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the breasts are where the fat is; cook your breasts and find a smaller cooking vehicle/pan. it's about being covered and a single layer so it can cook evenly, and being submerged, but I've done it just using all the trim from a whole duck before with two thighs. There really isn't a need to buy more duck fat. That is kind of the point of duck confit, using all the parts to make a nice conserva.

Remember, slow and medium-low heat on those breasts so that it cooks the flesh evenly without burning the skin. And finish it for about a minute on the flesh side.

this hurts so much...and my face is so red right now...i don't even no what to say....what??? Best....WHAT,,,,ARRRR...

Ok, Adam, fair enough you like it now. But now I don't, when I used to recommend it to friends.

I've visited Stand a fair number of times since it opened and I have to say, I've seen it decline in its consistency and its overall quality.

Let me say that I know the chef who consulted on this job and I think she did a fairly good job designing the menu for what it is, and I hope that knowing her doesn't bias my opinion, but...

Since she's taken her hands out of the place and left it up to the owners and staff, as I'm sure her contract required, the food has gone downhill.

Let talk about the "perils of poor bun choice"

I like the brioche bun and i liked it when it was smaller. When we went the first few times back when it opened, the burgers were ALWAYS done to the perfect doneness, and while yes, the burger slipped a bit in hand, when I ate the damn thing, I could still eat a shake and drink a beer. I liked the size of the bun. I don't mind getting my hands dirty when eating a burger. I think people who whine about slippery buns on burgers are fucking weak and need to shut up and eat.

I loved the house burger and I loved the (albeit stupidly named) Bacon & Egg Cheeseburger (so named because of a hard-boiled egg mayo, woop dee do, stable mayo...yea, cool). Now...now its too damn big. I didn't want a shake and I was hard pressed to finish my beer. (from a restaurateur perspective dumb idea).

Onion rings, lets talk about the Onion Rings. Great? What is your standard of a "great" onion ring? Mine is this:

A Great Onion ring should:
1. Be Evenly Golden and have a good crunch on the outside.
2. Be well seasoned.
3. Be a nice sweet onion, like Vidalia, but sometimes that is too sweet, dependent on your batter... but quality ingredients are key.
4. Be even in doneness for the entire batch.
5. Be served immediately,and hot.

Stand's Onion rings were:
1. Too Salty (...and I sir, am a big fan of the heavy hand of salt)
2. Were uneven in doneness.
3. Had little crunch, in the fried part, but quiet a bit in the onion itself, i.e. not cooked.
4. Luke warm.
5. I couldn't really speak to the freshness of the ingredienst as I was underwhelmed in so many other ways that I stopped eating them.

A Great Burger:
1. Should be cooked to the requested doneness (especially when you have a snarky little wood toothpick that tells you its doneness).
2. Be well seasoned.
3. Not be too big.
4. Be a balanced ratio of bun to meat.
5. Not be overwhelmed or underwhelmed by other ingredients.

The Stand Burger:
1. Was not cooked properly.
2. Mine was seasoned well, my wife's was not (uneven cooking).
3. Was too big now.
4. The bun is also too big now.
5. The bacon tasted like it was cooked in an oven at 8 or 9am and sat on someone's station and was plopped onto the hot burger, cold. No re-warming, just a plopping of a cold greasy ring of bacon. Not ok.

That said, we went to Burger Joint at Le Meridien last week, again, and had a good burger, satisfying and the right size. No change, same quality, different staff, good burger, cooked right, and meeting all aforementioned standards. The fries were also well seasoned as expected, and golden with and even crunch.

No BS, but a good burger. I choose to STAND, somewhere else...

how much is the lobster roll at fairway?

Ramp compound butter, yet another great way of preserving ramps, thanks.

In NYC, right now, ramps are in the greenmarkets for the short early spring season when they pop up. They are a wild onion/leek, and the taste profile is somewhere in between leek, onion and garlic.

It is wonder in your mouth.

Of course people get tired of hearing about ramps this time of year, they are so abundant, like any time of abundance. Who isn't hearing about the election right now too?

But this butter is a great way of bringing them back when you miss them (like when someone you hate is elected, makes you yearn for election time). Thanks a million Raphael.

Did anybody else notice that Tubby's has an almost identical flavor "yellow butter brickle road" to this new Ben & Jerry's "goodbye yellow brickle road" flavor?

http://www.roadfooddigest.com/image.axd?picture=WindowsLiveWriter/IceCreamStop9TubbysWayneME_CB8C/New%20England%20Ice%20Cream%20067_3296414f-c992-412b-ac2b-c277fbf16114.jpg

I think I solved my problem. I put the legs in a smaller pan and filled in any empty spots with garlic cloves to displace the fat till it covered the pieces.

North Street Dairy Cone, Waterville, Maine! We did a tour of New England a year ago and sought out great ice cream. This was definitely on the A list.

@daniell719 and butterface - Kimball's? Really? I think Brigham's is better than Kimball's. (Also, it's definitely not in central Mass! Bedford's still considered metro-Boston....)

@JayFallon - When Steve's closed, they were handing out all their old signs and equipment - I still have the wooden "Junior Mints" sign from their flavors board! Tear.

Yes, we did visit Kimball Farms...and could not believe their HUGE portions! All 50 places just simply couldn't fit in the short article above! For the full list, check out www.roadfooddigest.com and click on The Best New England Ice Cream!