) and plants for man to cultivate-bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. The trees of the Lord are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that He planted." Psalm 104