duck eat duck.

I'm not sanctioning duck-on-duck violence, but....

Well, let's come back to that. One of my favorite non-familial aspects of visiting Phoenix is the Super Queen (that's not its real name, it's really this). I don't know anything about grills, but you know how sometimes something just does everything you want it to? That's the Super Queen.

Tonight I'm cooking a whole duck for the first time. Poppy and I are the only two real duck fans in the house, so he and I had a brief meeting of the minds about how to cook this thing, and ended up deciding to try the beer-can chicken method, but you know, for duck.

This is a Steven Raichlen recipe, filtered through laziness and my languid approach to vacation cooking. Well, I'll get to the recipe in a bit, but first this picture. It bothers me, OK, but it's what's really going on in the backyard and I can't deny it. I gots to keep it rill. IYKWIS. Allow me to present the Beer-Can Duck.

And then, two hours later:

Yes. Winona was supergood. It could not be easier: I stuck a tallboy beer can full of 50% beer and 50% orange San Pellegrino up a salted-and-peppered duck's ass and put it on a 350F grill for two hours. There may have been some orange zest, cinnamon, and thyme in the cavity as well.

Upon receiving our duck halves, Dad and I each entered our own individual caveman states for the first 5 minutes of eating this and looked up from our plates at the same time realizing we hadn't spoken or had a single thought other than "om nom nom nom nom" for the past 5 minutes.

Also worth repeating were my jerk shrimp cakes with carrot-cucumber-apple-onion slaw (basically equal amounts of cuke, apple, and onion, and a little more carrot. And as much mayo and cider vinegar as it takes):