men at work.

Today on the treadmill, after dragging myself swiftly uphill for 45 minutes, I looked down through my tears and sweat at the Accuradar or whatever thingie that demands your age and weight and then tries to make you feel a little better throughout your ordeal by telling you that you're actually burning calories, and it blinkingly announced: 740 calories burned.

Hmm, I thought to myself, gracefully skipping off the treadmill and crashing woozily into the stationary bike adjacent, that's pretty much (pausing to run some calculations) 740 extra calories to play with. I mean, this put me well into negative calories for the day so far. I high-fived myself, and then juuuust before I lost consciouness, I decided I would roast a couple of duck legs, something I haven't ever done before I don't think.

What, you say. And I say yes, that's right: I only really ever buy confit because I'm lazy and it's barely more expensive, or very very occasionally I buy a €9.99 whole frozen duck from the toko, because I don't know how to prepare duck any other way than roasting the whole thing.

Tonight's hands-off adventure involves a very simple Nigel Slater recipe, whom I've never cooked before either as far as I know. Thrilling Adventures.

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roast duck and citrus salad. 

I really thought this was a total disappointment at first. I mean I was doing the as-healthy-as-possible version which didn't involve using any juices from the roasting pan in the salad dressing for example, but it was just unexpectedly...tart yet flat. So I made some brief raspberry noise with my mouth and turned away from it, letting it sit there not being eaten while I did something else, but every time I kept going back to give it one more chance to redeem itself, it got better.

What was happening: most crucially, the watercress was wilting in the citrus juices. But also the two citruses were blending into each other, the duck was soaking up the citrus, the saltiness of the duck was meandering its way through everything else, etc.

So just by letting this sit for 10 or 15 minutes it went from bleh to me eventually pouring the last remnants of the bowl into my mouth (I'm home alone). I'm still not totally sure I'd make it again as written, but it had something going on. I think it probably needed a little sweetness and a little chile. Anyway, it was my first time ever using watercress, I liked it a lot after it wilted.

2 duck legs
salt
pepper
more five-spice than you think you should use

1 orange
1 grapefruit
1 bunch watercress, washed, large stems trimmed

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