The Lamb

If I may say so myself (honestly, I don't care if I may: I will say), it was as good as it looks.

I adapted from recipes from BBC, Amuses Bouche and allconsuming. I used some of everything: the cut of lamb (shoulder) and the proportions of veggies suggested by the french recipe, the

reduction for the sauce from BBC, and the marinade from the brilliant Aussie writer at

allconsuming.

But OMG. After going through the trouble of tracking down a local shoulder of lamb (in July, it's difficult, apparently), I can still say it was worth it. However, upon seeing the six pounds of meat I came home with, I started to doubt myself.

I will only say this once: I am not a butcher. I did my best to respect this beautiful (and overwhleming!) piece of meat, without ruining the nutritional value of our meal! Overall, I think I did an okay job.

Also, I do not drink $4 wine on a regular basis--not that I have anything against it based on price, per se, since at school I buy one liter bottles of Woodbridge on a regular basis. As my dad says, "You get what you pay for." That said, the Poppy wine made a rich and subtle broth to pour over the lamb during the meal (and was reduced to add to leftover stew later).

My favorite part (noooooot) was converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. I looked up my Kelvin/Celsius/Fahrenheit formula from ecology and tried it a couple times before realizing I had the internet at my fingertips. Thanks, Google. (Just in case you were wondering, 120 C = 248 F.)

Along side it I served a pizza adapted from smitten kitchen and garlicky brussel sprouts. The pizza seemed the perfect solution to our bread and veggies requirement.

For the 7-Hour Lamb

• One lamb shoulder or leg (personal preference, I used shoulder)
• One bottle dry white wine
• Thyme
• One or two bay leaves
• Some yellow onions
• A lot of fingerling potatoes
• Some carrots
• Extra stock, any kind

I poured the wine over the lamb Friday night, to marinate, coating the meat with peper each time I turned it (which happened whenever I remembered). The next morning, I poured it onto my chopped veggies while I browned the lamb on all sides in a roast pan over high heat, then tossed everything into the roast pan, made sure the meat was covered halfway with the extra stock, and tossed the whole thing (meat, veggies, wine, stock, herbs) into a pre-heated 250 degree oven.

I basted when I remembered too, which to be honest was every half hour, because I am anxious and OCD--I wanted to pull it out and eat it about four hours in.

To serve, pull apart with two forks. It actually fell away from the bone when I moved it out of the roast pan onto my serving dish.