Look Pheasant, Please

 Manchester, VT has a spiffy new store featuring beautiful, pricey clothes that would look right at home at Downton Abbey.  The shop also sells guns, the kind that sportsmen carry, as well as jewelry, a smattering of Englishy home goods and boots that would be useful for walking the moors. (Walking anywhere here has been moot lately as, like many parts of the northeast, we’ve had a really long patch of rainy weather—the ground is saturated and both the hay and corn crops are in serious trouble.)

As a marketing gig, last weekend, the shop held an event complete with hunting dog demos (a pointer demonstrated his repertoire),

Pointer doing nothing but looking good

a bagpiper piped and a very nice spread was laid out on tables in front of the store. (Mercifully, this was one of the rare days that had a long dry spell.) The shop has a “shooting grounds” fairly near Manchester where it’s possible to shoot clay pigeons or pheasant so one of the dishes offered was grilled pheasant on skewers along with cheeses and crackers, wine, sparkling water and various sweets.

Pheasants originally came from Asia and are now found all over. The idea of shooting these beautiful birds repulses me but, in fairness, I did sample the grilled offering.

One of the guests was this dog, a very Great Dane named Achilles. He’s as gentle as he is large and fit in with the surroundings perfectly—aristocratic to the max.  

Rather than deal with cooking pheasant, I’ll stick with an easy July 4^th dessert. My own rendition will probably be less fancy but strawberries, biscuits or shortcake and whipped cream tend to be pretty well accepted. (FYI, if you’re planning on strawberries, get going. The rain is also taking a toll on this crop.)

July 4^th Cake