Duck Breast with Port Wine Reduction Sauce

This was so easy and so delicious.  The recipe for the sauce is already on this site but I added a TBS. of vinegar to the pan and the balance of sweet and vinegary was perfect.  I couldn’t get enough of the sauce and I was literally dragging the slices of duck breast through it!  I admit that if I got this dish at a restaurant it would have made me happy but eating it at home was even better (in part because at some point I was popping the pieces of duck meat in my mouth with my fingers because it was irresistible).  The sweet potato mash underneath was a good accompaniment — sweet and savory and comforting.  Cooking duck breasts is easy.  Just remember to start them off in a cold pan and watch that skin turn the most gorgeous shade of gold-brown.  I cooked these breasts a little past medium rare and that was a bit more than I intended…but it was DELICIOUS.  I loved this Saturday night dinner while I was watching The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), a great Halloween movie that won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and garnered a nomination for Angela Lansbury for Best Support Actress.  While the film is in black and white, the portrait itself is in Technicolor… very effective and fun to watch.  What a great weekend date night… dinner and a show… some cool weather moving in… dogs happy… a nice bottle of champagne… life is good.  And by the way that’s a picture of what my kitchen usually looks like while I’m cooking, a bit cluttered but very organized.  The tv tuned into Svengoolie.  One of my friends keeps telling me I need to renovate my kitchen because it is so small but she is completely missing the point.  I have NEVER had a huge kitchen except for when I cooked in my former significant other’s house and I wouldn’t trade my independence and tiny kitchen for that big fancy modern kitchen in a million years.  I can do anything in this kitchen and I love my space because it is my own and it has everything I need.  You don’t have to have a lot of space or expensive appliances to turn out a fantastic meal — what you need are good ingredients, good technique and a passion for cooking.  That’s all.  That’s everything.  No one else but you can make you happy.